Deah Curry’s Four Switches

Following up on yesterday’s interview with Deah Curry, here are some fundamentals from her “No Hype Mentor Method” to building a private practice.

Four Switches to Make to Get a Cash Based Practice

Deah Curry, PhD

Switch #1 ~ Speak Marketing

Most health care practitioners speak clinician-ese. This doesn’t connect with people who are seeking help, and may in fact be intimidating to them, creating a counterproductive barrier that actually drives them away. To attract a cash paying clientele you must learn to speak the language of marketing.

• Talk directly to an ideal client type. Use second person tense.
• Talk about them, not about you.
• Save all information about your credentials for your About Me website page.
• Talk about their negative experience of their problem, using phrasing they would use.
• Talk about the outcome they want from you, using phrasing they would use.
• Talk about these things in the emotional language of a 5-7 year old.
• Use direct, concrete, specific descriptions of what their suffering does and/or prevents.
• Use direct, concrete, specific descriptions of the results they are desperate for, and will pay for.

Switch #2 ~ Niche Yourself

Niche marketing is NOT the same as limiting the scope of your practice. It will not prevent people outside your niche from wanting to work with you. This is one of the most difficult concepts for clinicians to understand, and one of the most crucial mindset switches you must make. Niche marketing is only about putting a bright spotlight on you. It is not about how you practice or who you accept as a client.

Niche marketing positions you as a specialist or expert. Marketing psychology shows that people naturally make the intuitive leap from understanding that you excel at a particular problem, to assuming that you must also be good at other problems. To establish your niche you must:

• Focus on one ideal client type in clear, concrete, specific language.
• Decide what problem they have, and describe it in clear, concrete, specific language.
• Make that “problem” what you most enjoy helping solve, heal, or change.
• Be confident about the outcome you can help people achieve, in clear, concrete, specific language.
• Exude trust and rapport in all marketing efforts.
• Resist watering down your niche with too many variations and options.
• Be focused and consistent in marketing to your niche in multiple venues.
• Plan multiple ways to market to your niche (see reverse for some ideas).
• Continually refine your language to make it even more specific and emotion-connecting.
• Give your marketing efforts enough time to bear fruit – usually 6-12 months.

Switch #3 ~ Be Persistent

Marketing is an ongoing endeavor. It is a necessary part of running a successful business. Just like bookkeeping, marketing needs to be done on a continual basis. Having a marketing plan helps you be focused and consistent in your efforts, rather than hit and miss. Working your plan ensures that your efforts are timely in connecting with the felt-need of your ideal clients, and also guarantees that you don’t miss advertising deadlines. When you don’t have a plan, or aren’t continually working your plan, it’s difficult to establish a steady stream of cash-paying clients. Persistence in niche marketing might include:

• Contracting to run advertising for 6-12 months in monthly publications.
• Running advertising for 9-16 weeks in weekly publications.
• Having a signature talk and presenting it where your ideal clients go for information.
• Having a website with a well maintained blog.
• Producing a patient education ezine on a monthly or quarterly basis.
• Networking with potential referral sources, such as doctors and other allied professionals.
• Getting hard copies of your ezine on display in others’ offices.
• Teaching a community education workshop on a regular basis.
• Keeping track of what type of marketing works well for you and do more of that.
• Keeping track of how your competition does their marketing and learn from that.
• Keeping track of what type of marketing does not feel natural or energizing for you, and stop that.
• Making appointments with yourself to work on your marketing plan, and keeping them.
• Using half a day a week for marketing when you have all the clients you want.
• Using 2 hours a day for marketing until you have all the clients you want.

Switch #4 ~ Invest in a Sticky Website

A sticky website not only makes visitors want to stay and read more, but return time and again because there is so much of value, or because there is new information posted on a frequent (meaning, weekly) basis. Research shows that when a website isn’t sticky, visitors click away within 3-10 seconds. You have only that long to connect, establish rapport, and stimulate the desire to know more.

Research also shows that 98 million adults use the internet to search for health care services each year. NAMI reports that mental health sites are one of the top 5 searched for sites. That’s good and bad news – good because it makes the relatively inexpensive venture of having a website a good investment, but bad in that your competition likely has one too. There’s more pressure than ever to make your website really do its job for you in terms of attracting potential clients and converting them to appointment-makers.

Website Do’s

• Speak marketing (see Switch #1).

• Speak to your niche (see Switch #2).

• Engage visitors with something interactive (leaving blog comments, ezine sign up, take a quiz, etc).

• Give away free tips in exchange for getting their email address (creates a pool of prospects).

• Repeatedly insert a call to action (a suggestion to call for an appointment).

Website Don’ts

• Link to others’ websites – it encourages people to wander off and not call for appointment.

• Extol your own virtues except on your bio page – exception: do say I can help.

• Write in the third person as if you are writing a book report in high school — it’s cold and impersonal.

• Use professional jargon – it’s confusing, meaningless, distancing, and intimidating.

Find Deah Curry online at thenohypementor.com and on the No Hype Marketing Mentor Blog.