Jan 05 2012

“DOCTOR BUSINESS”© (2 of 2)

How To Boost Healthcare

 

Practice Volume NOW!

 

Hi Doc! You’re back? [See yesterday’s post for Part I] Well, that’s great because THIS post will get you started with a practice volume boost agenda that you will never get from a medicine world insider

~~~~~~~

 

“Marketing” is a reflection of society. YOUR marketing is a reflection of you and what you are really all about. So it’s important to keep in mind that marketing is both external (websites, signage, traditional and social media, direct mail and email, promotions, PR events and news releases, and internal.

Internal is the most effective. I refer to it as “Quiet” marketing. It includes such things as the appearance of your personal self–neat, clean clothes and a scrubbed look, your office and waiting room, your equipment and staff, and the manner in which communications are conducted . . . on paper, online, in person, and on the phone.

This means active listening, clear simple speech, using examples and diagrams, soliciting questions and feedback, and applying this attentiveness to not just patients, patient families, staff, and associates — but to other doctors and nurses, lawyers, pharmacists, insurance providers, suppliers, detail reps, even cleaning and delivery people.

Quiet marketing also includes paying careful attention to the frequency and quality of communications with those in your networking resource and referral systems, and to your SELF. Why? Because Quiet marketing success at any level has most of all to do with how you conduct and represent yourself to others!

This translates to how you walk, talk, sit, stand, listen, touch, gesture, and treat everyone around you every day.

These actions add up to the statement you make about who you really are, and why you are trustworthy of the confidences and care of others.

Remember: someone is watching your every move, and noting your every word.

                                                          

Effective marketing also requires consistency in looks, words, color schemes, traditional and online media use, branding theme identification. [You don;t need an “I’m lovin’ it” slogan or any less-than-professional statement, but some appropriate identity that patients can relate to is essential]

Your marketing messages surface through observations of your interior and exterior office decor, your business and appointment reminder cards, stationery and uniforms, promotional literature, educational talk materials, ads, signs, merchandising items, online content and access to you, newsletters, and news releases.

All of what you do and the message you seek to project must be absolutely and strongly reinforced by your staff in everything they do and say with every office contact, every minute, every day. No exceptions.

Professionalism in the eyes of a patient means more than training and skills. It includes appearances as noted and–most critically– professional empathy and reassurance skills . . . because every patient and potential patient (regardless of pretenses) is literally filled with fear. Fear is very real to 99% of the population.

Perceptions are facts.

What we perceive is what we believe.

And Perceptions + Performance = Referrals.
 

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931-854-0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Nov 15 2011

BIZ ALPHABET SERIES…”V”

Welcome to the world’s first SMALL BIZ Alphabet Series of blog posts!

“V”…VOLUME

 

As in “Turn it up!” or “Turn it down!”?  A book? Number of patient visits? Amount of sales? Number of decibels your message uses? The major dial on the 4-wheeled boombox next to you at the traffic light? Depends. Are you an entrepreneur?       

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As an entrepreneur, you may periodically plunk all or nearly all into your brain’s search window for updates. Sure, the muscle beach teeny-bopper with his car audio base vibrating 3 blocks away can be annoying, especially when you’re on your cell with a major client, a lawyer or your mother (sometimes indistinguishable!).

And keeping the volume turned up isn’t limited to rap stars, hard rockers, QVC, and your grandfather. Did you ever see or hear a soft-spoken, low volume car dealership commercial?

(Okay, maybe –maybe– for something like the 1931 Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe, which was sold for $8,700,000 in 1987, where we can figure that anybody with a gazillion dollars to spend on a car probably won’t respond well to shouts, y’think?)  

But it’s important to remind your marketing and/or salesperson or team (and yourself, anytime you give a presentation) that in the same type of “actions speak louder than words” context, w~h~i~s~p~e~r~s can speak louder than SHOUTS!  They serve to seize the moment! Sales stage presentations are famous for this technique.

It’s all about getting prospects, customers, audiences to sit up on the edges of their seats and listen hard.

Applied to packaging, I once discovered that every brand product in a particular section of the supermarket has a red and gold package–every one. I succeeded in talking my smaller, lesser known client into whispering with black and white packaging, which in a sea of red and gold, visually popped off the shelf into big-time POP sales.

Volume, then, is also visual, and it includes appearance when you’re in sales (and who isn’t?). Dressing conservatively helps salespeople keep prospect’s attention on the goods or services. Flamboyant clothing, jewelry, hair and makeup styles distract from the message. Save the Hawaiian shirt for weekends on your yacht.

Now, since doctors are a different breed of entrepreneurial animal altogether, it’s no wonder that their primary business focus is on growing patient volume. After all, doctors have no inventory, no one else (besides perhaps other doctor partners) they can pass patients off to for diagnostics and treatment (except referrals).

So the goal is to keep pushing for increased “volume” (in case you’ve wondered about that sitting in a healthcare waiting room with 20 other people waiting to see one doctor for 12 minutes!). Doctors have gotten better at delegating but there is a magic breaking point where reimbursements don’t cover added staff services.

Oh, and sales volume? A good thing, generally, but not always a good thing. Depends on the nature of your business. Ask your accountant about this. Too much volume can overwhelm ability to deliver the goods, and distract from the focal point of your business or marketing strategy.

Yes, and Volumes have been written about how to reach out and grab a customer, a prospect, but the bottom line is that if your marketing messages fail, your business fails. Take a hard look at the words you’re using. Decide whether your ads grab, win, lurk or suck? Do they just win a lot of meaningless awards, instead of sales?

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

 Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Aug 14 2011

A Doctor Named Lucy

Dear Doctor . . .

                           

Everyone who deals with

 

you –personally or  

                        

professionally– already

                        

KNOWS you’re a doctor.

 

 

Dear Doctor, On behalf of all those people who visit and speak with you, and who deal with you on a personal and/or business level –but who think they need to choose to be intimidated by you– please do all of them (and your professional self, and of course your healthcare practice) a really big favor:

Acknowledge, and act, and speak the truth.

Be a real person.

Don’t cast your title to the wind. You’ve worked hard for it. You’ve earned it. It’s something to be proud of. But you know what? Healthcare is serious enough. Lighten up a little and watch what happens!

Step down from the pedestal that those who surround you all day put you on (“Yes, Doctor”; “No, Doctor”; “Whatever you say, Doctor”). As you communicate with businesspeople, remember that –not very unlike many of them—  you are a regular person with special knowledge and special skills.

Those attributes do not make you a special person. This is not a come-uppance rant. This is reality. I have had the privilege of working personally with nearly 2,000 doctors in the last 30 years as a practice development consultant and as a personal and professional counselor. Here are some things I learned:

Doctors are bred to have their heads in the clouds. That they are all people who excel academically is not in dispute. That doctors who wallow in their achievements is not only distasteful to others, it also serves to undermine healthcare practice success by pulling the rug out from under the mainstays of patient and referrer loyalty.

Only you, dear doctor, can make yourself a special person by the ways that you communicate with your patients and their families, your office and professional staff, detail reps, practice development people, consultants, staff trainers, equipment and e-system suppliers, hospital personnel and affiliate operatives, insurance providers, local media people, and the communities you serve . . . oh, and perhaps the hardest of all entities: other doctors.

When a doctor is called “doctor,” it is more out of habit and fear than out of respect. Doctors who gain the most respect are those who introduce themselves by their first names. Many people unconsciously process the ways they size up doctors who flaunt their titles as being insecure, self-indulgent, and insensitive.

Well, yes, doctor, you do make a point: it is true that you deal with human lives and with issues involving physical, mental, and emotional well-being and so need to separate yourself as a professional in the patient’s eyes.

But you also know as well as anyone that the less stressed a patient and family tend to be, the quicker the path to healing and recovery. Titles are pompous and unnecessary barricades to free-flowing communications. Anything that short-circuits communications flow can create stress and anxiety, and misunderstandings..

Excel instead at the ways you present yourself and your ideas and findings and suggestions and recommendations. Excel at “bedside manners.” Excel at how you present yourself to the outside world, to how you are (forgive the crassness) “packaged.”

Find people who are as professionally skilled at marketing and writing and persuading as you are at medicine.

Straight from the shoulder: Do NOT rely on the ideas or execution of ideas put forth by loving, well-intrentioned spouses or office managers or in-laws, or parents, children, med-school classmates, your neighbor’s 17-year-old computer whiz or some SEO “expert” who jumped into your Facebook page.

DOCTORS: Want some free tips? Seeking help fining respectful experts? Proven practice development steps? Call or email me and let’s chat. No fees for getting acquainted.

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  Hal@Businessworks.US 

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Jun 28 2011

You’re not God anymore!

Sorry, Docs and Esqs,

                    

 but you’re not God

                      

anymore!

 

                                   

Well, one good thing about the current Administration (and it may be the only good thing) is that it has snapped Americans back to reality — the reality that no matter how great you can talk, action speaks louder. And taking no action speaks loudest of all. Like a whirling dervish, this tax-and-spend do-nothing White House spins in place.

So that’s the good news: we’re all learning from our mistakes. Watch the blur!

_________________________________                                                  

Now on to doctors and lawyers: You guys are being shopped around for on the Internet, and you haven’t yet caught on to the reality that this single shift in patient and client technology is driving your practice into the ground because you’ve chosen to ignore and discount its impact on you. But you can’t. You need to take action now

Reality is that your services are no better a commodity than peanut butter, plumbers, snowplowing services, or used furniture once a prospective patient or client gets her or his pudgy little fingers into the Bing or Google search window.

The days when you needed not to worry about your staff customer service skills are long gone.

                                                 

Heart patients in Pennsylvania fly to Arizona or Minnesota for surgery. People with vision problems in Florida will travel to Baltimore. Just because a local physician or lawyer diagnoses a problem seldom means anymore that the patient or client will stay with that professional. Many, if not most, seek specialized care referrals online.

A good part of the reason for this, and one that’s continually dismissed, has a whole lot more to do with office staff treatment and “bedside manners” of the doctor or lawyer than most professionals would care to admit. Truth is it’s likely to be costing you 50% or more of your practice volume. And it’s close to 100% avoidable!

Incredibly, to most of America’s population raised on ER and Law & Order, there are studies floating around that show over 90% of all doctor and hospital visits (including those to the ER!) are for reassurance

— being told with a warm smile and backpat, “You’re going to be alright. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” seems to sum up what most people consciously or unconsciously seek.

And I strongly suspect the same dynamics of pursuing empathy come into play with lawyers.

                                                           

Lawyers thrive on delay. Doctors thrive on patient loyalty. Neither of these payoffs are very much in the cards (or the stars, tea leaves?) anymore because people want gratification as immediate as a txtmsg response, and loyalty is directly proportionate to truth (readily verifiable on the Internet), and personal attention with every contact.

So, solutions? Here are 3 FREE solutions: More frequent and more genuine use of smiles, and of “Please” and “Thank you.” Don’t assume your patients and clients are being treated the way you want them to be. I can tell you of over 100 medical and law offices where they are not. Find out. Use friends as “secret shoppers” to report experiences.

Reward positive attitudes. Small, inexpensive, frequent rewards actually work better than lump sum cash or raises (which, remember, are permanent). Consider outside professional coaching help.

 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

 Open minds open doors.

Thanks for visiting. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Jun 09 2011

It’s Patient Loyalty, Doc!

Businesses have customers.

 

Shrinks, lawyers and CPAs have clients,

                                   

But you, Doc,

                     

have patients!

                                           

—————–

If you have a doctor-friend in your life, you might want to share this post. Useful, straightforward “business” posts for healthcare professionals are not typically or readily available. You may also want to consider how these same dynamics apply to you in your business or non-medical practice.

———-

                                                                                        

So what, you say?  Here’s what: Given that healthcare has now become even less predictable (than the plights of business, shrinks, accountants, and lawyers) as we edge ever closer to that Obamacare precipice, you may already be starting to lose patients as you lose patience.

I mean, businesses, CPAs, and lawyers already see the staggering new costs handwritten on the walls. And shrinks? Eh, who ever knows about shrinks?  Anyway, it’s all about you, Doctor. You are being called on as never before to rise to the occasion and bite the business bullet. You must grow your practice in stagnant times

This means riding out the economic storms and going with the insurance provider flow even when all you want to do is practice medicine and be fairly paid for your expertise, training, experience, and compassion. Ah, but there stands Obamacare in your path! And you can’t get over, under, or around it. 

So, you’ve got to get through it!   

The only way to “get through” it –to survive and thrive in the next few months and years ahead– is to build and strengthen patient loyalty.

Patient loyalty is the single most critical component of practice growth, especially in hard times. It triggers increased  patient volume and stimulates referrals faster and more cohesively than any other factor.

———-

Here are the five key sets of values that determine success in acquiring and strengthening patient loyalty:

  1. Your professional skills, resource network, and “Google-ability”

  2. Your training, experience, and regional word-of-mouth reputation

  3. Your patient-centric care approach and reassuring “bedside manner”

  4. Your office staff’s abilities to communicate clearly and pleasantly, and to handle insurance reimbursement tangles quickly and simply

  5. Your effectiveness in managing patient support, diagnostics, and referrals

Notice that the first four value sets above are ones that you should control and/or that should rely almost entirely on you. The fifth one, however, depends on others. This distills down to the reality that you must first attack the first four and fully capture or re-capture them into your control before moving into value set five territory.

Why? So you can strengthen the area that’s not in your control by coming at it from a position of strength in the four areas you are able to harness.

Take a hard look at the ten qualifiers suggested in the first four numbered value sets above. Can you rate yourself a “9” or “10” in each? In which areas are you weakest? What do you need to do –specifically– to get to those ratings in each suggested category? Can you identify three steps you can take next week to lead yourself there?

When you can honestly give yourself those 9-10 ratings, move on to #5 above and ask yourself what specific actions you can take now to improve the ways you manage patient support, diagnostics and referrals. Are you, for example, using resources that keep you in case management control over each of your patients?

The farther away from Med School and Internship and Residency you are, the more vulnerable you may be to economic invasion, and the more important it becomes to self-assess on a regular basis. Quarterly works. It might be the most rewarding investment you can make in your practice . . . or the most costly one to avoid.

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Jan 17 2011

As The World Learns

Are you making money

                                     

or providing healthcare?

                                                            

The mission of doctors, nurses, hospitals, and all affiliated healthcare-related and therapeutic professions is to provide healthcare services. Emotional-based businesses and professions trying to sell rational doses of reassurance

The mission of all for-profit and (surprise) not-for-profit entities is to provide products, services, and ideas in exchange for money or other dollar-value products and services. Rationally-reassuring-based businesses and organizations trying to sell emotional triggers.  

And rarely if ever do “the twains” seem to meet.

Yet, each side of that two-edged coin has much to learn from the other.

They can protest ’til they’re blue in the face and spitting wooden nickles, but truth is there is barely a doctor, nurse, hospital or affiliated healthcare-related or therapeutic profession that knows the first thing about the realities of marketing.

                                                   

It’s as rare as finding an 1861 three-cent piece in your pocket change that businesses have as much customer care savvy as an ICU nurse or front line physical therapist.

Oh, you say, but that’s not a fair comparison because business is business is business, and who can be worried about a customer problem after she or he has left the store, office, showroom, or work site. After all, we’re not in business to hold hands and pat heads.

Ah, but business is in business to cater to customers before, during and after (and long after) purchase because it’s the only way to grow the future. Boast all you want about your databases and efforts to serve the customer after the sale is made, but reality is that if you’re not doing something dramatically positive with past customers –and especially long after the sale– you’re missing the message!

What can you learn now from your past customers?

How? What’s holding you back?

(You had better be “holding hands”!) 

                                                 

Hospitals have the whole lifelong loop covered. They are tenacious about providing fall-over services at every level, to present and past patients and families. They haven’t a clue about how to attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, and bring about action, but they sure do know how to ensure satisfaction (maybe not with the bills and insurance tangles, but definitely one-on-one!)

Businesses need to take a page from that and appreciate that today’s customer should NEVER have  a reason for not also being tomorrow’s customer.

                                                                   

As the world gets smaller by time and communication transmission, we face enormously bigger and better opportunities to learn from one another.

And -yes– even hospitals and healthcare professionals with no business skills have an instinctive sense of customer momentum. Almost all of us could stand a booster shot of customer momentum as we troop through the daily grand rounds of our work sites and work stations, our staffr and employee meetings, and our customer encounters at every level. Think it. Try it. Do it. STOP studying things so much! Surprise yourself! 

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302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Jan 03 2011

Top 10, Bottom 10, This 10, That 10…ENOUGH!

Yikes! So What? Who Cares? 

                                        

Give It Up! Get Back To Work!

VISIT THIS POST  AT iSalesman.com

                                                        

If I read one more article, website comment, blog post or magazine cover offering to enlighten me on The Ten Best (fill in the blank) of 2010 or The Ten Worst (fill in the blank) of 201o or The Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Have (fill in the blank) in 2010, I’m going to jump out of my skin (and that will not be a pleasant sight)!

STOP with This 10 and That 10! Enough already!

Review it?

Okay, if you’ve nothing else to do.

Dwell on it?

Not okay, unless you’re a stalk of celery waiting for a dip.

                                                                

Give it up! Get back to work! Unless there was some outstanding, earth-shattering  play, nobody in their right mind sits around watching more after-game replays of the game that they’ve just watched (including the 14,786 replays that they already watched during the game!)

New Year’s always does this. It makes people nuts!

Business and professional practice owners rush to look back at who and what did better and worse than they did in the past year, which is (ahem!) past?

Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard that the past is over and nothing can be done to change it . . . so, who cares who was best and worst and in-between?

What’s happening this minute? Ah!

                                                                                       

If we could pull together all the collective time we waste looking back at who did what to whom and why B happened when A was supposed to happen, and could apply that to productive forward movement, small business would be in the economy’s driver’s seat, where small business belongs, instead of our inept government “servants” (who do indeed serve themselves admirably).

Wallowing in the past has never –N~E~V~E~R– moved anyone forward. Now, I’m not talking about remembering stuff, nor even occasional reminiscing (which can serve to relax the stressed-out mind that’s overloaded with here-and-now focus).

No, I speak of the guy you went to high school with. You know him. He’s the one who’s still hanging out in the same local bar with his 30-year-old winning touchdown as conversation topic one. 

Okay, so we can put this disastrous 2010 year behind us, right?

Now that’s a good thing, but that doesn’t authorize us to jump ahead to the point of worrying about 2011.

And kill off those empty New Year’s Resolutions that waste even more time deciding on and pursuing.

It simply means it’s time to roll up your sleeves, get your glove and get back into the game . . . get back to work.

Forget those philosophical Tweets you read: It’s time to work harder, not smarter.

                                                                                   

You’re already smart enough to succeed or you wouldn’t be here reading this. Working harder doesn’t mean physical labor or adding hours or wearing 20 hats instead of the 18 you’ve had on.

It means working harder to keep your mind in the here-and-now present moment as much of the time as possible — because it’s the only way to make your business and your career succeed.

You thought this was just a modus operandi for surgeons? Wrong! You are, in what you do and the ways you do it, a surgeon in your own right.

You take a history, do an examination, test, interpret results, form a treatment plan, perform the necessary procedures, decide on a prognosis, start therapeutic action to accelerate recovery, re-examine, and set up a maintenance plan.

So the bottom line, Doctor Business Owner and Manager, is to stop wasting time analyzing 2010, and start attacking 2011. Now. One patient’s needs at a time! 

# # # 

www.TheWriterWorks.com

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

2 responses so far

Nov 13 2010

LOCATION EXAGGERATION!

Location Matters Most

                                

to Doctors, Lawyers,

                                         

Retailers and Realtors!

 

Doctors want to be near the hospital or part of a medical complex, or healthcare campus because it’s good for their egos and reputations, professional camaraderie, and convenience in playing the referral game.

Lawyers want to be near the courthouse and close enough to other lawyers to spy on their practices in walking-distance coffee shops and upscale bar-restaurant gathering spots.

Realtors spout out:

“Location. Location. Location.”

(Yes, in three’s in case you missed the 1st or 2nd part of the mantra)

                                                              

Why? It’s a nifty little subconscious control device for up-selling prospects on preferred (more expensive) commercial properties. Location emphasis also serves to set the stage for a realtor to paint a prettier picture, justify a bigger-than-planned-for client investment.

Actually, retailers (and certainly not all) are typically the only businesses that truly benefit by intensive location deliberations most of the time.

Online and home-based businesses, or manufacturing and distribution entities (that don’t require centralized supply route locales), most service industry ventures (that may need only to be within reasonable travel distance of prospects), can often function anywhere.

In fact, there’s a certain appealing ambiance and character associated with many off-the-beaten-track businesses. Maybe, since you’re an entrepreneurial thinker, you’re one of them?

I’m talking about out-of-the-mainstream locations in dinky little hamlets where you’d never even think of a security system, or trashy chain-link-fence-enclosed back alleys with double-bolted doors.

Maybe your business is holed up in the mountains of New Hampshire, a warehouse in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, the cornfields of Waterloo, Iowa, a tied-up rented barge in San Diego, a kitchen table in Dallas, or a dilapidated garage in the slums of Memphis.

But regardless of your location, there’s a self-satisfying feeling that the physical space where you do business is your place, and that you make it work.

                                                                

If these kinds of places even come anywhere near close to your reality (and you’re still somehow managing to survive our catastrophic economy with still rising gas prices and still rising unemployment and a brutally expensive and unwanted healthcare program blocking  business progress), imagine the added burden of some hot-shot commercial realtor’s idea of a prime location you cannot do without.

Who needs the high-rise penthouse office space in mid-town Manhattan or the end unit of that corporate park overlooking the Chesapeake, the New England oceanfront office condo, or those slope-terraced deals with windows facing the Golden Gate Bridge?

Really? Yes, it might be a nice change, but that barn of yours, across two cow pastures, next to the henhouse, works just fine, makes sense, and saves money. Besides, it leaves you still qualifying as a prospect for Extreme Makeover! Hey, y’never know!

Home is where the heart is,

but so too is the office or workspace

of every entrepreneur.

                                                                  

Until this economy turns around (which may yet be another two years), reconsider relocation. Stay where you are. Stick to what you know best and most enjoy doing. Don’t worry about appearances. 

Don’t let outsiders influence you to think you need a bigger, better, more fancy-pants location. It’s not where you work that matters. It’s the passion and purpose you put into what you do each day.   

                                             

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You,

and God Bless all of our U.S. Troops and Veterans.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

One response so far

Nov 02 2010

BE what you sell!

 STOP telling everyone

                            

how great you are,

                           

and just BE great.

                               

BE what you sell!

 

Forget about giving away too much. If you have a service to sell, stop talking about it, and start providing it!

The fastest road to a consulting assignment is the one where you simply start BEING a consultant.

Assume the role. Ask good questions and make diplomatic suggestions. Demonstrate your expertise. No need for overkill. Just give your prospect a taste of what you’re all about.

There are many dozens of produce markets in my State.

The one that gets the lion’s share of business is the one that greets you with fresh cut slices of the latest fruit shipment, or a cracker with some of that homemade jam they sell.

Or you get home and find a free onion or green pepper in the bag of string beans or potatoes you just bought.

                                                                       

Savvy retail price clubs and supermarket chains do the same “try it/taste it!” deal with packaged foods. Must be something to it, huh? When did you last turn down a free sample? When did you last offer one?

Did you think people don’t notice the freebies you give them? Do they rush to buy what you treat them to? Not always, but they’ll think better of you, and eventually, they’ll buy!

Sure, there are always freeloader types who hit and run whatever they can get away with, but the vast majority of us like to get a sample slice at the deli counter, a flavor sample scoopful at the ice cream store, free website redesign recommendations from the Internet consultant, free bookkeeping ideas from the accounting firm, and new revenue stream ideas from the marketing consultant.

When a prospective ad agency client asks for some creative ideas, and they get a well thought-out action plan supported by some targeted primary and secondary research as cornerstones to support the creative recommendations, the ad agency is going the extra mile to provide a sample of its range and thoroughness.

Oh, and yes, dear lawyers, it’s bad enough you charge clients for every fraction of a breath you take:  Bite the bullet when it comes to your “get-acquainted” prospective client interviews.

Charging people to size you up is not the way to start a relationship, and it matters a lot to most who might consider your services.

Doctors: When you’re seeking patients, grant them time to interview you without an office visit fee.

                                                                          

Showing prospective customers, clients, and patients a little bit of what you know is only part of making the sale. Showing them how you are as a person, how you relate to them and the needs they have, how you communicate with them is even more important.

Remember –especially with service and consulting businesses– to “chunk up” your recommendations.

Resist the temptation to come off like a know-it-all or to charge in with ten (or even more than one or two) pages of recommendations. Simply pace yourself and act yourself. Avoid pandering or patronizing.

If you do all this and don’t get the business you seek, it’s not business you want.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.
 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

4 responses so far

Oct 25 2010

DOCTOR BUSINESS

WHASSUP, DOC?

  

Dear Doctor –

When I wrote DOCTOR BUSINESS© (the book, a 5-star Amazon selection), it was six years before the 9/11 that changed the world. It was at a time when medical and surgical skills were measured by case experience and mortality numbers, not “patient volume.”

Having survived the struggle to be allowed to practice medicine gave you what many called a “license to steal.” 

In the mid-90s, and before that, where you did your internship and residency actually mattered. Public outcries for better bedside manners were surfacing more frequently. The extent of your family’s wholesomeness or dysfunctionality was a much-admired or maligned affair. Your vacations were flamboyant.

With whom you played golf on Fridays was a measure of your community prominence.

You stuck up for other doctors even when they were wrong (and even those you didn’t like). Because doctors then were doctors. And while everyone around you watched and listened to you, even when you least knew it, and whether they liked you or not, you were never disobeyed.

In short, you were God. 

                                                                            

But all that has changed. Now there’s computerized rigmarole, electronic record-keeping, patient emails and texting, Google and Bing. There’s supposed to be less, but it seems now there’s more paperwork.

Your liability insurance premiums could choke a horse. Society’s contentious mindset chews up your precious time (you have no inventory, right?) in legal tangles.

And the bumbling federal government hasn’t even a clue about how to run healthcare, or the need for nurturing free-market competition in order for healthcare to survive as a profession.

Your professional practice and what’s left of your personal life are so dictated by know-nothing politicians that there’s not much room to wiggle free, except onto a shrink’s couch or into an early grave.

                                                            

Let’s face reality.

                                                                     

Like professional sports, medicine has become big business. The difference is that professional athletes have agents to handle their business needs. You have you, and you never learned business.

Maybe you’re entrepreneurially-minded, but it’s highly unlikely that you ‘ve developed enough expertise in finance, marketing, human resources, management, and customer service in addition to medical skills to make the final cut as a businessperson. Yet you are a businessperson. You might hate it, but it’s who you have to be in order to survive as a doctor.

This means you need to rely on others who are probably not as reliable as you. (Medicine does, after all, teach reliability.)

Here’s the bottom line:

You can find qualified and proven lawyers and accountants and marketing (practice development) experts (and, no, these are not people who deliver subs and popcorn and ethnic luncheons to referring physician offices!), and you can find a good leadership manager type to be your office manager or practice administrator, but if your grasp of human resources and human relations and customer service isn’t working, none of the other business helper arrangements will work.

                                                                            

Concentrate your business learning on strengthening your communication skills.

You don’t need to run for office. You need to facilitate having others run your office for you.   

 

HELP SAVE THE ECONOMY . . . Support those

who endorse free market competition healthcare 

and job creation tax incentives for entrepreneurs! 

____________________________________ 

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.
 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 
Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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