New Quantum Lifestyles
Posted on August 23, 2008 - Filed Under General
The Acupuncture Marketing Blog has always been attached to a main site, Quantum Lifestyles. I’ve just recently updated it to create a new look and feel. Additionally I am adding a blog specific to that site (it is set up all in Wordpress and I am working on a slightly more colorful design) that can address questions potential patients may have about acupuncture
These questions won’t be questions that most acupuncturists have about acupuncture–these are the crazy questions that tend to make us laugh. However, I’ve come to see in these questions the great need that we have as practitioners to really let the world know what it is we do–in language our own communities can understand.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about acupuncture in the World. Even in an area that has three major acupuncture colleges, I get really odd questions. I am sure many other people do as well. I know that acupuncture can help more people than it does. Many potential patients are put off by the pagodas and Kuan Yin and Buddha statues that decorate offices. They are worried about the new age music. Some venture in, hoping to be welcomed. Some find the right practitioner and are welcomed. Others leave thinking that they can’t accept the strangeness of why the practitioner works.
I want to make those people who are uncomfortable with other cultures comfortable with acupuncture. One way to do that is to make it more accessible to everyone. I want to address those really odd questions with compassion and understanding.
I believe behind those really off the wall questions, the real question being asked is
Are you enough like me to be able to help me?
I want to work to find a way for more acupuncturists to be able to answer that question a resounding YES.
As
Healer’s Guide to Understanding Marketing
Posted on July 28, 2008 - Filed Under Marketing Tools
This past week I got to do a review of a new ebook by Jenn Givler. I’ve read Jenn’s blog for sometime. Additionally I joined the group that she has formed through yahoo. Everyone has a healing business and it’s a place to be supportive and also work through those issues of marketing and business that everyone worries about.
I actually liked her ebook, which is saying something coming from me. I hate having to pay a lot of money for something I either have to read on my computer screen or else spend even more to go and print out! Jenn did something that I think of as an excellent idea. She has short sections of work book type questions in several sections. As I am reading online, if I want to do them, I can print out a page or two to do the work.
I realized as I read that and told her how much I liked that, that this workbook style of ebook is not very prevalent and yet it is such an excellent idea.
Jenn has written a lovely marketing ebook and it’s well priced at only $10. Click here to view more details
Using My Weakness
Posted on July 16, 2008 - Filed Under General
As I’ve gotten closer to moving my office, I’ve realized that I’ve really missed working with another acupuncturist in the office. One reason I love that is that I can promote my office without having to promote myself! I realize most people would say that’s a self esteem thing. I’d get advice on personal coaches. I’ve done personal coaching–a lot. I’ve also done a lot of therapy and my therapist missed me when I moved because we delved into core issues most people would never consider touching. I’m still not comfortable with promoting myself.
I am very comfortable promoting another acupuncturist that I really respect. By working in her office, I end up creating an overflow of patients in her office. I get to treat her overflow, and thus build my practice. It’s a win win situation for both of us.
Sometimes I think we work too hard to minimize our weaknesses, rather than allowing them to be a strength. Perhaps we all need to think more about our weaknesses and ways that we turn them to our advantage.
Changes
Posted on June 19, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized
I find that this year is a year of changes for me. As I go through these changes, I’ve talked to a number of people which has provoked some interesting thoughts.
One thing I discovered is that although my first 10 months of my first year in business was pretty spectacular (one week I had 14 patients on the books, although I had several cancellations), other parts of my life came into play and my practice slowed. Additionally my office mates had things happen and our office energy became rather stagnant.
As my practice slowed, I turned to myself to see what I was putting out there. I realized I wasn’t very happy in my current office. At my previous office, if I had a break between patients I had other people around. This allowed me to bounce questions about diagnosis off the other acupuncturist or even take a break and talk to our receptionist about her baby. Longer breaks meant I could go into my office and input my bookkeeping information or balance the checkbook. I could even write up new marketing materials if things were really slow.
Considering what I really wanted in my acupuncture practice, I realized the best way to achieve my goals was to downsize. I’ve managed to find another person who needs an acupuncturist one day a week in her office and I will work as an associate. I will be able to bring existing patients and then see her overflow. I don’t have to do any billing. I don’t have rent which means what I make I take home (well except for taxes). Still this feels really good.
I’m also focused on building a “vacation relief” acupuncture business. I’ve put that out there and gotten some really good feedback. I haven’t even started advertising but I’ve gotten a new client from word of mouth. It’s not a big “contract” but considering I don’t even have contract paperwork yet, I think it’s a move in the right direction for me.
Why did I decide to do vacation coverage? As I sat bemoaning the failure of my business I started looking at what I liked and didn’t like about being in business for myself. I really really hate marketing and trying to find a niche. In fact, I don’t really want a niche but am not sure how to make myself stand out. Vacation relief work allows me to focus on a very small group of people that I can market to–other acupuncturists in my area. Additionally, I love to be of service. I’m a helper rather than a leader and this allows me to help other acupuncturists. I can help them lead by allowing them some stress free time off.
Finally, this allows me to practice acupuncture without the hassles of taking insurance. While I like hiking in the summer I LOVE skiing in the winter. I figure most people take their vacations in the summer so that will leave me far more time to do exactly what I love. I also have more flexibility on my hours as I don’t have to be married to my business in the way I feel tied to it now. Hopefully by being available to local practitioners they can feel some of the same relief because they can count on me if they need to take time off.
I’m becoming comfortable with this level of service. I’ve noticed that when we discuss our businesses, those of us who have smaller practices tend to think of ourselves as “less successful”. I know it was hard for me to give up the idea that a successful practice meant I was busy three or four days a week and booked solid from patients I, myself, had generated.
I see practitioners who are jealous of the success of other practitioners because they are busier. Rather than looking at themselves and what they are willing to do (or not do) to build a practice, they get bitter and feel like a failure. I think we each need to explore our relationship with our business. There will always be people for whom any business is just that perfect fit, allowing “everything” to fall into place and seem effortless. This is true of acupuncturists as well. The rest of us need to find our fit within our chosen area.
I don’t think anyone need be jealous of the success of another. While I’d love to be as well known and have as busy of a practice as Lisa Rohleder, I also know I have too many other interests that would have to be given up for me to work at that level. When would I ski? When would I blog? When could I sit down and write the stuff that I love writing for my other websites? When would I take photos? When would I design cards and websites? When would I just get to sit and read a good book that I really wanted to finish? As I look at those other things that are important in my life, I realize I don’t need or want to be as busy as Lisa. It may mean that I need to find other ways of bringing in some income but it frees me from that need to “compete”.
As a disclaimer, I don’t know Lisa Rohleder! I know she’s very busy and I’m familiar with her Working Class Acpuncture. I know her as an online presence. I’m using her not because I believe she has a one sided life that’s all about acupuncture, but because I’ve read her book that talks about her path to Working Class Acupuncture. I think she has a wide variety of interests and her life reflects that. Her practice and writing reflects who she is and what her strengths are.
Offering a small practice that is as much of a service to another practitioner and also offering a service to practitioners who need time off is a reflection of who I am and what my strengths are.
Next time you are tempted to be jealous of the success of another practitioner, really sit down and see if having what they have suits you. What would you have to give up to have that? Are you willing to do it? If so, go for it and see what wonderful things happen. If not, then consider those other things just as important and make your peace with not being ‘that’ busy.
Setting a Marketing Budget
Posted on June 11, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized
I remember setting up a practice and all the expenses of doing that. When you don’t have a lot of income coming in, it’s tempting to do everything free or nearly so and hope that eventually you have enough coming in to make other choices. However, when the habit of choosing the least expensive thing is there it can be even more difficult to break.
We talk about value added services and offering a perceived value in what we do. Do we look at those value added services when we look for marketing items for our practice or do we purchase the least expensive thing?
The most useful marketing is always getting referrals from your patients. I’ve found that I need to keep focused on some sort of marketing exercise or I loose focus and don’t get any referrals. What works here and what worked in Vancouver are very different.
Vancouver was a place with many businesses that allowed me to drop off some brochures. I spent more on brochures there. Here there are few places to offer brochure information but we do have a small local paper that actually gets read by people who are looking for the kinds of services I offer. I spend more on newspaper advertising here.
I also need to know how to market to my target clients. If my target clients have macular degeneration and my brochures have small fonts with lots of text and my website is not compliant for the visually impaired, I’ll loose a lot of potential referrals. I don’t have to spend more money necessarily, but I do need to understand how to spend it wisely.
I need to know how my marketing materials present to the world. Do they make your core clients comfortable? If you are marketing to Fortune 500 employees, you probably shouldn’t use the free business card designs at Vista Print.
You also need to know what types of marketing items you are comfortable with and what items you will use. Brochures that sit in your storage area are not a wise investment. I have never had computer paper call me for an acupuncture appointment.
As you sit down and consider all these things, set up a realistic budget. Shop online to see what’s available and at what price. As you consider your clinic, consider where you can cut corners (maybe you don’t see a lot of business people and most of your clients think your Vistaprint cards are so pretty they hang them on the fridge) and where you need to spend a bit more. This is different for everyone. It’s important to understand your priorities and the priorities of those you want to have seek you out as a practitioner and spend accordingly.
Moved
Posted on June 1, 2008 - Filed Under General
This is just a short note to say that yes, I am here on my new address: blog.quantumlifestyles.com!
I hope you all made it!
Authenticity
Posted on May 28, 2008 - Filed Under General, Marketing Sites
Jenn Givler has an interesting post over at Create a Thriving Business about Authenticity. I also quite enjoyed the source posts that inspired her to write such a post.
How do we create authenticity in our practice? Are we practicing acupuncture in the way we believe it should be practiced or are we trying to live up to an ideal of a favorite professor?
One of the wonderful things about acupuncture is that the practice is different for everyone and we need to follow our passion for the medicine. If we don’t, we aren’t likely to be very happy, even if we manage to be successful. I would guess as well that such success comes only with more difficulty than if we were being authentic in what we do.
As a note to those who read this in a feed reader, I am likely going to be moving this site from quantumlifestyles.com/wordpress to blog.quantumlifestyles.com. This should happen in the next couple of weeks. For those who come to the site periodically to check on new posts, I will have a permanent redirect. My next post should have more information on this.
Display Your Needles at Healthfairs
Posted on April 30, 2008 - Filed Under General
When I first started acupuncture, I was approached by a high school teacher who taught health careers. They had a month long module on alternative care and she wanted an acupuncturist to come in and speak to her class.  I realized that I really wanted a way to show the students what acupuncture needles looked like compared to a syringe needle. I couldn’t just pass them out and I didn’t want to have to walk around holding them. I wanted the students to have the ability to really see what the needles looked like.
I went out to my local craft store and for about $5.00 (10 years ago) I purchased a small frame suitable for a shadowbox. I have since priced these and in my area the retail price runs $10 on up.
I opened the shadowbox and placed a diabetic syringe I had gotten from a friend who is diabetic. I also placed the end of a syringe that I had gotten from my vet to give fluids to my cat.  Finally I put several acupuncture needles. I used some different brands, as well as different lengths to show how there are many different kinds. I used the velcro pieces that were included in the shadowbox kit to hold them down. After about 6 years, the velcro started to wear out and I used some thin double sided tape.
I also fastened some descriptions of what each needle was so that the students would know what was what.
I use this case whenever I go to health fairs. It means I don’t have to have needles sitting out on my table to be shown or potentially stolen. It allows people to get a good look at exactly what an acupuncture needle looks like compared to a syringe. Because the needles were behind glass, they did not need to be inside their wrapping so that everyone could get a good look at them.
If you are considering doing a health fair (and it’s a great way to market your business) I highly recommend taking the half an hour to an hour it took to create this particular shadowbox.
Never Market Again
Posted on April 9, 2008 - Filed Under Marketing Sites
Sounds wonderful doesn’t? Never Market Again. Burton Kent, who I discovered a while back and wrote about here, has re-released his book Never Market Again. As a business expense, this book is a bargain.
Kent gives you some specific steps to take to help build your practice. He discusses issues like how you talk to your patients about what you do. He reminds us that we need to use language our patients can understand.
We should also ask for referrals. I love the way Kent re-frames the idea of asking for referrals. He reminds us that we aren’t selling cars and pushing someone into a sale they don’t want. Instead, we are providing a service. If a patient is talking about a friend or family member with an illness, how can we provide good service and NOT ask for that referral? After all, in most cases our medicine can help.
Yes, it’s an ebook and I hate reading on the computer. The latest edition has a very wide screen view so it does read pretty easily and if you are in a position to have it printed someplace you can do that too. It’s a fast read though with lots of little tidbits. Don’t look for earth shaking ideas. You probably know these things or at the very least have heard of them. What makes this an important read is that you’ve probably forgotten to do them. When it comes to marketing, it’s not about knowing something but being able to act on it.
Burton Kent is a business professional, not an acupuncturist. However, he was sold on the acupuncture profession and has made it his mission to keep acupuncturists from closing their doors. He offers follow-up information via his blog and you can also contact him for personal coaching if you still find yourself having trouble putting those ideas into your practice.
It was interesting for me to read his book when he talks about leveraging your time. This means seeing more than one person per hour. As a person who loves chatting with my patients and gets overwhelmed with the idea of seeing many patients per hour, I was really resistant to that. I decided to look at that resistance. I get too fatigued when I see patients three or four days a week stacked up at two an hour.
In talking to Kent about this, he recommended the book The Highly Sensitive Person
So, whatever you resist in this book, take another look and think about why you are resisting. You may not need what you think you are reading but I bet you can learn something about yourself and what you need to make a successful clinic (for you).
We Still Have a Lot of Work To Do.
Posted on March 19, 2008 - Filed Under General
It occurred to me to think about the fact that most people who come to see an acupuncturist for the first time have had the problem for a very long time. It’s unusual to get a new patient who just had a car accident, for instance, unless they saw another acupuncturist elsewhere or they have a chiropractor who insisted they also use acupuncture or some scenario like that.
While it is well known and documented that acupuncture can treat back pain, often the patients in the acupuncturist’s office have had back pain for years, tried everything, including surgery and are still in pain and are finally getting to try acupuncture.
I started talking to people about this fact. Why do they wait so long? What would have made them try acupuncture sooner? I admit that currently my pool of knowledge is small. I hope to continue expanding it.
However, I was startled to find that most of them didn’t know that acupuncture could help them. Even those people who had pain, like back pain didn’t realize that acupuncture could help them. They suggested articles in magazines where I have seen articles on back pain might help. It occurred to me that obviously these articles were not catching people’s eye.
I talked to a long term patient who has lots of pain and her response was less that she was afraid of the needles (although she is needle phobic) but more that acupuncture was so strange to her she felt intimidated about seeking it out. She only came to me because she knew another patient of mine who assured her that I would take her concerns and fears seriously and not push her to do more than what she was comfortable with.
I realized that our marketing materials and articles have a tendency to talk about research studies and statistics showing that acupuncture works or we tend to focus on educating our patients about our “jargon”. We tell them what qi is and about yin and yang and the balancing of energies. Maybe we need to focus less on the “how” of acupuncture and more on the “Acupuncture Works”. Maybe we need to focus our energies on teaching people that we helped ordinary people like them feel better rather than try and teach them HOW we help them feel better.
Right now our language of “how” is strange and foreign to people. I wonder if that’s why they aren’t getting the message when something is written about acupuncture. Maybe we need to teach them that the language and cultural barrier doesn’t matter. We can help anyone, even peope just like them, who prefer Folgers to Expresso and who don’t eat granola or know anything about yoga or tai chi.
keep looking »
