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Posts Tagged ‘Building Business’

Working in a dental office presents many challenges…daily, you could even say…hourly!  One of the biggest challenges is making certain your patients know you care because they don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care!

We had a dad bring in his young daughter today for several procedures.  As it turned out we needed to refer her to Pediatric.  Due to the procedures needed, their front desk person said they would have to work up a time frame and they would call the dad. 

The dad had to come back to our office later for the  band and loop to take to the pedo office and when he came in we could tell he was upset.  The pedo office had called him, the phone call had not been a good experience at all (first impression), and to make matters worse it was going to be August before she could be seen for a consultation!  

His daughter was upset this morning, he was upset because his daughter was upset, and to make matters worse, he had a bad experience on the phone with the pedo office regarding his daughter.  What do you think his impression was of that office?  And more importantly ~ what was his impression of our office for referring his daughter to them?

If you work in the front office you know what came next.  I got on the phone with the pedo office, spoke with their office manager, relayed the circumstances,  asked her to ”smooth” their first impression,  and worked out an appointment for the daughter to be seen this Tuesday.  Now what do you think the dad thinks of our office? 

In just a few short minutes we positioned ourselves as caring in several ways: 

• We let him know it matters and we care about his daughter and her well being
• We let him know it matters and we care about his inconvenience and his feelings
• We let him know it matters and we care about his experience in our office AND his experience in offices we refer to

In short, he now knows…we care.

What are some things you do in your practice to let your patients know…you care?

Technorati Tags: Building Business, caring dentists, Livvie Matthews, Patient Relations

Recently I was asked a great question: What were the top couple of mistakes made when using social media.  In my response, I only mentioned a couple, but it led me to think about several other mistakes to avoid with social media.

1) Trying to use social media for making sales.   This is the #1 mistake.  Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube are all about making contacts, opening doors, gaining trust and credibility, and building those all important relationships. 

Once you’ve gained your viewers trust and you have a relationship with them, you will be the one they turn to when they are ready to do business.  Wouldn’t you rather do business with someone you have grown to know and trust? Relationships first…business second.

 2) Going into social media without clear objectives.  What are you wanting to accomplish?  So many times, businesses will just jump in without knowing what their objectives are for using social media. 

Do you want to gain your targeted audience’s attention?  Drive traffic to your practice, blog, or your website?  Enhance our practice’s patient services?  Maybe you want to grow your practice’s email list…what’s your objective?  Know what it is you are trying to accomplish.   

3) Not knowing how to listen and engage effectively.  To attract and engage targeted followers effectively, you need to have several elements in place.  Here are a few of them:

• Be clear on your target market and be familiar with the social networks they prefer to use the most.  Let me put that into perspective.  If you work out of 3 operatories and your patient is seated in OP 3 and you’re seated in Op 2 waiting for that patient, you aren’t going to get anything accomplished.  You’re not where your patient is. So if you are on Twitter and your target is on Facebook…see the importance?  Go where the “eyeballs” are…Know and be seen where your target market is!
• You must have a strategy and a plan for implementing your strategy in place..FIRST. 
• You will want to have a Practice Social Media policy in place.  In other words, how will you and your employees handle social media in your practice?

Are you noticing how all of these are building on one another?

4) Becoming distracted.  Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but if not careful can be time consuming and become overwhelming.

Invitations to connect…invitations to events…join this group…attend this meeting…It’s no wonder after awhile many pages just sit there gathering “virtural dust”.  You MUST learn to stay focused.  Remember your goals and your objectives.  Stick to your game plan!

5) Spreading yourself too thin.  Knowledge of the difference social platforms, the different tools like plugins, applications, widgets, etc and the time involved.  Time is a BIG factor!

When first entering the arena, you might want to join one of the social platforms…maybe Twitter or Facebook.  Then as you get comfortable with that platform, move on the next.   Either way, there are some short cuts you can use to help when you are pressed for time. 

One of the biggest helps, is pre-scheduling your tweets using social platforms like HootSuite.com or SocialOomph.com.  Both allow you to schedule your tweets into the future. Hourly, daily, monthly…whenever.  It’s a great way to deligate some of the time involved.

Another is to link up content to RSS Feeds.  You can also set up and create Autoresponder messages.  These are messages you create  to go out at specific dates and times.  Sort of like having your business on Auto-pilot.

Well, we’ve made a list…hope you’re checking it twice.  What about you?  What mistake can you add to this list  to avoid when using social media?

Technorati Tags: Building Business, Internet Marketing, Livvie Matthews, social media marketing

Never underestimate the power of perception! Perception plays a major part in what is actually said -vs- how it is heard. And to patients…perception is reality!

For example, lets look at broken appointments, one of the biggest problems in your practice. Last minute changes and no show appointments account for thousands of dollars a month in lost revenue for the practice!

Are you sending signals to your patients that it’s all right to break appointments?

When the patient calls and says they “forgot.” or “Have a meeting.” or “Just want to reschedule.” Is your response ” That’s OK.”, “Sure, that’s no problem.” or simply…”How soon do you want to come back? ” And then schedule them right back at the 1st available opening?

A well established practice with a scheduling coordinator who knows the patients well may have a sense of “offending” the patient if they remind them of the dilemma this last minute changes will make.

Nothing could be further from the truth or more harmful to the practice!

An unusually high number of broken appointments generally translates into a lack of respect concerning your practice and appointment time and “time is money.”

Generally patients simply are not aware of the problems associated with last minute changes because they have been “trained” (they hear) it’s so easy to change the appointment.

Often before we can “train” the patient, the front office must first “re-train” their response to these last minute calls.

For example, when the specific date or time a new patient or existing patient wants is not available, if our reply is: “We get cancellations every day” or even worse, “We get cancellations all the time and can get you right in”, what have we taught this patient?

In just a matter of seconds the patient has been “taught” (heard) It’s all right to call at the last minute to change an appointment, cancellations happen all the time, when they do cancel they can get “right back in.”

The patient has no value associated with the practice or the appointment time. In fact, we “signaled” (and they heard) it’s OK!

A more positive verbal response would be: “Let’s go ahead and schedule you an appointment. Should there be a change in our schedule on that date, I will be glad to call you. What is the best number to reach you? ”

This time in just a matter of seconds you have trained the new patient and existing patient to think (they heard): You have a tight schedule (busy practice), “Cancellations” are not even mentioned (not an option) and there could be a wait before being re-appointed if they have to change—(best keep the appointment!)

Value is now being associated with the practice and the appointment time.

This problem didn’t happen overnight and won’t be “fixed” overnight. Making it a priority to use positive verbal skills when training your patients to value their appointment and practice time will make a noticeable difference.

After all, how you are perceived by your patients is everything, and it’s all in their Perception…. What your patients are (Really) hearing!

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Would you like to learn more about using Social Media to increase your online visibility, build profitable relationships, and grow your practice?  Livvie Matthews, a Certified Social Media Specialist, Blogger, and Speaker, is passionate about helping dentists leverage the incredible marketing power social media presents for their practice and their bottom line!  e-mail Livvie@writebusiness.net or visit http://www.writebusiness.net/blog

Technorati Tags: Article Mktg, Building Business, Dental Marketing, Internet Marketing, Livvie Matthews

With all the buzz about social media, social networking, and other social sites, it can get very frustrating not to mention distracting.

All of this with social media is good, but be careful.  This is about being social yes…but you must keep your focus. 

Facebook has many distractions.  Applications, games, surveys, sending cards and flowers, joining different groups…etc.  Twitter can be distracting as well with all the tweets coming through, applications, responses, direct messages… etc

I’ve witnessed this first hand since beginning about a year ago.  There can be so many things to try to do, applications to try, posting on Facebook and Twitter, creating a profile for LinkedIn and just the day to day “to dos” in addition to so much to learn.

This is one of the main questions asked, “How much time will I have to put into social media”?  The answer depends on what you want to accomplish and yes, you will have to spend some time with updates, responses, and blog postings.  But how focused you are can determine if it’s a lot of time, or just the time needed.

Here are a few things to try:

1. Determine your focus.  Always stick to your core messages and values.  Make sure your posts reflect those messages and values.  The general rule is 80%-90% business and 10%-20% personal. 

2. Make a list: Write down what you want to accomplish today, this week, this month.  Break it down into “doable” sizes and cross them off as you complete them.  There’s something about seeing a list with accomplishments marked off that keeps the energy flowing.

3. Set your timer: Allow specific items a specific amount of time to get accomplished.  When the timer goes off, wrap it up and move to the next item.  If you’ve timed it right, hopefully the item is complete, but if it’s not, it’s well on it way to completion when addressed the next time.

4. Allow times for breaks: This can be one of the most look over items.  Stop what you are doing, walk away from your desk and on to your porch or deck.  Take a few deep breaths of fresh air.  If you can’t go out at the moment, if there is a window near your desk, just turn away from your desk and enjoy the view outside your window.  All through the summer I enjoyed watching several humming birds flying around the hanging basket near my computer room window.

These are just a few things to help you keep your focus.  What can you add to the list?

Technorati Tags: Building Business, Copywriting, Internet Marketing, Livvie Matthews

Recently I responded to a colleague, Rita Zamora’s, post discussing social media and the mistake sometimes made of thinking it’s free.  

As noted on my response, I agree it’s a mistake to pretend social media is free.  Although joining the sites  such as Twitter, Facebook,  LinkedIn, YouTube, etc are free, there is the time involved in maintaining the sites, especially when maintained well.         

However when you consider the massive amount of money spent by businesses/practices on traditional advertising/marketing, yellow page ads,   direct mail out’s that reach about 3% at best 5% of the market mailed to (makes you wonder what happened to the other 95% of their investment). and magazine ads, then you factor in how many, or should we say how few, people are actually reached with traditional advertising, the cost of budgeting money for a ongoing social media presence pales in comparison. 

Printed ads are placed in books that go out into surrounding area’s that would most likely not drive all the way to your business, therefore, much of the paid information falls into non-targeted areas. 

Add to that the fact only about 15% of the population still uses telephone books and print ads with the other 85% using online sources, you can see why creating and maintaining your online line presence is critical to your business.

With social media, you have the golden opportunity to directly target your market as you increase your business/practice exposure while ultimately creating incredible opportunities to be visible and responsive to your market.

As with anything we build, social media takes time and as noted “time is money”, but whether social media is handled “in-house” by a (paid) employee or “outsourced” to a social media specialist, social media is word of mouth advertising at it’s (targeted) best!

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Would you like to learn more about using Social Media to increase your online visibility, build profitable relationships, and grow your practice?  Livvie Matthews, a Certified Social Media Specialist, Blogger, and Speaker, is passionate about helping dentists leverage the incredible marketing power social media presents for their practice and their bottom line!  Email livvie@writebusiness.net or visit http://www.writebusiness.net/blog

Technorati Tags: Building Business, Internet Marketing, Livvie Matthews, social media marketing