There’s a classic story where a bear charges two hikers in the woods. One puts on running shoes, while the other says, “Why are you doing that? You can’t outrun a bear!”

“I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you.”

In the last 2 months, I’ve been hearing from people interested in advertising so they’re the first choice among acupuncturists.  Or they want to promote their website to beat other sites.

If you’re doing this, you’re trying to outrun others.

That’s pretty much how the business world works. Every company is trying to beat other companies for a limited number of customers, because most markets are saturated. This means the number of customers is already determined.  It’s just a matter of how those customers are divided up among the companies.

Too many acupuncturists act as if the market is saturated. I keep hearing comments like,

“Looks like it is really hard to build it in (Your City) where are a lot of acupuncturists, or the population is not so open to it.”

This assumes there’s only a limited number of patients to go around.  It is true - there are only so many people who have heard about acupuncture, and are willing to try it.

That’s NOT the same thing as a limited number of patients to go around!

You can increase the number of patients to go around. How? Educate your current patients.  Educated patients talk more about acupuncture - they understand it better.  They refer more as a result.  They also come back for more conditions.  No one stays healthy forever.

You can ask for referrals.  An enthusiastic patient is your best salesperson - and you don’t even have to pay them.

You can give talks about acupuncture - just keep it practical and stay away from terminology that people would consider to be “woo-woo”.  Face it - until people understand otherwise, many will think that acupuncture is about the same as voodoo.  Both involve sticking needles. Here’s a classic story from someone who changed the way they talk to patients.

All of these things expand the market for acupuncture.  The market for acupuncture could quadruple, quadruple twice, and quadruple yet again  and it still wouldn’t be saturated.  (In case I lost you with the quadruples, I’m saying the market could be 64x larger - and still not be saturated!)

You know why.

We both know a secret.  An open secret, but it’s still a secret.

Western medicine isn’t working.

Talk to doctors. (I have.) Most of them are at least slightly dissatisfied with their ability to treat patients.

Ask nurses. They often know more about what’s really going on than doctors.

Talk to people who work in emergency rooms. They’ll tell you that a lot of people come in with reactions to their properly prescribed prescription drugs.

Most people just don’t realize there’s a huge difference between symptom suppression and healing They need to be educated. (I discuss this in Never Market Again, but you can come up with your own methods.)