Marketing your own practice is one of the most challenging parts of business.  Most professionals go into practice because they want to help people, not because they want to own their own small business. Unfortunately, a lot of what you do as the professional is to do the daily work of running a small business.  Marketing is just one aspect. 

So, to make it easier, we have broken it down into 5 fundamental internal marketing practices which are proven practice building techniques. Internal marketing is the least expensive and most profitable type of marketing that exists. Internal means you are marketing to your own base of patients/clients. If you do each of the steps listed below you will find success in marketing your practice is not that hard after all.

1. Understand that you are a sales person

The first response we usually get is… I AM NOT A SALES PERSON! I AM A PROFESSIONAL.  Well, yes you are a professional, but we all are sales people. When I want a new car, I am a sales person, persuading my husband that this is the right move for us.  When I get my kids ready for school I spend time selling my kids on the idea of a healthy lunch.  We sell every day in a million ways.  

In practice you sell your patients on procedures or services that they need.  You sell your staff on the benefits of working hard for you. You sell everyday.  The sooner you claim it, the sooner you’ll be able to use your sales techniques to improve your practice.

In Practice: A successful chiropractor couldn’t understand why he was seeing a lot of new patients, working twice as hard as the guy 2 miles away but wasn’t bringing in the same amount.  In fact he was working harder for less money.  He was a nice guy who had low prices and good volume.  The problem was, he was perceived as the bargain guy, not the expert in pain relief.

The Prescription: We spoke with the doctor and encouraged him to raise his fees. But before raising them, we sent him to a Dale Carnegie sales training class.  Then we asked him to raise his fees 10 percent to start and 25 percent within the year. 

He lost some patients, but his new sales confidence helped him to ask his continuing patients for referrals and he got them and more. Now he makes double what he made before and works not quite as hard.

2. The most important part of your sales process is sitting at your front desk.

The first person to whom a potential patient speaks. Usually this is the front office person, receptionist or, in smaller offices, the office manager.   This is the person who sets the tone of the experience. He/she is the person who answers the phone, gives them information about the practice, greets all new patients when they arrive, talks to them about the next appointment and, in many cases, asks for their money at the end of a visit.  They are usually grossly underpaid, undervalued and disrespected. 

Your receptionist is the most important person in your practice to new patients.  People who sound uneducated, or speak with an accent that is difficult to understand should not be the first person to whom the new patients speak. 

In Practice: A successful cosmetic dentist couldn’t understand why his new patient levels had dropped by 25% in the last three months.  We looked at all of the external factors: new competition, business moving away, downturn in the economy, and could find nothing to explain the problem.  It wasn’t until we called back that we immediately recognized the issue.  Three months earlier he had hired a girl who had just finished high school to answer the phones. Unfortunately, she didn’t speak well. She didn’t answer the phones in a friendly upbeat manner, she answered it as if she were working in a clinic. “Doctors office, can you hold” was the response most people got when calling.  Many times she was on the phone with personal calls or just chatting with patients.

This person was not well trained, and wasn’t mature enough to understand business etiquette. 

The Prescription: We successfully trained the new hire to answer the phones with a smile. Treat every single patient with dignity, respect, and courtesy.  She was given a bonus based on the number of people she booked and who kept their appointment.  We taught her the right way to answer the phone.  To get a call and sell the prospect on why they should come to see this doctor.  We taught her to track every call and to refer to each patient by their name. To offer the special discounts for new patients and to sell, sell, sell.  It worked, in two months the doctor was back to where he had been in new patient numbers and in four months she had actually increased the numbers by 14%.

3. Track, Track, Track.

After you have the perfect front office person, a mix between Katie Couric and Ed McMahon, you must track every call.  Many people that tracking on the intake form is enough, the problem is that you don’t track the people who didn’t make an appointment. So track every call from the beginning.

In Practice: A dentist bought an existing practice from another retiring dentist.  He was told that he should expect 5-7 new patients a month.  He hired the existing front office staff and started practice. 

The Prescription: He called us to increase his new patient levels.  We started a postcard campaign that produced a lot of calls, but very few new patients.  After a month his wife took over the front desk.  We worked with his wife to track every call that came in. He found that many more people called than he realized and that the former receptionist wasn’t converting them.  Business increased 25%.

4. Recall, Remind, Reactivate.

Many professionals don’t realize the power of their own patient base. They are working, working, working and one day look up to find that half of their patients have gone some where else.  The most important thing that you must do in your practice is to make sure that your patients remain your patients and refer to you.

In Practice: An ENT had been in practice for over 15 years and had tons of patients. He got most of his referrals from a large pediatric practice down the hill.  One day the practice that had been referring closed.  He knew in advance that they were disbanding, but did little to solidify his relationships with the docs who were staying in the area.  Within 3 months he felt the pinch. In six months he called us.

The Prescription: It was almost too late when he called. He had few referrals coming in and no new sources on the horizon.  With the little disposable money he had, we told him to farm the base that he had and start activating patient referrals.  We helped him create recall cards with stickers, a system to remind the patients 2 days ahead of the appointment, and we reactivated old patients with a series of letters and a newsletter.  The practice was saved, but the work is still on-going.

5. Referral Programs.

These are the keys to a happily referring and healthy patient base.  Referral programs are a huge help in keeping a practice alive when times are tough.  Referral programs usually require a couple of steps: Ask for the referral, not on a card in the waiting room, but when you see the patient; Give One Minute Messages, this is a one minute info speech about something new in the practice- don’t do it every time you see a patient, but every so often is appropriate; Make your business card a referral tool, a good looking card with info about you helps your patients become sales people; Help your patients become ambassadors, ask your patients to refer to you and give them practice materials to help them do it.

In Practice: A plastic surgeon recently met with 30 of his most beautiful cases.  He offered them a free microderm peel, or spa treatment of their choice for every new patient they brought to him.  Within a month he had 14 new patients from the group and now has the same program for all his patients.