Hello my name is Megan Walker and welcome to the Market Savvy Program. This video series is designed to enhance your knowledge and awareness of effective marketing in your private practice so you can attract, retain and help more patients.
In today’s episode I’m talking about the importance of establishing and maintaining your referral ecosystem for the long term.
Often when we start in business we head down the exact right path in terms of building our referrals. We – go and talk to the neighbouring businesses, we meet up with the pharmacists, we check in with local health centres, we ask local clubs if we can present to their members and we let the local paper know we’ve started up and we ask for an editorial. Does that sound familiar? Remember those early and eager (and maybe just a bit desperate) days?
But then the practice gets busy, the books fill up and surplus capacity is taken up with managing the needs of patients, staff and running the business. I understand this situation and have experienced this in my own practice as well.
But the “new kid on the block” thinking works well in the longer term and I encourage you to consider how you can choose, diarise and action one “start up” action per week. It has to go in your diary by the way, or otherwise it won’t happen.
I spoke with a practice owner recently who asked me to help them get ready for sale. The tricky part was that over the past 20 years, the local area had become very competitive and the practice owner had not stayed in touch with his referral sources. In fact, many thought he had already retired. Certainly not the position any of us would want when we decide to sell our business.
To turnaround that practice required 12 to 18 months of reinvigorating the brand and the owner’s presence and involvement in the local area and with local referral sources. However as the owner was not in a position to do this, he simply closed the doors without selling.
To avoid this situation, I encourage you to put a note in your diary every week called “referral marketing action”. You can ring one person, or set up a meeting, or touch base with a local colleague, or send a thank you card. It doesn’t have to be huge, it just has to be genuine and maintained every week that you are in business.
So which day and time will you choose? And what action will you take this week?
Thanks for taking the time to watch the Market Savvy Program. If you haven’t done so already, please sign up for our email updates “Marketing in Practice” where you’ll receive marketing tips, podcasts and event invitations to achieve success in private practice.
Thank you for the great work that you do and enjoy your day.
More information
For more information, please contact Megan Walker megan@marketsavvy.com.au.
And if you missed video one, you can check it out here "Modern Healthcare Marketing Has Changed".
