On April 24th, I decided to improve my own marketing. Here’s what I did:

I wrote over two month’s worth of articles, and queued them to be published on Tuesdays and Fridays like clockwork. I’ve since reduced this to just Tuesdays. Even what you’re reading now was written over a month ago - I’m actually on vacation in Colorado right now. We went to the Denver Children’s Museum today.

Also, I set up some automatic follow-up messages for people who bought my marketing manual, Never Market Again. My goal is to make sure people who bought it actually use it. By the time you read this, there will be at least 10 followup messages to help people implement the book. They’ll be sent out automatically, and I won’t have to think about it.

So what does this have to do with you?

Ideally you won’t have to think about your marketing. It should be automatic, or nearly so. That way:

1. You only have to be organized once in a while.
2. You only have to be smart once in awhile.
3. You only have to make an effort to follow through once in awhile.

The rest of the time, you don’t have to think about it. Focus on treating patients instead. What can you do to automate your marketing? Here’s a few ideas:

1. Put an automatic followup system on your website. You basically set this up once, but people who visit your site experience it as an ongoing education/personal email sequence just for them. This is covered in “The Faucet”, a bonus manual included with Never Market Again.
2. Buy cards, have a few pre-written templates, and have the envelopes stamped and ready to go. When the situation calls for it, just address and mail a card to a patient. (Or if you want something even more automatic, I explain my online card system here. You log in online and send a real greeting card, or even a sequence of followup cards. You never even need to go to the post office or put the mail out.)
3. Put together your “Welcome Package” and have it ready to go for new patients. This makes their relationship with you seem “real” before they ever set foot in your clinic. (Explained further in Never Market Again.)

That’s just three ideas, but you can come up with your own. Marketing is most effective when you don’t have to think about it. Seriously.

Plus, it’s works great even when you’re on vacation. Especially when you’re on vacation.

Someone emailed me:

“People who are in the holistic health business should be as aggressive as pharmaceutical companies when it comes to marketing their services.”

They aren’t kidding. The most profitable businesses in the world (as determined by profit margin) are drug companies. What’s worse is they’re devastatingly effective at what they do. The PLoS Medical Journal is one of the only medical journals that doesn’t accept ad money from drug companies. Most continuing education for doctors is sponsored by the drug companies!!!

This means they don’t learn about new therapies. Or nutrition, exercise and better living helps patients. Especially not about acupuncture and OM. They just learn about drugs, drugs and more drugs.

Want to know how the drug companies market? [Read more →]

You’ve heard of acufinder, and they cost something like $179 a year or $219 for two years (if I remember correctly. They may be well worth it, because each new patient is worth at least $150 (probably closer to twice that). So just one new patient pays for the ad. Every patient after that is a bonus.

TCM Directory isn’t as well known as acufinder, but it actually has more features. Elie, the site’s creator, tells me that some people even use it as their website. It’s that powerful. Until September 15th, you can get a listing for $11 - 85% off the regular price. [Read more →]

Kevin Doherty and Lonny Jarrett are giving a free teleseminar on Chinese Medicine and the Evolution of Consciousness.

What is the largest possible context for the practice of Chinese medicine in the 21st century? How will Chinese medicine help humanity to face the challenges that confront us today? Chinese medicine has remained relevant for 4,000 years because it has continually evolved to help humanity rise to meet the challenges that confronted us throughout history.

Kevin and Lonny will discuss [Read more →]

Referrals work great for lawyers, real estate agents, mechanics, even Mary Kay consultants. There’s a lot of referral systems out there. A LOT. Here’s a partial list of some good resources:

• “Endless Referrals” by Bob Burg
• “Get More Referrals Now” by Bill Cates
• 93 Referral Systems by Jay Abraham
• “The Referral of a Lifetime” by Tom Templeton

I’ve read or seen every one of them, except the one by Jay Abraham.

There’s just two issues with all of them when it comes to acupuncture:
First, ALL of them assume people know they need you. When someone needs a real estate agent - they know it. An accountant or mechanic? They’ll know it.

When they need an acupuncturist - they probably don’t know it.

That’s why patient education is SO important when it comes to marketing. Educated patients are able to convince people they need to see you. Uneducated patients… they’re enthusiastic, they may love you - but they’re simply not as effective. They may not even realize what conditions they can refer people to you for.

Second, most of the focus on these systems is what I call “Do Me A Favor” referrals. You’re asking someone to do you a favor by referring others to you. The systems usually have some way to offset the pressure you’re putting on someone to refer, but it’s still there.

What I recommend most, and cover extensively in Never Market Again, is “Do Them A Favor” referrals. That’s where you’re asking a patient to do their friend a favor by referring “them” to you. This is a huge difference, and it’s often overlooked.

There’s nothing wrong with “Do Me A Favor”-type referrals, when the situation is appropriate for it. If you do networking or go to business groups like BNI, it’s actually expected that you’ll ask for referrals. That’s the point of the meetings. Don’t be shy!

“Do Them A Favor” referrals are less pushy and usually more appropriate in more situations. Just keep this in mind if you’re reading any books or websites like the above.

I especially like Bob Burg’s “Endless Referrals”. As Karoline G., L.Ac. told me, Never Market Again is great for in-office referrals, Bob is great for out-of-office referrals. She also said:

His take on it strikes me as Nice Guy Habits 101 Plus Social Skills as a long term way of keeping yourself in other people’s thoughts.

That’s my kind of marketing. Being pleasant and helpful without selling. There’s obviously a lot more opportunity to get in-office referrals, but if you’re in a networking situation, I recommend his book.

In the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, there’s a story about an experiment. Subjects were giving songs to tap out by hand, such as “Happy Birthday” and “The Star Spangled Banner.” It’s somewhat like playing a piano when the piano doesn’t make noise.

The subjects thought the guessers would get half the songs right. The actual number was 2% - only one in 50!

Another story is given of engineers who design very precise and expensive equipment for computer chip manufacturing. The technicians who assemble the plans had to interpret them and make them reality. A researcher found that if the technicians didn’t understand the plans, the engineers would make them more elaborate, thinking this would help technicians to understand what was needed.

It just made the problem worse.

As explained in the book:

The engineers were behaving like American tourists who visit foreign countries and try to make themselves understood by speaking english more slowly and loudly. They were suffering from Curse of Knowledge. They had lost the ability to look at a technical drawing from the perspective of a non-expert.

What does this have to do with you?

If you converse with patients using words like chi, meridians, even heat or damp, you’re speaking jargon. Even when a patient is somewhat educated and conversant in Oriental medical terminology, it’s always helpful to put it in layman’s terms.

The solution to the engineers/technician problem turned out to be a common language. And the common language wasn’t the plans, which only the engineers truly understood. It was the actual machinery - which both understood.

Talking using big words and terminology just alienates people. For something like Western medicine that most people aren’t skeptical about, it doesn’t drive away patients. But for something like Acupuncture, skepticism + jargon = lost patients.

Be sure to talk in terms patients can relate to. Even if they understand what you’re saying, will they relate to it?

(I’ve been doing password protected posts on Fridays, but today I’m going to do something different. I’ll password protect this next week to keep this exclusive for my readers.)

I’ve been reading Bob Burg’s “Endless Referrals.” Most of it is about getting people to do you a favor by referring. This isn’t my type of referrals - and I don’t think it’s yours. People want to help their friends, not build your practice or do your marketing for you.

But there’s one thing from “Endless Referrals” that I really like. It’s [Read more →]

You can spend hundreds of dollars having a nice logo created for you, but it won’t help your marketing much. A logo is mainly for mass market brands that can afford to “get their name out there” over and over again.

That doesn’t sound like you or me, does it?

I’ve also seen really cool-looking websites for acupuncture clinics. Amazing flash animations and graphics. A lot of acupuncturists have artistic tendencies. This leads to really sexy-looking brochures. And don’t get me wrong, professionalism IS important. Cheap brochures or business cards and ugly websites will turn people off. But does the message they convey turn people on?

Problem is, the focus on the packaging usually leads to a lack of focus on the message. In my experience, the fancier you get, the more likely your message is all about you instead of about the patient. I’ve covered focusing on the patient already in “So What?”. If your marketing materials are mostly about yourself instead of the patient, you’re going to lose their interest.

You may have noticed on my own site, I don’t talk about myself too much. I have an about page, and that’s it. Even now, as I write this, this is the first time in awhile that I’m really talking about myself, instead of the profession or marketing. Everything I write is about and for you. Even if there’s something I can help you with, like coaching, or my book, it’s still written to be more about you than me.

That’s how it should be. If I made it any other way, you’d get bored and lose interest - which helps neither of us. The same goes for you and your patients.

Also, I purposely don’t get fancy. The fanciest thing on my site are the marketing Quiz and the randomly chosen picture at the top of each page. All of the pictures are from readers who submitted pictures of their clinics. (If you’d like to submit your own picture, it would be much appreciated - just email it to me. Thanks.)

My point? People do appreciate beauty. Get as fancy as you want, as long as it doesn’t distract from what you have to say… or distract you from what you have to say. Because at the end of the day what really counts is … did they get your message? And are they now your patient?

The underlying principles in Never Market Again all center around relationships and education. That’s what makes possible “marketing without marketing”.

I just found THE best summary I’ve ever read of the kind of marketing for acupuncture that I teach. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t write it myself:

When communication is poorly and selfishly executed, it’s called “marketing” - but when done well it’s called “relationship”.

- Brent Hodgson

You can and should do almost ANYTHING if it’s good communication. That can only help your patients and strengthen their relationship with you.

How have you seen this in your own clinic? Isn’t it great when it happens?

Dan Clements over at AlternativeHealthPractice.com writes great material on practice building for acupuncturists and other alternative medical practitioners. It’s so good it’s actually very annoying - how am I supposed to pick what to tell you about to help promote your practice? So I’ve been putting off mentioning AlternativeHealthPractice.com until now.

Finally figured out how to make it easy for you to find what’s valuable for you. Check out Dan’s articles on: [Read more →]

I’m in talks with the Chicago Department of Public Health, as well as a few other agencies about setting up community acupuncture clinics. (The clinics will not be offered through the CDPH itself, but with affiliated agencies.) These will be mobile clinics, with different locations during the week.

I’m looking for an acupuncturists with:

• Great “bedside” matter. Must be able to put people at their ease.
• Knowledge of Dr. Tan’s Balance Method or Miram Lee’s methods. (If you’re not familiar, we may be able to work something out.)
• Own transportation. Ideally you would be able to transport 4-5 zero-gravity chairs (high tech lounge chairs that look almost like lawn chairs).
• Locations in the Chicago area, and the western suburbs (Naperville/Oakbrook).
• Ability to give talks is preferable.

Must be a self-starter and good communicator.

The position will be part time (two days a week) to start, and can be arranged to fit your schedule. Send your CV to Burton if you have his email, or use the contact form.

I’ve done a lot of research looking up acupuncture studies. If you want to do the same, I suggest taking a memory stick to a teaching hospital and visiting their library. You’ll be able to get articles galore. Also Google Scholar is awesome but incomplete unless used in the library. Usually you can get abstracts and complete articles for about 30% of all articles. (Go ahead and check it out. Scholar at the library is unbelievable.)

Anyway, there are always some studies that show acupuncture doesn’t work. Or show that it works only a few percentage points better than placebo - but not enough to be statistically significant.

These studies all have one thing in common. I wanted to share this with you, because if you didn’t already know this, you should. We need answers for the skeptics.

What “acupuncture doesn’t work” studies almost all have in common is they use a pre-determined point selection, The same points are used no matter what. Essentially it’s like “medical acupuncture” - acupuncture without a proper TCM or OM diagnosis. The only thing they use is a Western medicine based diagnosis - a diagnosis usually based on symptoms and not a root cause.

For example, Fibromyalgia has at least four different TCM diagnoses. Choosing points for just one of these diagnoses, or choosing points between four different diagnoses is just plain negligent, and proves nothing.

To me, this is like prescribing aspirin for headaches by default. Suppose migraine, cluster, tension, premenstrual causes, spinal headaches were all treated the same as brain tumors, sinus infections and aneurysms? Aspirin might work for some things, but not others.

Another common claim is that acupuncture results aren’t lasting. These studies usually have six to 10 treatments, then stop. When the researchers check back 6 months later, the results often didn’t persist.

Of course not - there was no check if the underlying imbalance was ever resolved. This is like a patient taking an antibiotic just until they feel better. The underlying infection is still there and will come back.

Hope this helps you deal with skeptics. What do you tell people when they say acupuncture doesn’t work?

Some people are worried about the recession. The established definition of a recession is a contraction in the GDP (gross domestic product) for at least 6 months. Basically, it means less money is exchanging hands - people change their spending habits. They still spend, but not as often. This means less value is being created by commerce. Also, most businesses cut back on their marketing.

As far as I’m concerned, the acupuncture profession is already in a several decade-long “recession” of sorts. It’s up to us to get out of it. [Read more →]

The Community Acupuncture Network (CAN) model is a VERY interesting business model for acupuncture clinics. It is based on a group treatment room. Usually there are a bunch of reclining chairs in a single room. The payment is sliding scale, so patients pay as much as they’re able – usually $15 to $40, but sometimes more. To make up for the lower fees, CAN practitioners treat more people per hour. This is the basics – there’s more to it than that. CAN started with Working Class Acupuncture in Portland, Oregon.

CAN seems to get good word-of-mouth marketing naturally - exactly what I like best.

CAN practitioners call “regular” acupuncture given individually “boutique acupuncture”, “private room acupuncture” and other names. (We’ll just call it “private room acupuncture.”)

One thing a lot of practitioners have said (both in public and privately to me) is that CAN style pricing will cut into the market for acupuncture and force people out of business. One practitioner told me privately, “The model of Walmart seems very similar to Community acupuncture. High volume, low prices, and eventually you will force out the mom and pop shop that has to charge higher rates to survive.”

That’s just not true. [Read more →]

On Tuesday I wrote about the Sanborn Maxim. It states that:

“Those who are willing to pay the least will demand the most.”

Some of the many comments about it made me think a lot of people read this as: [Read more →]