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Practice 911–Thrive and Not Just Survive During the Recession
By Dr. Paul Varnas | April 22, 2009
There is a recession, you can’t turn on the news and not hear about it. Many practices are suffering. Business is down and incomes are shrinking. Yet some practices are doing well.
The fact is that people still get sick, even during tough economic times. In fact, stress from a poor financial situation increases the chance of pain, illness or injury. People still need your help, but they are becoming more like traditional consumers. They are looking for inexpensive answers to their problems. You need to adjust your marketing and your approach to help them.
So how do you develop a practice that thrives in a recession? There are five easy steps:
1. Utilize nutrition: Get good results by addressing the nutritional needs of your patients. The method you should use should be easy and effective. Many doctors utilize nutrition, but they do it in a hit-and-miss fashion that does not help their practices nearly as much as they could.
2. Utilize direct marketing: Your message should be precise and delivered to as many places as possible. Even during a recession, people need your services. Good marketing teaches them your value.
3. Work smarter, not harder: There are ways to increase the cash-flow in your office. If you are dependent on insurance companies, Learn marketing secrets designed to get your practice as busy as you want it to be: Marketing is a science—in many ways it is more scientific than a lot of the approaches taken in health care. When done right, the results are amazing—in any economic environment.
4. Do workshops: When the economy is bad, it is easy to get people to come to a workshop. They are looking for inexpensive answers to their health problems.
5. Make a plan: A general would not go to battle without a plan. You cannot grow your business without a plan. There is actually a good, detailed plan available at http://www.thebetterhealthnews.com, it is entitled “Practice 911”. There is even a FREE workshop book available for you there.
There is one other thing that will help to grow your practice (and other chiropractic practices). It is patient education. People need to look at health care a bit differently than they do now. There is a site available that will help you with this, http://www.wholehealthweb.com . It offers hundreds of articles about chiropractic, nutrition, the dangers of drugs and other information about natural health care. Your patients can even download the free eBook, 50 Ways to Lose Your Blubber. The more they understand about what you do, the more likely they are to rely on you and refer to you.
Topics: General | No Comments »
May 15th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Nice article doc! I agree with all your recommendations – and especially like the free ebook idea. One thing that I may add is to expand or diversify your offerings to increase your potential marketshare. So nutrition, also rehab and my personal favorite, massage. That way, patients have multiple reasons to frequent your clinic in addition to chiropractic services.