Top 10 Practice Builders
By Mark L. Sanna, DC

If you want to grow a successful business, be sure to focus on these Top 10 Practice Builders:

Practice Builder #1
Truly Serve the Patient
When you provide your patients with high-quality service, they will think highly of you. This fact is as important as being an expert at your particular technique. You must keep in mind that truly serving the patient has as much to do with whether the patient perceives that you did a great job as it does with whether you actually did a great job.

Practice Builder #2
Make the Intangible, Tangible
Perceptions are formed first and foremost based upon appearances. You know this fact intuitively, and it is backed up by solid research as well. A cardinal rule of marketing is “perception is the reality.” Patients can’t try out your services before they make the decision to retain your services. Patients base their decision to hire you based upon intangible perceptions of your appearance, the appearance of your clinic, and the promise of hope you offer them. Your ability to make your services tangible to your patients will greatly impact their perception of your value.

Practice Builder #3
Be Sure to Differentiate
The services you deliver in your practice are perceived by your current and prospective patients as commodities in the health-care marketplace. In most cases, your patients can choose another practice to receive the same or similar services that they can receive at your practice. If you desire to be perceived as something more than just a “member of the pack,” you must learn to differentiate yourself in your marketplace.

Begin by asking yourself three questions: 1. “What special services does our practice offer that allow us to provide more value to our patients?” 2. “What is it that we do at our practice differently that creates value in the eyes of our patients?” 3. “How do we effectively articulate these differences?”

The final question is the key. Having distinctions between your practice and the other practices in your marketplace is not enough. You must be able to articulate these differences to current, past and future patients.

Practice Builder #4
Be Cognizant of Your Competition
Your competition provides your patients with service alternatives in your marketplace. For this reason, you have to measure your efforts against the efforts of your competitors.

Remember, your competition is anywhere patients perceive that they can receive a service alternative to yours. This includes medical and physical therapy practices, massage therapists, and the whole spectrum of “alternative medicine” practitioners.

Practice Builder #5
Coordinate Your Marketing Efforts
There must be a specific target audience in mind for your marketing activities. Promotional activities such as mailers, newspaper ads, radio or television spots, or practice brochures must be thoroughly analyzed and planned before they are launched. This planning increases the chances that your marketing will reach its targeted audience, and get noticed in such a way as to promote action.

Practice Builder #6
Have a Plan
You need to know what you want to accomplish, by when you want to accomplish it, and who will be in charge of reaching the desired result. Most successful practices have someone who assumes a leadership position regarding marketing, or there is a definite procedure in place that ensures its implementation.

Practice Builder #7
Create a Vision for the Future
A clear vision means pinpointing the specific details of the patients you want to attract and the types of conditions you want to treat. You must also identify other benchmarks of a successful marketing program. What do you consider an acceptable performance for such items as the return on your investment of time and money?

You must have a vision for all of the components that determine the success of your practice, for the type of patients you want, the types of services that you will deliver, and for your financial benchmarks. Finally, you must determine what you can realistically accomplish and by when.

Practice Builder #8
Focus on Internal Organization and Systems
Marketing success has a whole lot more to do with all of the many “little things” your practice does on a routine basis than it does with the great big public programs that you implement.

It is important for you to direct your marketing efforts so you attract the kind of patients you desire to your door. It is equally important for you to develop your patient base and to maximize patient referrals. Since 30% - 80% of your new patients should be referred by your existing patients, maximizing those referrals must be a major component of your marketing program.

All of your office systems contribute to the determination of whether you fulfill the promises you have made.

Practice Builder #9
Track Progress
Unless you have predetermined performance benchmarks, you will never know how well your marketing efforts are doing. You must check your progress at regular intervals. Even the most well-thought-out marketing strategy will fail without benchmarks in place.

Not only must you produce consistent results, but you must keep your staff accountable for what they do or fail to do.

Practice Builder #10
Make an Investment in the Big Picture
It is important to remember that just because you do “something” to market your practice, it doesn't mean that new patients will immediately follow. There are marketing strategies that will maximize the volume of new patients that you can generate in a short period of time. However, those strategies should not be confused with the valuable investment of time and resources in strategies that will produce consistent results that can be counted on for the long-term.

When you have a clear vision, you have a much greater chance of arriving at where you want to go with your marketing efforts. You will head down the path, optimally using your resources, and will leave your competition in the dust.

Dr. Sanna is the president of Breakthrough Coaching, LLC, which provides personal coaching to chiropractic and multi-disciplinary practices throughout the country. He can be reached at Breakthrough Coaching, LLC, by calling 800-7-ADVICE.