Why Patients Refer

Have you ever really wondered why patients refer to you? Is it because you are phenomenal doctor?

Maybe... maybe not. For the majority of referrals... it has nothing to do with your skills as a doctor. Patients expect you to take care of them from a clinical standpoint. They are coming to you for a specific purpose and expect you to take care of the problem.

That's a baseline... everything else you do IS WHY THEY REFER.

If they can get the same level of service from another doctor... why would they tell all their friends and family how great you are? They wouldn't! You have to be different... you have to be more... you have to do more... and it has to go above and beyond their expectations.

That's what you're really dealing with... your prospective patients expectations. What do they expect from you when they enter your office? Do you meet those expectations? Do you exceed them?

Here's a handful of ways that you can exceed your new patients expectations.

#1... Take a look at what every other doctor is doing in their office. Now do the opposite. Just doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing will set you apart. Humans are always looking for the next shiny object... if you can stand out from the crowd by simply doing the opposite... you will do better.

#2... Give patients what they want. Whenever you are looking at some of your "extras" that you're ready to dole out to your new patient... ask yourself a question.

"Is this something that my patient REALLY wants... or is it something that I really want?"

Remember you are doing it for them... not for you.

#3... Be consistent. Once you start doing these little things that your patient REALLY wants... and you're doing the opposite of your competitors... make sure you keep doing it as long as it's working.

I can't tell you how many times I ask a doctor what has given them the best referral results... they tell me... and then I ask them why they stopped doing it. Their answer is always the same...

... I don't know.

I can tell you the answer. They got bored and forgot. You and I are just like every other human that likes the next "shiny object." You see something that is working but you quickly grow tired of it and start searching for the next thing. BE CONSISTENT.

#4... ASK! The ideal time to ask is when you've done #1 and #2 above. Your new patient will (without you asking) tell you how great their visit was. You (or your staff) will simply respond by thanking them and telling them the biggest compliment they could give you is telling their friends and family how much they enjoyed their visit.

Just like the "shiny object"... there are dozens of things you can do for your patients to get referrals. Start with these and let me know if you don't get an extra 6-10 new referrals each month.

Dr. Jeff Uhrmacher is a leading authority for new patient strategies, patient conversion strategies and patient retention strategies. You find out more about Dr. Jeff Uhrmacher by visiting http://www.drjeffuhrmacher.com.

You are also invited to connect with Dr. Jeff Uhrmacher on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-jeff-uhrmacher/43/9a4/547

As the founder of Doctors Wealth Secrets Dr. Uhrmacher has been helping doctors across the US (and a few internationally) take their practice and double or triple net income in the span of only 8-12 months.

Dr. Uhrmacher is also the author of 8-14 New Patients Per Week From Google+ Local, The Non-Stop Patient Formula, The Patient Retention Formula, and The Patient Referral Formula.

What You Should Know About New Product Marketing

The word "new" is magical.

Everyone wants the latest and the greatest.

Which means that new product marketing can take advantage of this basic fact of human nature.

And done well, this inherent advantage makes marketing a new product one of the easiest types of marketing to do for your business. Provided, of course, that you follow a few basic rules...

Trade off on the word "NEW"

If your product truly is new, announce this from the rafters.

Let everyone know about your exciting new product by sending out press releases to create buzz. Editors and bloggers are ALWAYS interested in what's new.

The caveat here is the product must be truly new.

In other words, it can't simply be a re-branding of something you've been offering for years because people get turned off (real quickly) when they think you're trying to fool them.

The key?

Make sure it's not so similar to your other products (think about iPhones for a second, how are the recent turn-outs different from previous versions?) that the distinctions are blurry.

Create a "wow" promotional campaign

Get behind your new product with an integrated marketing campaign that makes each individual in your target market feel like you are speaking to him or her.

The key here is targeting.

And developing an original concept that will grab the attention of your existing customer.

Find a unique way to position your new product that will make people salivate. Then create an irresistible offer that your prospects just can't turn down.

Build brand recognition first

When certain companies come out with a new product (think Apple) everyone is anxious to find out what it is. In the case of Apple, as you know, folks will wait on line for hours to be among the first to get their hands on whatever sexy, new gadget Apple rolls out.

Such is the power of new when you are dealing with well-known brands.

But if you are a small shop that just invented a new widget, it will be a lot harder to cut through the clutter and get noticed.

So take steps to build your brand first. That means developing a standout logo and pairing it with a tagline to boost brand recognition.

Use a distinctive "voice" on your website to give your company a brand personality. Stay away from corporate speak and sounding bland. Make sure your website copy fits who you are and is not interchangeable with your competitors'.

Does that make sense to you?

Come up with a marketing plan

Sometimes, telling your audience about the benefits of your product may not be enough.

You need to develop a plan to get your product (or product notices) in front of your target audience... and to do it in a way that is budget-friendly. After all, without prospective customers you don't have a business.

Finally, whether you already have a new product to promote, or you're wrapping up the final stages for getting it ready, it makes good business sense to come up with a well thought out marketing plan.

This includes channels for your marketing communication:

    direct response marketing
    email marketing
    search engine marketing (pay per click)
    catalog marketing
    etc.

You get the idea.

Don't overlook your existing customers as well. In fact, you may want to begin your campaign here, since your customers can provide you with valuable feedback that you can incorporate when marketing to new customers.

Corporate Promotional Clothing - Not Only for Company Staff

If you have been a keen observer, you'll notice that corporate shirts are being used by many companies as their primary mode of marketing. This is due to the fact that with a well made promotional corporate shirt, it can take a business to its next level. Sometimes, you'd observe that consumers are the ones paying the company just to wear their logo. This is because people find their logo stylish enough to be part of their fashion. This only means that as long as a business has captured the attention of their potential clients and have gained trust from their loyal customers, people will voluntarily want to have their own set of shirts that includes a printed logo of their favorite store. Some would even go as far as purchasing this Corporate Clothing at popular events like concerts or shows.

With the term "corporate" wears, it usually implies that these are only worn by employees or staff. Yes, that may be true for some; however, other companies use them as promotional giveaways during trade shows or an important event as a token of appreciation for those who attended.

Let's go back to these being used as a company uniform. A lot of businesses nowadays are utilizing these types of clothing for their employee's everyday get up. It actually helps a business appear more professional, as everyone who comes into a store would know which person is working for the company. If you have a special corporate shirt for events, people will think that you are indeed serious about your business. Additionally, getting your staff to wear the same corporate promotional clothes make them feel like a part of a team, hence getting them to work harmoniously together. Now these may all sound too expensive, but you'll be surprised to know that you don't have to break the bank just to get these shirts made.

There are actually a lot of different designs and styles when it comes to choosing a corporate shirt for your promotional needs. You can opt for:

- Embroidered Polo Shirts - Polo shirts are a hit for both men and women, and with an elegantly embroidered design, people will surely go crazy over them. With the right color combination, most people would definitely want to wear them and unconsciously help in promoting a business name out in the open.

- Hanes Printed T Shirts - We all know how popular Hanes is, and with this type of clothing printed with your business name, people will surely love to wear them for you, and be your walking billboard for as long as they wear the shirt.

- Promotional T- Shirts - This is one of the most common and cost efficient type of corporate shirt. You can choose to go for a higher quality fabric t-shirts and print your business name and logo. Once done, you can both ask your employees to wear them at a said event, or give them away as a souvenir.

- Corporate Clothing and Branded Business Shirts - If you want to look much more professional, then you can go for this option. It can range from short sleeved corporate wears to the classy long sleeved business attire.

Persistence or Insanity

irst there was the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. Then the Little Engine That Could. The lesson learned is to persist, never quit and keep moving forward if you want to win the race. We strive for success in our business and professional lives as well as our personal endeavors, and persistence is the key.

Then there's the other saying - "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." WHOAAAA, wait a minute. Didn't we just say persistence wins? Something doesn't jive here. If both of these principles hold true, then when does persistence cross the line into insanity?

Whether it's your marketing efforts or any other business practice, jumping from idea to idea like a frog on a lily pad, will never yield a successful outcome. But then the "that's the way we've always done it" mentality doesn't lend itself to the ever-changing landscape of business today, either. Stay the course or roll with the punches? Do you feel like a spectator at a tennis match yet?

Maybe we can get a glimpse into the answer to our dilemma from NASCAR? Before every race, NASCAR drivers take lots of practice laps before the day of the race. Their pit crew analyzes the results of each lap. They don't rebuild the car after each, but rather make adjustments to dial in the perfect combination of settings for the track.

You should treat your business the same way. Here are 5 things you can do to determine if you should persist or move on.

1. Make small changes within your marketing plan or adjusting operational procedures, then monitoring the results. This will give you a barometer of what works and what doesn't.

2. Allow adequate time for honest results - Depending on the change, results may not be readily available (or accurate). If it's a new marketing medium, give it 90 days before analyzing the results.

3. Don't jump on the trendy bandwagon - Just because the media is a buzz about something, doesn't mean it's right for you. Case in point, social media. Maybe you've heard people talking about Twitter or Facebook. Before you jump in, first determine if your audience is there. If they aren't there, why should you be?

4. Monitor, Monitor, Monitor - Determine, before making any changes, what the desired outcome would be, i.e., increasing sales by x%, growing your audience, number of new inquires, etc. It's impossible to analyze your efforts if you can't measure them.

5. Failure IS an Option - We don't like to admit we're wrong, but not every change will work for the good. And that's okay. As Thomas Edison said, "I didn't fail 10,000 times to make a light bulb, I just found 10,000 ways that didn't work." Maybe the idea was a good one and can be tweaked enough to make it work.

How do you handle change? Are you changing with the tide of popular wisdom or are you hanging on to time honored traditions? Whatever works for you. And if that's now enought, here's one last thought, "You can be on the right track and still get run over if you aren't moving forward."

4 Stages of Market Orientation

Marketing is a driving force in today's global economy and to find out why let's look into these 4 stages of the market orientation:

1. Production Stage

Because of scarcity in the early days of the United States buyers looked to acquire any good that was produced and to make best use of the good. During those days because marketing wasn't yet understood, firms focused much on production and hoped that the goods would "sell them themselves." The production era began around the late 1800's up to about the mid 1920's. You can imagine how much money was thrown down the drain due to ignorance of the fact that marketing is a key ingredient in the life of a business.

2. Sales Era

From about the mid 1920's to the early 1960'sis when we seen an increase in competition like never seen before. Around this time most firms had realized that their ability to produce more goods than the buyers consumed was high. Firms began to realize after their initial production of goods was consumed by their "regulars" they could produce and sell to those outside of their normal "customer base." This is when firms began to hire sales reps to go out and sell the product.

3. The Marketing Era

Depending on your generation you should remember when we first started to see the marketing concept on television. At it's first introduction, laws weren't in place to protect consumers from the malicious acts of marketers, which today have been concealed by subliminal messages, but organizations like the CPA(Consumer Protection Act) have been regulated due to marketers whose main goal was profit at the unprecedented expense of consumers. The marketing concept is the idea that a firm has two goals:

1. To satisfy the needs of consumers
2. Achieve the goals of the organization

For a number of reasons firms find that meeting these two goals is challenging!

4. The Customer Relationship Era

This era began around the same time the marketing era was coming to an end(keep in mind that it wasn't the end of marketing in and of itself but the goals of many organizations had to change through marketing) and is the era we are currently in. Building customer relationships is and should be the number one goal of every organization. For the last two generations of individuals, relationships are at the top of the list as far as things that are valued. Companies spend millions each year training their employees on customer relationships building techniques, bringing in leadership coaches, sending top level executives to conferences to build knowledge on how to appeal to people. You can imagine why sales has a negative image in society today because many sales people aren't trained at building relationships as appose to building more zero's behind their pay check. The market orientation focus its effort on three key areas:

1. Collecting information on consumers wants and needs
2. Using cross-functional teams to analyze the information
3. Most importantly, creating value for the customer

Marketing is a fun and exciting arena to venture into especially when you set values that both benefit the consumer and yourself. Unfortunately, our society has been plagued by greed and many bad, yes bad, people take on the profession of marketing. I can list industries and individual companies who fit this description. As a marketing major I'm beginning to see how marketing has shaped our society and hope that we as a society take a different approach to how we do business and to really make a difference in this world.

Charles Rivers is a writer, speaker, online marketer, trainer and coach and has a passion for learning and growing and helping others to do the same.

Do You Need to Take a Step Back in Your Business?

"But that's so OBVIOUS! Why didn't I see it??" is one of the most common reactions I get when working with new coaching clients. Whether it's related to their ideal client, their compelling marketing message or just areas of their business where they are leaving money on the table, they just can't see it until it's pointed out to them. It's really easy to get so bogged down in the day to day running of your business that you forget to look up once in a while - but it's the looking up and stepping back that can make a world of difference.

Here are three questions you can ask yourself to see if it's time for you to take a step back and look at your business with fresh eyes!

1. Are you busy for the sake of it? Busy does not always equal productive and DEFINITELY does not always equal profitable. Work out where you are spending your time and make sure that you're not just being busy for no reason. You would surprised how often I have this discussion with new coachees, who haven't looked at their working practises or procedures since they set up in business and just do things they way they have always done them. The trouble with this is that you can't build a big business on small business practises, often it's not a scalable model. Remember too, that if you always do what you've always done then you'll always get what you've always got. If you are serious about building your business then you need to look at how and where you are spending your time and make sure that it's on productive activities.

2. Have you taken a look at your pricing lately? Are you charging what you are actually worth? Or are you charging what you used to charge several years ago? And how DID you set your prices then, by the way? Were they based on what the competition charged? On what you felt your customers might pay to work with 'little old me'? Even if you do keep putting up your prices, are they just creeping up by a tiny percentage once a year? Well listen to this - if you find your ideal customer and really niche your business, you are able to charge more as an expert in your field. And because you know your ideal customer inside out, it's easy for you to demonstrate the benefits and value you bring to them.

3. Is your work easy for you? Or have you ventured further and further out of your comfort and knowledge zones as time has gone on, because you're saying yes to anyone who wants to do business with you? It's a common issue, especially when money is tight, but what happens when you start down this path is that your time is filled with work you don't enjoy doing, for customers you can't please. You're no longer doing work that's a great fit, for clients who are a great fit. I see this all the time with women business owners and I've been there myself too. Take a step back today and work out what is 'bad' business and what is 'good' business for you - then just take on 'good' business! Easy!

So this week, make a point of stepping back from the day-to-day 'stuff' in your business and see where you can make changes for the better!

Claire Mitchell is the founder of The Girls Mean Business - an online global network for women business owners. The Girls Mean Business provides coaching, mentoring and educational workshops on all aspects of marketing including marketing plans, finding your niche or ideal customer, your business strategy and vision, money mindset, pain free selling, finding time to grow your business, using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Blogging for Business. Our Running a Business in Heels 6 month Coaching Programme helps you to double your business in 6 months! If you're a woman business owner and you're serious about growing your business, check out

Is It Time to Think About Your Own Intellectual Property?

Some clients have asked me when just starting out how to create their own intellectual property.They are worried about creating original content versus leveraging materials that others have developed.

This is something you need to be very careful about.As you know most intellectual property is protected legally with copyrights and even trademarks.

Recently, one client asked me if she could use my elevator pitch process.And if not, how could she possibly make up her own system when so many already exist out there. This is what I recommended.

If you want to quote or use something from a book or another expert's system, do so, but make sure you give the author full and proper credit.You may also want to ask for their permission. If you are including someone else's material in anything written, whether it's printed or on the web, be sure to cite the original source.

On the web, you can even add a link directly to the author's materials.This actually will drive traffic to the author's site so they might feel flattered and appreciative.

I'm not an attorney, so don't let me be the final word on this.Please check with your legal advisor to be sure you do things the proper way.

I myself have done this.For example, at the Mindset Retreat, I taught things there that I borrowed. The list of 22 emotions is from the book Ask and It Is Given. I told everyone the name of the book and that I thought they should read it. I even mentioned the page number where the list of emotions came from. I'm not going to pretend that I created the list of 22 emotions or take the list and make it only 21 emotions and rename them all. I give full attribution to the authors of the book when I use it. Does that make sense?

Keep in mind that this does not just apply to names of things, but also to systems, processes and even formats.You need to give credit for all of that.

I believe in teaching what your experience has been - I call this "talking your walk".That means you do it first and have success. Then you can share with others and tell them how you did it. That way you can figure out your own unique process and create your own proprietary system. And if you still want to use someone else's tools, that's OK. When done correctly, it's like offering referrals to the author right? There's plenty for everyone.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Think about your own unique process. What did you try? What worked really well? How is what you have done different than other similar experts? Figure out what you did so you can talk your walk and create your own proprietary system.

That's why people say to me, "Oh your stuff is really authentic and it's the real deal."That's because I use it every day. When you share your experience authentically, people are drawn to that.

Photography And Advertising

The best thing about photography is to share what you have with others. Digital photography changed the way we capture a time. With the editing tools on our computers we can change our photos into works of art or advertising.

Photography is a great way to get your message out to the world. Companies use photography for marketing, product photos are just is to show-off the unique quality the company has to offer. Just by adding a few words you are creating a call to action.

I explore the way our senses influence our emotions. Advertisers use photography to sell anything they can. The right advertising can put your company on top in the niche it wants. Companies do research to find out what works the best for them. They are trying to get a message to you. They want your business and are will to do what it takes.

Our sense is the focus of advertising that companies strive to touch. Things that get our attention is as simple as what we smell, a noise we hear, a touch or seeing things that brings pleasure or pain. Our nose can't always smell a photo, but a picture of someone smelling something will peak our interest. Our minds will remind us what is good or bad.

We can't always experience things when we want, but our memories have thousands of things we like or dislike. So when we can't smell it ourselves we may have that smell locked in our memory ready when needed. That is a powerful tool when you want to sell people on how great something smells. The photos take your mind to what the product may smells like.

People love photos because the visual aids awake our thoughts. Our brains are always searching for stimulation. Photos get the message across and when you add a great copy writer, you have a formula for a successful campaign.

When creating an ad the composition is very important. It is the image and copy that will get your message out. Your ad is commanding a response subconsciously using a desired emotional response.

Pleasure and pain are the two emotions used most in advertising. You are either searching for pleasure or trying to get away from pain. Ads designed to get a message out to as many people as they can. We use photos as a part of the composition because it is tool that works fast to get our attention.

The next time you're out and about notice the ads that attract your attention. Are they using photography? Study the ad to see what it does for you. Be aware of the typed message and where it is placed in the ads.

Photography and fonts create a feast for your eyes, so you will want to have the materials in front of you. Technology fills the need. We can have every tool we need at our finger tips. Today it is easier than ever to merge your photos in to advertising.

Some pictures are so powerful that they need no words to move you in a direction. For example if I take a photo of an image that is also the logo. You can manipulate the background to create an emotional response with just a quick glance is you build a reputation for quality and safety.

One word is powerful when it represents the product. This word is the brand so the font is very important. The brand is what your mind identifies with, one powerful word is Nike. This company uses the products and makes it possible to show both emotions based on the font and word alone. The word added to this advertising composition part of the ad and the message.

Advertisers make a choice to use one word as their logo building a photo campaign of photographs that show people using their product, by making sure the logo is in a place in the composition that draws your eye.

Companies sell the idea that using these products will change your life. Photography is a powerful tool and advertising would not be the same without it. You have something to say or just want to advertise your product think about how you can use a photo in your ads.

Think about how photography is a silent, odorless nudge to get you to take some type of action. The action is simple you may want what I have and if you like it, pass it on.