The Top 5 Ways to Market Your Private Practice

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Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD podcast where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you, embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Una. Welcome back to the Entre MD PodC podcast. I am so excited, as always, to have you here today. And today we are going to be talking about one of my favorite things, the top five ways to market your private practice. Now, if you do not already run a practice, don't run away. These principles really apply to every business you own. But today, I am going to give my private practice listeners a special treat. Okay, so I have talked to tons of doctors over the years, and one of the things that I've noticed is that when you find practices that are going through hard times, on the verge of closing, or have actually closed their doors, the number one problem that gets them to that place is cash flow. It's usually not clinical practice, not because they're bad doctors. It's just that somehow the money wasn't working. One of the things that inspired me to start this Entre MD movement was a conversation that I had with a doctor a few years ago, and he said something that totally blew my mind. He said, you know, this is really hard. I like that I'm independent, but it's really hard for me to pull this off. And I'm literally one bad week away from not being able to make payroll one week away. And I remember walking away from that conversation thinking, there are really two options here. We either need to figure out how to make this work, or we need to go get a job. Because entrepreneurship is not the easiest thing in the world, but it's one of the most rewarding things in the world, both with quality of life and financial rewards. So today, I'm going to be showing you the top five ways that you can market your practice so that you do not have to make that same same statement. Now, you may be here thinking, but wait a minute. You know, this is not really a business. I am doing this to care for people. But the truth of the matter is that marketing is just a must, okay? Being a great clinician is great, but if people are going to find you and use your amazing services, you have to let them know that. That you exist. As I always say, one of the biggest problems that any business has is obscurity. People do not know that you exist. Okay? We want you to go from a best clinician, right. To having a practice that people have found and they love and they use and they refer other people to and a practice that gives you freedom, okay? Freedom. I don't want you thinking I'm one bad week away from not being able to make payroll. All right? So enough said. Let us get into those five tips. So the first one is social media. And I start from here because a lot of times we are a little resistant to it. We have confidentiality and privacy so ingrained in us that it's sometimes hard to put ourselves out there on social media to. Now, am I telling you to put your patient information on there or your entire life on there? No. But the truth of the matter is that is where your people are. If you think about it, sometimes you have to fight with your patients to get them off the phone so you could take great care of them, right? Guess where they are. Most likely, they're on Facebook, they're on Instagram, they're on Snapchat, they're on TikTok, and the whole nine yards. Now, for the purpose of this conversation, we're going to be talking about Facebook, but the truth of the matter is you need to be on social media. So I pulled up some data from the PricewaterhouseCoopers report that says that 41% of patients said that social media content impacted their choice of hospital or physician. 41%. Now, I know 41 doesn't round up to 50, but that's close enough to half Half of your patients, half of your potential patients are going to make the of whether to come to your practice or not based on what they see on social media. Now, if that's the case, then it's thoroughly not cool for you not to be there at all when they're looking for you. Okay, The Pew Research Center, I got some data from them, and this is 2018, 2019 data. Seven out of 10 adults in the US use Facebook, and 75% of those who use Facebook use it daily, like every single day. Okay? Instagram is about 4 out of 10. And Instagram is important, don't get me wrong. But the bottom line is you need to be on social media. You need to be on Facebook. People need to know about your practice. And this could be simple things. This could be as simple as posting a picture of you and your staff and say, can't wait to serve you guys today. It could be as simple as you walked in a room, your pediatrician came out, the mom was in tears because the kid had a diaper rash and it was okay, use over the counter cream and you can come out, pull out your phone, shoot a video of what the mom's question was. Of course, with no identifiers and what your answer was, right. You have video content every single day. It could be you did a birthday party in the office, put it up there. People want to see that stuff. Okay? Educational stuff. Put it in a way that they get the information. Of course, it has to be somewhat entertaining as well. Okay? Because Facebook is a party, it has to be somewhat entertaining as well. And do that when you get the training, you have the boldness and all of that stuff. Do Facebook lives. Why not? I had a legacy parent show that I did in my practice when I was seeing patients five days a week. And we talk all things parenting. And I cannot tell you the number of people who found us. And we're like, how did you find us? Oh, yeah, we saw the legacy parent show and we just knew this was a practice for us. Do you see what I'm saying? You need to be on social media. So if you're not using it, use it. If you're using it, I want you to up level the way that you're using it. But understand that all your patients are there. Not all, but 70% of them. The second thing is patient referrals. Now, this is simple. It makes sense, right? We everybody knows word of mouth is amazing. We all know this. But the truth of the matter is, it's so odd. We feel so Weird. Telling people, oh, send us patients. You know? You know, it just feels so unnatural and salesy and sleazy and all of this. Okay, so as the data people that we are, I pulled up a report that shows that 83% of satisfied patients are willing to refer. 83. 83. That's a lot of people. They're willing, but at the same time, only 11% of practices are asking for referrals. Do you see the disconnect? So notice it says willing to refer. It doesn't say they will refer it. In fact, some of your patients are not referring and they think they're doing you a favor. Do you know why they came into the office? The waiting room was busy. They're like, oh, my God, my doc is so busy. Someone tells them, I need a doctor. They don't think to mention your name because they're like, my doctor is so busy, she's not accepting new patients. And I could have said this. That doesn't even make any sense. But then in my practice, what I found was people would constantly ask, oh, are you accepting new patients? Oh, my friend came over here and was able to get an appointment. I didn't know you were accepting new patients. I'm like, oh, my goodness. We are accepting new patients. So they actually think they're doing you a favor. Be nice to their busy doctor when they don't refer patients to you. So you need to fix that, okay? You need to ask them, and you may go, like, that's so weird. So how about this? How about I give you a trick? I know that you're a great clinician and patients tell you at least once a day or twice a day or three times a day and a lot of times more. You're amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for getting us in today. Thank you for always treating me like a human being and not a number. Thank you for listening to my concerns. You're the first doctor that did this. I've had this issue for three years and nobody's been able to fix it. But in three months, look at what we've done. You are amazing. And every time they say you're amazing, your response is, I am so glad we could help you. Now, for your aunties and uncles and friends who are looking for this kind of great service, will you send them to me? Do you see that? Make that your new response to you're amazing. Okay? Because 83% of those people who say, you're amazing, they are willing to refer. They are literally saying, say the next thing. Ask Me to refer. Okay, so enough said. Patient referrals. The third thing is center of influence referrals. And this is what I mean by that. If you are a pediatrician, right, OB GYNs could be a center of influence for you, sending patients to you. Right. If you are a weight loss surgeon, you know, surgical specialties who need people to lose weight first, internal medicine, all the primary cares. Those are the people who would send patients to you. Neurologists, your family doctors, your internal medicine doctors, your pediatricians. Those are the people who send patients to you. So your patient referrals, a lot of time is one to one, you know, so Jane, you know, told Eric about you, and Eric came to you. But your center of influence. Now, these are the people who can say, you know what, let's just get that practice busy. And they send all their referrals to you. This is like liquid gold. And you might be thinking, oh, yeah, we do that. I have a PR person. She goes to drop off flyers and donuts every week. That's not going to cut it. You need to have a relationship with either the doctor or the practice manager or whoever it is that controls where the referrals go. This need because people refer people they like and trust. So chances are they're not going to do that if they don't really know you. Okay, so I'll give you a few examples. I had a dentist, and he happened to be the dentist for my medical assistant's kids. And she always used to rave about him, like, oh, he's amazing, and all that stuff. But it was a little further away from my office, and he opened a new location close to my office. Now, he didn't meet me, but I know these principles, and I like to help people, and I love seeing entrepreneurs thrive. So I was like, you know what? He opened a new. A new location here. I'm sure he's going to need some time to get it filled and all of that stuff. And he's amazing. So. So all the referrals we have for the patients who live in this area who are looking for a dentist, just send them to him. And I kid you not, he got so much business from us that, you know, he's like, oh, my God. He calls me to have a meeting with me, like, thank you so much and all that. But that's the power of one person saying, let me get get you busy. Okay. Now, I had another friend who has a practice, and. And it's a pediatric practice. She started it off. She had three friends who were OBGYNs and they were kind of sort of in the area. Within three months, she was up to full capacity. Why they sent her patients. Okay? So you may not have three friends who are obgyns, but you can get, you can get those relationships. You can build those relationships and have people send you people, and it will keep you busy. All right, Number four. Number four is strategic networking. Now, again, I am an introvert. I'm a recovering introvert because I was an introverted introvert, terribly painfully shy, and I would not like. Network is like a bad word, okay? But if you are going to build a successful practice, then strategic networking is something that you need to do. You. You need to be in the right rooms. Now, right room means it's a room either filled with the kind of patients you will serve, or it is filled with people who serve those kind of patients and are not in competition, right? So if you are in a neurologist and there's an event where a lot of internal medicine people are, you should be in that room because in that room are all the people who could send you people, and if they like you, they will send you people. So that's the first thing is being in the right room. So either your patients are there or people who can send you patients are there. Okay? The second thing with it is you have to have the right strategy. So you don't want to walk up to people, tell them who you are, tell them what you do, shove your card in their face and look over for the next person you can talk to. It's not speed dating, right? What you want to do is remember that everybody is tuned into their own channel. Wiifm. What's in it for me? Right? So when you go to these events, you have to introduce yourself. You have to say what you do. But you want to be interested in people, ask them questions, ask them what they do, ask them what they like about their job, Ask them, talk with them, be interested in them, right? And be interesting, okay? So have the conversation, but tune into their own channel. That's the way you connect with people. You don't connect with people like by getting them to help you. You connect with people by helping them, okay? And you ask them so with what you do. I'm a neurologist. How can I be of service to you? How can I help you? How can I make your practice better? Like, ask them what you can do genuinely. Okay? Then the next thing is, after all of that, follow up, okay? So after that, hey, it was really great meeting with you the other day. Da da da da da. Thank you for, you know, this piece of advice you gave me. Or you mentioned that, you know, your anniversary was two days from now. Hope you have a great anniversary. Or, you know, we talked about your son in college who wants to be a doctor. Like, that's so amazing. I wish him nothing but the best. Follow up, okay? Follow up. And then you can take the relationship from there. But the truth of the matter is people will refer to people they know. And like, for instance, there's so many doctors in Atlanta, there are a few of them that I know and I know them personally. When I have to refer people, that's who I refer people to. Okay? Number five. Number five is the granddaddy of all marketing strategies, no matter the business you're in. And it is speaking, okay? It is speaking. You may think it's nerve wracking, but it's easier than a lot of the other skills you've had to develop as a physician. So this is worth developing. But the truth of the matter is you got to do the speaking piece, okay? It positions you as the expert. It positions you as the go to people person. And it gives people a chance to experience you. I mean, and after that, it becomes a no brainer. You are the person that we need. Okay, so you want to take up speaking now? This is simpler than you think because sometimes I say speaking and people are like, oh, you mean I have to be on Tony Robbins stage? No, I don't mean you have to. On Tony Robbins stage. I mean you should shoot for it. That's really nice goal. But we're talking. So let's say family doctor, internal medicine. We're talking like Rotary Club because guess what all those people need at that meeting? They need a pri. They need a doctor, chamber of commerce, you know, if you're an OB gyn. We're talking women's events because they all have uteruses, right? I don't even know what the plural for that is, but we'll go with uteruses. They all have, you know, they all need yearly exams. They all need. They, they need you, right? If you're a breast surgeon, oh my goodness. Breast cancer awareness, what the options are after that and all that. All the women's events, they're. They're your people. If you are a pediatrician, Women's events, parenting events. Be there because they will get. You may be talking about nothing but parenting, but guess what happens after that. You are the pediatrician that they should be going to do you see what I'm Saying if you. And. And when I say speaking, I mean online and offline right now. Primarily offline. Because sometimes we hear online, we're like, okay, so I just do a few Facebook lives and I can escape. No, you should do both of them. Okay, now is online and offline. So which means podcasts. Do you know how many podcasts there are that you can feature on? What that does is you can practice your speaking. You can. And even if you're like, well, those people, I won't touch them directly. Well, maybe not, but you can take the same podcast that you did with somebody else who's influential, put it on your page and say, I was so honored to be a guest interviewer at, you know, on this person's podcast. And it established you, establishes you as the expert. She's so amazing that other people have her as a guest on her show, and it does wonders for your credibility. Okay? So speaking is something that you should be doing. Absolutely should be doing. Okay, so those are the five things. Number one, social media. Number two, patient referrals. Number three, center of influence referrals. Number four, strategic networking. Number five, speaking online and offline. So what I want you to do is I want you to pick three of these things and commit to implement them, okay? For 30 days, I'm going to implement this. Commit to implement them. And look, don't. We're not going to make this complicated. Okay? So I'm saying things like, you know, you don't have a social media and you're. You don't have any social media account, and you're like, you know what? We're going to open a Facebook thing for the practice. We're going to post three times a day. Three times a week, okay? So you can start from that. You can say, I've never asked for referrals. It's so weird. I'm going to ask for referrals twice a day. Once before lunch, once after lunch. Do you see what I'm saying? Make it simple. You may say, I'm going to visit one center of influence every other week. Go see somebody who can send you patients. Talk to somebody who influences that decision. Okay? You may say, I'm going to speak once a month. I can alternate. This month will be on an offline stage. This other month will be on an online stage. And you can knock this out the park and say, Dr. Una, I'm not doing once a month when I can do every other week. You know, So I want you to imagine what this can do for your practice. Imagine if you did this for 30 days, what would it do? What if it increases the number of patients you serve and your bottom line by 10%, 30%, or even 50%? Okay? So I want you to. I want you to apply these, okay? You have your marching orders, so get to work, and I will see you next week. If you love this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe, share, and review it on itunes as you go about your week. Rem you're not just an md. You're an entre md. Don't forget to tune in next week for another great episode. Until next time.