Crank up the smiles today!

Have you ever noticed how when you are in a good mood, your patients pick up on it? Your staff is more enthusiastic, patients more willing to pay for treatment, and at the end of the day you are a lot more fulfilled. What some doctors fail to realize is that their energy is often the lifeblood of their practice and when they have an "off day", it creates a ripple effect through their staff, patients, and ultimately their productivity.

Here are my top 7 things you can do to get out of a rut!

1. Start your day with a workout! 30 minutes of aerobic exercise feels great and puts a spring in your step

2. Wake up 30 minutes early and spend 15-20 minutes planning out your day. Create a vision of exactly how you want your day to play out.

3. Feed yourself positive mental nutrition. Read a motivational book or listen to a podcast on your way to work.

4. Call 206-419-5407 and learn about my Practice Marketing Revolution Bootcamp. Make the decision to spend an hour a week with me to unlock the secrets of the modern practice and wowing your Generation- Y patients.

5. Become future focused. Do not worry about anything that has happened in the past - there is nothing you can do about it.

6. Set Goals. Set 5-6  goals that get you excited. My favorite is the SMART formula. S = Specific M = measurable A= action oriented R= Realistic T= Timely

7. Smile! A good smile is contagious so start spreading it!

The bottom line is: It's not what you know or what you do. It's who you are being. If you get stuck, choose a new way to be.

The First Visit

Last week, we thought about the value of the new patient welcome package. Today, I encourage you to think about your new patient's first visit to your office.

• How is your new patient greeted? 
• Is each patient greeted warmly with a personal touch? I often find myself in practices that still insist on having a wall of glass between the administrative staff and the waiting area. Do you find a fortress of glass to be welcoming?
  
• Do you offer the patient anything while they wait? Think about the relief you feel when you receive a nice fresh glass of water while waiting to order at a restaurant.
  
• Is your waiting area clean and free of clutter? You've seen those waiting rooms with piles of outdated magazines? Yuck! Think about the message that might send your new patient, "they have magazines from 2006 lying around... I wonder how up to date their equipment is?"
• Is your new patient waiting in a room by themselves? I took my little brother to an eye doctor appointment last week and no joke, we waited 50 minutes in an operatory by ourselves with the door closed. Patients DO NOT LIKE being left alone. They have come to you for help. Think about the anxiety that builds for them while their eyes wander over all your clinical equipment and they eagerly await your expert advice and solutions to their problems.
  
• Do you take time to get to know your new patient and ask them about their goals for their health? 
• Do you ask about your patient's past experiences so you can customize your approach for this unique individual? 
• How many different touches do your patients have with your staff? Can you say with confidence that all of them are positive and referral worthy? 

Managing your new patient experience is key to developing a patient base of happy, raving fans. After each new patient visit, ask yourself: "Did we serve that patient so well that they will come back again?"

- Sarah Nelson

I would like to invite you to a FREE Practice Marketing Revolution Teleclass!

“How to Design a Unique and Buzz worthy Patient Experience So You Can Get More Patient Referrals”

** This is the first in a series of FREE teleclasses all about marketing your practice like a rockstar!

This one-hour call is packed with useful and effective information and strategies that will make a significant difference in how your patients feel about you and how many friends they refer to you.

People choose to refer to your practice because you give them an EXPERIENCE they enjoy and know their friends will appreciate too!

Now the question is, do YOU know how to create such an Experience?

Find out by joining us on:

Wednesday, September 30th

8:00 PM Eastern

Register by emailing mike@npressnewsletter.com

Looking forward to having you join us!

P.S.- Just imagine what it’s going to be like once you have designed and deliver an experience your patients truly appreciate.

And if for some reason you can’t make the call, you can get the mp3.  Be sure to register NOW so we can send it to you!

To Register and receive call details, email mike@npressnewsletter.com

What's in your new patient packet?

I always remind myself that new patients don't know how good the practice is or the clinical skills are- they only know how good the marketing is. Given that, have you looked at your new patient welcome packet lately?

The new patient welcome packet is the patient's first experience with you after their intake phone call which makes managing the details very important. A new patient welcome packet can be an excellent way to build value and start a relationship before your patient walks through your door. Not only does the patient receive the medical history forms and practice information they will need for their visit, but they can get a sense of your practice personality and feel good about the decision they've made to come see you.

I just remade a dental practice welcome packet to be sent to new patients before the first visit. Here's what we included:

1. Glossy print out and bio with a photo of the dentist, team, and practice
2. Q & A sheet about what patients usually ask at the first visit
3. A "What to expect at your first visit guide"
4. 8 pages of handwritten patient testimonials that we photocopied
5. 3 pages of recent press clippings (from the PR campaign we had been running for the past year)
6. Professionally produced patient testimonial DVD
7. Medical History Form and privacy policies
8. Financial arrangements form
9. Copy of latest practice newsletter

All of these pieces were sent in a glossy logoed folder. Think about how long it would take to get through all this material. That is a lot of time for a patient to spend "getting to know you" before they enter your practice.

If you would like a FREE new patient packet critique, send an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com

Email Marketing - try it today!

No matter what type of practice you have, you should be collecting your patient's email addresses. Simply add the prompt to your new patient information form, medical history sheet, or ask them directly during your initial phone call. If you start doing this, you'll open the doors to inexpensive ways to stay connected with your patients and educate them about your products and services.

Once you've collected a few emails, you can use a service like T-Link or Mail Chimp to send special announcements and promotional emails. These services will protect patient confidentiality by keeping the lists private.

Before you get started with email marketing, here are a few things you should know:

* Not all of your patients will want to hear from you. If they receive an unwanted email from you, make it easy for them to get off your mailing list. Most email services will have an unsubscribe feature that allows them to select out automatically. If yours does not, and the patient calls your office to be removed from the list, do it right away. Unwanted email can be really irritating to those patients with busy jobs and schedules.

* Have a reason to send an email. There's a saying that if you have nothing to say, you shouldn't be advertising. Make sure when you do email your patients you are saying something new, engaging, or interesting. If you send emails everyday, you'll notice that people will tend to ignore them. Try to send them only when you have something cool and exciting going on or something to offer.

* DON'T SHOUT! Using all caps in email headlines is the equivalent to yelling your message in your patients face.

There are tons of ways to use email to market to your patients without spending a ton of money. If you have some success stories or ideas, please share them here!

- Sarah Nelson
Sarah is the President and founder of Npress. She works with health care providers who struggle with marketing and attracting new patients. Npress makes patient newsletters that are customized to look like they are straight from the doctor's desk! Check them out at: http://www.npressnewsletter.com

Quick guide to getting testimonials

Testimonials are one of the strongest tools we have for educating patients about treatment. In fact, what someone else says about you is 3x more impactful than what you say about yourself. Testimonials move you from saying, in effect, "I'm great and you'd better believe it!" to "I'm great and here are real people who say so." They also help you convey elusive qualities about yourself and your practice that don't easily come across on paper otherwise. Remember when you were a child and learned about the world around you through stories? That is exactly what using effective testimonial usage does for your patients!

The most credible testimonials typically include the following:

1. Emotional link to treatment that has been done or proposed.

Ex: Before I had my wisdom teeth removed w/Dr. Nelson, my gums were infected and I had so much pain!

2. Something specific about the experience that we provided.

3. For maximum impact, testimonials end with a person's full name, his or her title where that's applicable, and either a company name, preferably recognizable, or a city and state

Ex: - Sarah Nelson (or S. Nelson), President, Npress, Portland, Maine


How to start collecting testimonials today:

Many people are under the impression that a testimonial should take the form of a complete, signed letter on a company letterhead. But because you're asking a lot of someone when you request one of these, you'll get many more usable quotes if you simply go after two sentences from each testimonial giver. Here are a few ways to get a testimonial quickly and easily:

1. If you happen to receive a wonderful letter of thanks, find the strongest two sentences to excerpt for your promotional materials. Feel free to combine several phrases and condense the wording, so long as you don't change the essential meaning. Many times the context is missing, and you need to supply it so an outsider understands the praise. If you do much more than change the punctuation, and add or omit little connecting words, get the writer's permission for the changes.

2. Over the telephone or face to face, whenever someone spontaneously utters quotable praise, grab a pencil or tape recorder, ask, "May I quote you on that?" and scribble it down.

3. One approach that I've seen work well is to say you're collecting success stories from clients and would they like to be included? Putting it that way flatters clients and presents the blurb to them as a compliment rather than a burdensome request.

- Sarah Nelson