January comes to a close

Workouts: Check
Marketting Plan in the works: Check
Blog about it: Check
Money bryce is going to owe me at the end of the year: Cheque

Section 1: Situation Analysis

Current Service: General practice with TCM style Acupuncture, Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine and topical oil and tincture sales. I also teach a few classes on TCM related subjects at the Monterey Center.

Current Marketing: BNI (business referral group), Business Cards, Website, Health shows, community talks/workshops.

Current Marketing Advantages: The ability to go in on marketing costs with my colleagues;
There are no other acupuncturists in this area of town, about a mile radius; The clinic has a pre-existing website and branding that we all are able to use; specialization of Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture gives me a niche market

Current Marketing Challenges: lack of money for expensive marketing ideas, the city is quite saturated with acupuncturists already

I have been in business for 1 year. My patient base is 71 patients, with 32 of them coming to see me regularly at the moment. I am seeing roughly 10 patients a week.
There is a breakdown of the number of patients I saw per month for the last 11 months since I started:
March 2007: 20
April 2007: 16
May 2007: 31
June 2007: 52
July 2007: 57
August 2007: 39
September 2007: 37
October 2007: 33
November 2007: 24
December 2007: 29
January 2007: 42

Resolution/Weekend update

There are 10 days left in the month, and I still have a ton of workouts to do to make my "goal" of 12.. I think I've done 7 now, I'll have to check on my computer at home. Which means 5 more in the next 10 days. That's not too bad, I suppose. Zeke, our kinesiologist, created a workout routine for me that I'm supposed to be doing daily (atleast part of it) and the weights every couple days. I have to be honest, my arms and legs are *still* sore from my session with him on Friday. He had me doing a bunch of weights, lunges, squats, etc. I haven't done lunges in like 10 years since I played volleyball, so that hurt afterwards.. I was also doing some benchpress type stuff with free weights, and my pecs are still killing me.

I was at the health fair over the weekend. Liz and I shared the booth on Sunday, so Saturday we went around and scoped out the fair to get ideas for our booth (Sean did the Saturday at our booth) Then we came to the clinic to pick up our stuff, then to Liz's place and mine to grab a few things for decorations, then we met Sean at 6 to trade over the booth and set up our crap. That was a ton of work.. we had so much stuff, and we had to pack it into Liz's car like a Tetris game, then haul it all into the fair. Our booth looked awesome tho, so it was worth it. Then we headed back to my place where we all played Rockband, drank wine, and ate natcho's for the evening. Sunday was madness.. we were at the health fair all day, and our booth was swamped. Finally, at 5:30, we could pack up our stuff and haul it back to the clinic. I think that took about 2 1/2 hours.. I got home at 8pm totally exhausted and jumped into a hot bath. Today I didn't want to get out of bed, it didn't feel like I had a weekend at all.. but what do you do. I'm going to try to get in a workout tonight when I get home.

Final Day of my Cleanse

So, here it is, the 12th day of my cleanse. I'm pretty ready for it to be over. I miss bread. That being said tho, I have enjoyed the meals I had during the cleanse.. it was alot of stuff like sauteed fish with rice and steamed veggies... simple, but tasty. I also ate a ton of apples on my cleanse.. that was kindof my fallback snack to have when I didn't feel like thinking of anything else.

Workouts are going well, I have done 6 so far this month, which keeps me right on track for my 12 per month. I am looking forward to this friday. I have an appointment with Zeke, our kinesiologist in the clinic. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with Sean (chiro) to get a full assessment of what's going on with my body, and I'll take the results to Zeke who will help me develop a workout routine that will touch on everything I need to do for my body to be at it's best. I was feeling like I needed to do something like that cuz I'm just doing a few weights for my arms in my workouts, and I know this isn't enough, but I wasn't too sure what to do. Zeke wants to trade kine. sessions for acupuncture, so that's perfect.
Another cool thing is Liz wants to start trading massage for acupuncture, so I have an hour massage scheduled for tomorrow too :D Damn I love trades.

Business: Well, there's a lot on the go right now for my business, although I haven't started actively typing out a marketing plan, I have stuff on the go for marketing.
1) I just found out the results to my TCMP exam, and I passed, so this means getting my registration stuff sorted out, and then changing my business cards to have my new credentials, changing the sign on the door, changing the website, and also the Canpages (the 2nd yellow pages) ad.
2) Health Fair - next weekend Liz and I are sharing a booth at the Health Fair. I plan to make some coupons to hand out for 50% off a treatment. Which I think is a smokin deal, and will hopefully get people into the clinic.
3) New person in the clinic - this is me indirectly marketing myself. I had an appointment for some waxing last wednesday. The esthetician I see is amazing, and she mentioned to me that she is going to be moving clinic spaces. She hadn't decided on one yet, and we are looking for a part time person to share Julie's room with her now that Liz is going full time. Anyways, the more I thought about it, the sweeter it sounded that she could move in to our clinic. It would be a good fit for a number of reasons:
1) She has a huge clientelle that she would expose to our clinic.
2) It's not duplicating services that we already offer.
3) She would then refer to us as she saw fit, and us to her.
4) She is one of the best estheticians in town, thus having another really high
quality practitioner in our clinic.
All these things, I think, will help our clinic to get more and more busy, and the more diversity of patients that are coming thru here, the more chance of referrals. Although at first glance, an esthetician might not be the most likely candidate to work in a clinic with chiro, kine, massage, acupuncture.. I think that if you are paying attention to your body, from either a health standpoint or an esthetic standpoint, you are more likely to want to feel good from the other as well.

Day 8

Today is day 8 of my cleanse. I'm finished on Monday the 14th. I was originally thinking I might do a second cleanse after this one, but have decided against it for a couple of reasons:
1) I feel pretty great atm and don't think I actually need to do the 2nd one, and
2) I just found out that I passed my TCMP exam, and I want to celebrate, which means all my friends will likely buy me shots (atleast that's what happened last time - a fun evening, I was so happy over my exam, with a fair number of shots in me, I was laughing and crying at the same time most of the night. Paul was laughing at me a lot, and I don't blame him )

The cleanse is going well tho, I'm feeling quite energetic. The only thing that is a pain in the butt is having to prepare food and really think it thru a lot more than I'm used to. It's pretty damn hard to get anything that is "ok" to eat on my cleanse at any restaurant around here, so if I don't make enough food each day, I'm kinda hooped.

Exercise wise: All is going well, I finally got into the gym last night at 9pm after a very busy day. I intended to go right when I got home, but by the time I made dinner, got groceries, cleaned up from dinner, washed my sheets for the clinic, etc etc, it was 9. I am finding it easier to workout tho. I have mentioned before that I find running on some machine excruciatingly boring, but it has been getting easier every single time. I believe I've done 5 workouts so far this month.. which keeps me well on track with the "12 per month" thing. Yesterday I upped the time on my cardio by 5 minutes (10 minutes if you count me racing back upstairs halfway thru my workout when I realized I'd left walnuts toasting in the oven ) I also increased my weights a bit. So I did 25 minutes on the eliptical, and 3 sets of 12 each of military press(2 8lb weights), biceps (10 lb weights) and triceps (10 lb).. and some situps and stretching. Not too shabby. Honestly, I could probably go way more hardcore on my workouts, but my intention is just to workout regularily, so I'm starting slow. As long as I break a sweat and get my heart rate up a bit, I'm happy. Once I'm into the routine of going 3 to 4 times a week, I'll start going longer on the cardio.

I made an appointment to see Sean (or chiro) for early next week. Once I get an assessment done of what muscles are weak, I'll go see Zeke (our kinesiologist) and get the exercises I need to strengthen the "problem" areas of my body. That is my plan. It's a simple plan, but I think it will work out just fine.

Marketing Plan

Whilst reading some of the past issues from the Chinese Medicine Times, I came across this little article which I thought had some good ideas. As part of my resolution, I am going to work on this marketing plan, so this might be helpful:

Tested Methods to Increase the Power of your Clinic Ads, Flyers, Sales Letters and Promotions

by Gavin Hurlimann

What makes one clinic marketing promotion get a huge response and another to fail miserably? More often than not, it’s the execution. It’s the way you do it.

All advertising and marketing is based on fixed principles. Advertising operates according to fundamental laws and not chance. These laws and principles were set out by Claude C. Hopkins (1867 – 1932) in 1923. They are based on 36 years of tested and monitored advertising – ads, letters and promotions whose results were monitored and compared.

These advertising laws were set by doing marketing campaigns on thousands of different services and products, from toothpaste to heavy machinery. Thousands of ads, headlines and layouts were compared and analyzed. There are some exceptions that don’t follow these laws, but they are few and far between. These services or products are usually in such high demand that they would have been successful regardless.

Here are the eleven laws that will increase the results of your advertising…

#1. Free vouchers, gift certificates with a “scarcity” factor and 0800 numbers increase response. Countless tests prove that free vouchers or gift certificates multiply returns. People defer action, then forget. A gift certificate or free voucher (see pages 90 to 93 for vouchers and gift certificates) reminds the person to take action and to either call your clinic or take it with them to the place of business. 0800 numbers encourage people to phone simply because it’s free.

#2. Always use 8, 10 or 12 font size. Almost of our reading is done in newspaper size print. If you test your results, you’ll find that oversize font does not pay. Double your size and you double your cost. If your ad or flyer is interesting, people will read it in a font size they are used to. If it’s not, they won’t read it in any size or any style.

#3. Don’t use capitals. Most of our reading is done in upper and lower case types. People are used to that. If you write in capitals, it takes time to study
them out and you’ll lose readers that way. Follow the natural and usual format.

#4. Pictures usually don’t sell. In most cases, the cost of the extra space taken up by a picture will not pay for itself. You must experiment by trying ads with, and without pictures and working out the cost of each. The one exception to this rule is a “headshot” of you (smiling). Often this will create the feeling of “familiarity and trust” with the reader.

#5. Always tell the full story. People don’t read ads in a series. Every ad should tell the full story. When you attract a readers’ attention, present all the arguments for your service or product. You may not get another reading from that person in months. Always include all the important benefits your service or product has. You wouldn’t send out a salesperson for your clinic and tell them to “keep it brief”. You’d want them to present all the advantages of coming to your clinic and not your competitors. Newspaper or flyer advertising is simply “Salesmanship in Print”, so the general rule for ads, flyers and letters is always…

“The more you tell, the more you sell”

#6. Superlative claims don’t count. Give actual facts and specifics. To say something like, “best in town”, “for all your health needs” or “outstanding clinical results” makes no impression. These are expected claims and the reader loses interest and respect for you because of the exaggeration. If you say, “same day appointment” or “no appointment necessary” (when you’re starting out), “serving the health needs of XXX community since XXX” or “official treatment provider for XYZ rugby team”, people will realize you have credibility as they don’t expect you to lie about these claims in print.

#7. Never advertise negatively. Always present the positive aspect of your service or product. Show and feature the great results your treatment has provided for your patients by including one or two line testimonials in your advertising. All people seek the same basic wants in life – happiness, safety, health, love and acceptance. Show prospects through your advertising that you and your clinic can provide these wants.

#8. Prevention does not sell. Cure does. All tests in advertising show that people will do little to prevent ill heath but they will do almost anything to cure it. Patients seek the latest improvements, advantages and new ways to satisfy their desires in life. Focus your ad copy on providing the solutions and your advertising results will quickly multiply.

#9. It is an uphill battle to sell your service in print (or in person) without vouchers and free trials. To succeed in your business, you must let prospective new patients sample your treatment skills or health products. This allows them to be “emotionally” involved with you and your clinic. So offer them a FREE initial consultation on enquiring to do this. The cost of this free “sampling” is the cheapest way to get the highest results from your ads.

Free “sampling” of your clinic will build up your business in the quickest and cheapest way, particularly if you are starting from scratch.

#10. Learn what headline most appeals to your target market. You will multiply the results of your ads by eight, fourteen or nineteen times by a change of headline. A headline acts as a flashing light with a person’s name on it. You select what you read by headlines. So it is with ads. You must always measure what effect a change in headline has on your results (see page 38 for the best headlines).

#11. Never rely on your judgement and experience in advertising. Test everything you do in the most exact way possible. In Australia, a panel of advertising “experts” was asked to vote on a series of ads to determine which ads had the best results. In all cases, they got 50% wrong when comparing these ads. Are you game to say you know better?...

“Test everything you do and monitor the results”.

Always “sell” your benefits.

So having now established your “thing” or UBA, you should now concentrate on “branding it”

The best way to do this is to decide on your “benefits to the patient” and stick to them. Your benefits are the main reasons why people come to your clinic in the first place. As we have already discussed, benefits are what the patient gets from using your service, herbal formulas or other health products.

However, benefits must not be confused with “features”. In all your marketing you must always turn features into benefits. Most clinic businesses when producing a flier, brochure, or even a business card will merely list their features without pointing out the benefits of those features.

For example, here is a list of some common clinic features one always sees in many NZRA practitioners’ advertisements or fliers…

‘NZRA registered’
‘ACC healthcare provider’
‘Free parking’
‘We are on the main street’
‘We are right next to the XYZ medical centre’
‘We are the largest importer of…’
‘We have the best and largest variety of…’
‘We care’
“Masters Degree China”

These are all features that still don’t tell the prospective patient what these features mean to them or what benefit these are to them. By adding a benefit to each feature listed you can turn any piece of marketing material into a great selling tool that entices a prospective patient to your clinic and not your competitors. For example, add the following benefits to the above listed features and you will see what I mean.

NZRA registered -
‘So you will receive only professional, qualified treatment from us’

ACC healthcare provider -
‘Prompt, qualified ACC injury treatment from us’

Free parking -
‘No hassles with parking for you’

We are on the main street -
‘Easy for you to find us at our central location’

Next to the XYZ medical centre -
‘Convenient ACC referrals for any injury available from Dr XXX next door ’

We are the largest importer of -
‘Because of our large range, all your health requirements are taken care of here’

We have the best and largest variety of -
‘You will have no need to walk all over town’

We care -
‘We give you personal, individualized treatment every time’

Masters Degree China -
‘Providing a wealth of treatment knowledge tailored specifically for you’.

Benefits are the most important “selling tool” for any clinic business and should always be used when presenting your service or products. Never market on features alone. For a patient to pay for your services or product, you need to spell out what the benefits of your service and clinic are for them.

Benefits when constantly used become your “brand”. You already have a great CAM skill and now it’s the actions and methods you employ to deliver that skill that your clinic business will become known for. In other words, the benefits to the patient of dealing with you.

You should write down all the features of your clinic business and turn them into benefits. List all of the benefits of dealing with your clinic business and have them visible everywhere. Don’t just rely on yourself and your staff to tell patients - have these benefits in everyone’s view every day.

Put them on all your advertising material, on your windows, on your newsletters, and on your business cards. Actually, your business card should be the number one brochure for your business. Don’t waste your money by just putting your name and contact details on it, but also use it to sell your service and products (see pages 76 to 79 for business cards).

Prospective patients want to know why they should come to your business and not your competitors. The reasons “why” are your benefits and they form your brand and what it stands for. So you must push your brand in front of everyone out there, and the best way to do this is to sell the benefits. Don’t sell the features, sell the benefits of your service and you will automatically sell the product - which is your TCM clinic - and get more profits.

Set out to create an image that people are drawn to and then be consistent in developing that image in the public eye. Create that perception of value by always “selling” your benefits (see page 23 for UBAs and Branding).

This article is an excerpt from “How to get more profits from your clinic – even if you have little or no money!” Gavin Hurlimann is the editor in chief of the NZRA Journal of TCM, a practicing acupuncturist in Auckland, New Zealand and an acknowledged expert in marketing for healthcare practitioners. For more info, email: hurlimann@slingshot.co.nz

Rockband

I have spent all day playing Rockband.. and since I've been playing drums, I figure I've gotten a workout :P
But in all seriousness.. it is that "womanly" time of month, so I'm refraining from the gym for today. However, I'm still on track with my cleanse. Yesterday's menu consisted of 3 eggs scrambled with herbs, about a cup of soaked almonds, which I began to get really sick of by the end of the day, but they were all I had left of my work snacks, an apple, steamed broccoli with tahini and lemon on it, a plate of Quinoa also with tahini sauce, the rest of the cold smoked tuna loin (maybe a small fist size?) 1/4 of a cucumber, another apple with tahini sauce, and a few cups of tea throughout the day, either mint or a homemade concoction I was making with the leftover lemon peels from all the lemons I've been using, sliced ginger, 1 clove bud, and 1 bay leaf. It's pretty good, and apparently cloves are great for the anti candida diet I'm on with this cleanse.
Then we had a gang of people come over to play rock band last night, and they all drank beer and ate cookies dipped in chocolate that I can't have.. I wanted cookies.. but I was good and I didn't lose my willpower. Yay me.

Today (so far) I have had apple and tahini, my herb supplements, 3 eggs with half a chicken breast, a "coleslaw" thing that I made with red cabbage, orange pepper, grated up broccoli hearts, celery seed, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and a tarragon olive oil; half a baked buttercup squash, 4 or so cups of my homemade lemon and herb tea, and some more of the coleslaw. I'm probably going to eat the other half of that baked squash in a bit, and maybe some Quinoa since there's leftovers. I admit, I'm craving something sweet right now.. but I can't think of anything other than apples and tahini to quench that craving so I might just try to ignore it.

Day 1

Today Bryce convinced me to join his Resolution Challenge.
I have a bunch of health goals, tho the main ones are short term rather than long term, such as this cleanse I am on. However, I do want to make a commitment to working out 3-4 times a week, so that is my goal for the year. So I had that in mind before this talk of the challenge came up, and have already started on that.

Why, you might ask, do I have these health goals? Well, let me tell you:
This year I turn 30. This is slightly scary to me.. and I figure I've been lucky so far to be in such good shape as I am, and it's probably only cuz I'm young and resilient and all that. Working out for me has been difficult in the past few years cuz I find it exceptionally boring to run on a machine for an hour. When I was growing up and in university and stuff, I played a ton of sports; Volleyball, Soccer, Karate, Aikido, Track and Field, etc.. so I was always in shape, but it never seemed hard cuz I was having fun doing it. Once I wasn't on those teams anymore, workouts were much more whimsical and unscheduled.. which translated into nonexistant.. lol
So anyways, now that I'm going to be 30, I figure I better get my act together.

I am starting out the year with a cleanse. It's a 12 day detox diet and herbal supplement thing. Here are the details:
http://www.wrc.net/wrcnet_content/dietplans/d-tox_diet_12day.htm
I can't eat any flour, sugar, alcohol, mushrooms, dairy (except butter), or peanuts, or tropical fruits. There's a ton of stuff I can eat tho, so it's fine. I think the hardest part so far is the flour.. I eat a lot of things like toast and crackers and stuff usually.

I might keep track of my foods for the whole 12 days, just for kicks. so here is the first few days of the year:

Jan 1st:
Not on my cleanse yet. I woke up hung over sometime around noon, then we went for breakfast by 4pm and I had steak and eggs with pancakes with a ton of syrup, and tea. For "dinner" since it was only a few hours later and we were at a movie, I ate half a bucket of gross theatre popcorn. the end

January 2nd:
Workout: 20 min on elliptical trainer, weight reps on military press, biceps and triceps 3 sets of 12 with skipping rope in between each set for 100 count. Stretching.

I wasn't on my cleanse yet, but I didn't eat any sugar that day, I mainly had leftovers from the turkey dinners and the new years eve party. The only sugar I had was whatever was in the cranberry sauce (which I made from scratch, so it wasn't that much)

January 3rd: started Wild Rose Herbal D-Tox (12 day cleanse) .. I have to stick to a diet with no sugar or flour etc. plus take supplements twice a day
Food eaten: 3 eggs – scrambled with Thyme, Oregano and salt
mint tea
1 cup of almonds for snack throughout day
1 cup of Greens+
2 bok choy steamed with ginger and a touch of sesame oil
A huge salad with red leaf lettuce, orange pepper, cabbage, red onion, carrot, tomato, with fresh lemon juice and tarragon olive oil for dressing. A few slices of cold smoked tuna on top
An apple with tahini dressing
Ginger, clove, bay leaf and lemon boiled in water for tea.


More to come as the cleanse continues