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March 2007

Make your practice unique

Make your practice unique

What kind of practice do you want? As you go through chiropractic school, you probably have many ideas about what you want in your practice, including the type of technique you want to utilize, the kinds of patients you want to see, and the kinds of special services and benefits you want to offer.

To establish a successful practice requires being able to define it. This concept is termed by marketers as your "Unique Selling Proposition" (USP).

The USP concept is valuable for several reasons:

• It provides you with a focus for your thoughts. Try as you might, you can't be all things to all people;
• It gives you and your staff a focus for your marketing efforts; and
• It tells prospective patients what and who you are.

So what is a USP? A USP answers the question a prospective patient would ask: "Why should I choose your chiropractic practice rather than someone else's?"

In other words, the USP identifies what makes your practice unique, special, and different.

Some people call this branding. A brand is something memorable that helps people connect with you and your practice.

Other people call this niche marketing. A niche is a place in the competitive arena. You can liken it to cereal on a grocery store shelf. A niche is your "place on the shelf" that lets people know you are different and how that difference matches the needs of your potential patients.

Creating a USP involves thinking about your practice in several different ways and writing a paragraph or list of things that describes your practice. This descriptive paragraph should include:

1. How you want to practice. What techniques do you want to use? Do you want to see many patients every day (a volume practice) or just a few? Think about how this technique will be of benefit to patients; how it will make them feel better and stay well adjusted.

2. The types of patients you want to see.

Although as you start out, you may want to attract all types of patients, you still need to define your "ideal patient" so you can focus your marketing efforts on those people. Will you have a pediatric practice? A PI practice? A sports practice? A family practice?

3. The conveniences and benefits you have that other practices don't. You may want to establish certain hours for working people (early morning, late evening), or perhaps be available to see new patients the day they call in. Or, you may want to set aside a day for walk-in patients, or let people know about your ability to read sign language or speak Spanish.

These types of conveniences and benefits differentiate you from others. Select some benefits that make people notice you.

When you have made all of these decisions, write them down in a short paragraph. This is your USP. Your USP will evolve and change as you encounter new concepts and as you visit practices.

Even if you are not ready to write out your USP now, think about it as you go through chiropractic school. As you visit practices, note what you like and don't like. Visit technique clubs to see which ones interest you and which ones don't. Check out advertisements for other chiropractors to see what benefits they emphasize.

Most important as you go through the exercise of creating your USP is to find elements that are meaningful to you. If you are creating a practice according to someone else's expectations, it won't be yours.

You need to be excited about coming to work in your practice every day because it feels like the place you want it to be.

Start today to create this vision of your USP and keep refining it until it feels absolutely right. Having a USP is one of the most important factors in starting your practice quickly when you graduate.

You can find more information on preparing for a career in chiropractic at www.studentDC.com.

 

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