Laurie's Blogs.

Hey Gang,

This week, I felt like I should write some kind of a year in review blog, or be inspirational, or something.  But I just wasn’t finding my inspiration, until I came upon the following blog:

http://www.themanualtherapist.com/2016/12/3-business-competencies-pts-need-to-know.html

The blog was about business competencies PTs need to know.  So, to cut and past the nitty gritty from the blog:

1. Marketing. A company’s website is the only digital footprint they have 100% control over. Many businesses rely upon social media, ads, or other outlets. Still, those are platforms owned by other companies. Beyond this, so very many physical therapy businesses have little regular content creation, do not advertise, rely upon word of mouth/digital media, and do little more than water the fickle referral source. Sadly, what we are finding is that there are a lot of sales behaviors going on… to get more people through the door. Little is being done to build the brand of a practice or even the brand of the Physical Therapist.

2. Public Relations. We tend to be quiet professionals — a feeling of weirdness comes across us if we are to promote what we do… as if it was the world’s greatest thing ever. Our most basic physical therapy content and knowledge base IS mind-blowingly-the-world’s-greatest-thing-ever to the general public as soooo many of them suffer from MSK concerns. If we don’t have community presence, we will have no community representation. If we are not well represented, then we will have little to no community engagement. We need to get out there!

3. Sales. Personally, I see sales as a customer centered conversation on presenting solutions for their needs. We need to recognize within ourselves that sales is presenting a solution & removing the “Nos” so that people can get to “Yes.” We never see top brands such as Apple or Disney, waver on their price points no matter what the market is doing. Why? Because, they stand strong in the value they ring.

Okay, now that alone is great information, but what I thought might be more interesting to you is to share what I do for marketing at my clinic, The Canine Fitness Centre.  This is an exercise that I do with each and every intern that comes through my clinic (because one of the self-evaluation questions for interns going through the final step of the Canine Rehab Institute program, is to ask / learn about what the clinic does for marketing).

As part of our New Client System:

•Each client’s vet receives the initial assessment report.

•(Soon to be implemented), each client will receive a ‘report of findings’ telling them what we found, what treatments we provided, what treatments we might use in the future and a recommendation of number & frequency of future appointments.

•The dog is then sent a letter in the mail welcoming them to the clinic, and providing them with a $5.00 “CFC buck” which they can use at the clinic for their next appointment or for product sold at the clinic.

•They are then added to our e-mail list so that we can contact them about promotions, blog posts, and clinic news.

Daily Marketing Systems:

•We try to post on Facebook daily… or schedule posts.  When the post is about something happening, or available at the clinic, then I’ll ‘promote or boost’ the post.  This means that I pay $5.00 to Facebook for the post so that it gets in-front of more of our FB viewers.

Monthly Marketing Systems:

•We try to post an informative blog monthly (and then promote it on Facebook and by e-blast)

•We send ‘lumpy mail’ thank you’s to the vets that sent us medical information or a referral for a patient to come to see us.  (Lumpy mail just has some small item in it (i.e. a package of gum) with a thank you note and ridiculous phrase related to the item.)

•Other referrals sources (i.e. groomers, daycare facilities, existing clients) will also receive a thank you note with a $10 gift card or something.

•Therapists are given a drop-off report every month to contact patients that stopped coming.

•For a year now, we have been instituting a monthly promotion.

• Refer a friend
• Free nail trims
• ‘Fur-sibling’ new assessment discount.
• Vet clinic staff initial assessment discount
• Fluffy to Fit program (2-month program)
• UWT Special pricing (2-month program)
• Senior’s Exercise Class
• Access to my online Preventing Hip Dysplasia course
• Sale on my Massage Your Own Dog Online Course
• Christmas ‘cookie’ give-aways 

Quarterly Marketing Systems:

•We have an informative Newsletter that goes out to most of the Calgary and area veterinary clinics

Periodic Promotions:

•We will periodically promote products (sale items, new items, novel items.)

•We have tried to target grooming shops to provide them information about our canine rehab clinic and about our human physio clinic as well.

•We also promote the human clinic to our canine owners (since the human clinic targets dog owners)… which means we can cross post the human clinic blog posts.

•Additionally, we have tried to have a few booths at different events over the year (a regional agility trial, & a canine Christmas market).  They take effort and man-power however! 

Online Presence:

•I have spent plenty of time working on our website. The goal was to answer questions, speak from the ‘you’ perspective (i.e. you will received…), providing information (articles, videos, & the blog).

•We have instituted an online presence manager (someone that checks that questions on FB are answered, comments on yelp are replied to, our google reviews are adequate.  We also have a sign in the clinic asking clients to review us on Google, Yelp, or Facebook.

Next year we have some new things we will be implementing.  From the business seminar I attended in November, we will begin using the One-Minute Practice Manager System.  This is an online system where you track new patients and ensure that all things are occurring… New Patient Register, Tracking promotions, Tracking expenses, Managing communications, Therapist Goal Setting, Admin checklists, etc.  There is another program that I am considering.  It is a little box attached to the phone lines, and it monitors and measures the answering rate.  So, I had my clinic assessed, and we are answering 80% of the calls that come in (PT clinic average is 73%.  The goal is 95%).  It also measures time to answer calls.  Ideally you want all calls answered before 3 rings.  Of the calls we answered, only 50% were answered within the first 3 rings.  So actually, I’m not too disappointed in this, but according to the call evaluator, there is room for improvement.  This could be an area to look into as well!

Beyond this I a believer that customer service is critical to a good business. The customer’s experience should be exceptional – from how the owner is greeted and how they are interacted with at every point of contact, to how their dog is treated (as a dog and as patient).

And off the top of my head, that’s it (or most of it)!  That has been my business marketing in review.  Looking for marketing ideas as well, check out my workshop at www.staarconference.com!

Have a wonderful 2017!  Cheers!

Laurie