Build a Client Email List, and Get Paid To Do It

There’s the good, and the not-so-good.

There are ways that feel honest, clean, and solid, and the ones that feel… messy.

I’m talking about building your practice.  We all know there are easy, straightforward methods that feel right, and give you the sense that you’re positively developing yourself as well as your business.

And then there are those that make you feel like you have a second job as a used car salesman.

To that end, we’re going to talk about one of the most consistent, least expensive, and most fulfilling ways to build your patient or client base.

But first, I need to say something.

It’s something that most practitioners never want to say around their peers.  It goes against what healthcare practice owners are told on an almost daily basis, implicitly or explicitly.  That’s ok.  I’m going to say it anyway.

I don’t want to “hustle” to keep my practice running.

I don’t want to constantly “market”, “network”, have an ad budget, or get out and do public talks.  

I don’t want to feel like I’m constantly asking, pleading, convincing, or bargaining to have people walk through my door.

I don’t want to take insurance (having to fight even more to get paid what I’m worth, and compromise on what my patient really needs in the process) and I don’t want the huge staff that’s necessary to keep this behemoth monster of marketing, advertising, and insurance wrangling at work just so my practice can keep its doors open.

And in the days of a global pandemic, lockdowns, and an environment where patients are even more skittish about coming into an office, guess what?  I still don’t want to do any of that.

I know this is exactly what the so-called practice building “gurus” say I should be doing.  They say I need to advertise, offer a ton of services, and be out networking.

But here’s what actually feels right to me: I want to do good work, and have patients come and see me because of it.

Is that such a radical idea?

If I were to believe what I was told in school, or what I hear other practitioners saying on a regular basis, you would think the only way to survive is to hustle for patients every day.  I would still believe that fiction if I hadn’t seen, first hand, many inspiring practices that are completely different.

These practices are 100% referral-based, have zero advertising budget, don’t take insurance, and are thriving to the tune of multiple 6 figure revenue and about 15% overhead.

Because of that, I held fast to my dreams for a different kind of practice.  And while I was eventually able to build exactly what I wanted, I learned some valuable lessons along the way.

Then, and now, every practitioner I know who has an amazing, fun, referral-based, and highly profitable practice has one thing in common with their patients.

Connection.

Yes, they also have good skills, and regularly help people get better. (Note that I didn’t say “amazing skills”, or “off-the-chart skills”.  Just “good skills”, at a minimum.)  But each of these practitioners has a way of connecting to their patients and making them feel attended to, heard, and seen.

Some achieve this through their charisma in the office.  Some do it through a no-effort-spared enthusiasm to treating their patients, making them feel like they have their own personal champion.

Me?  I wasn’t graced with ebullient natural charisma, and I’ve never found that magic formula to make my patients instantly feel like I would stop at nothing to get them better, despite the drive I have inside.

What I did have was a persistent, analytical, and thorough mind.  I was always doing things to serve my patients better, and learn more for them.  I just needed a way to show it.

The irony was that all I needed to be able to do that was one of the simplest tools of all.

Email.

And no, I’m not talking about standard “email marketing”, advertising, newsletters, or anything of the sort.  I want you to look at this in a very different way.

Connect and Serve

If you want to nurture a low-overhead, referral-based practice, there’s no better way to do that than to connect with your patients in those times when they’re NOT in your office.

And right now, in the age of social distancing, business limitations, and increasing fear about being out in the world in any capacity, people are crying out for a different kind of message.

But how do you do that?

Our patients have been hunkering down at home for months now, getting used to “the new normal”.  This means what used to feel easy and comfortable for most people is now new, and a little weird.

If we want our patients to come see us again, they’re going to need to feel safe.  Would YOU jump into an uncertain situation for a stranger?  Probably not.

But you might for a friend, or for someone else with whom you had a stronger personal connection.  This fits perfectly with the referral-based practices we’re trying to build.

If we want to build this sense of trust when our patients aren’t around, there’s no better way to do that than with email.

Unlike an ad, a post on social media, or a newsletter, email is personal.  It shows up in their inbox, a space that most people guard pretty vigorously against unwanted intruders.

Most importantly, if you talk to them like real people, and not some generic marketing contact, they’ll respond in kind.  Trust will be built, and they’ll be much more likely to step foot in your office.

That said, understanding the concept and putting it into practice are two different animals.  To get going, you need these things:

• You have to know what you want to say.
• You have to have the systems in place to get your message out.

Give a Little

Remember what I said at the beginning? I’m not into the whole marketing thing.

Or at least, I thought I wasn’t, until I figured out that I could connect with my list by GIVING them something, rather than simply trying to TAKE something from them.

This, to me, is the difference between an email list I want to be on, and one that feels very cheap or salesy.

In other words, the content you provide needs to be about serving your patients.

Every now and then, you can ask something of them, or even promote something you want to sell, but your primary reason for showing up in their inbox should always be to serve.

So, give them what they need:

• Start asking your patients on a regular basis what kind of information would be helpful for them.  
• What, with your expertise, can you evaluate or make clearer for them that they’re unable to do for themselves?
• What perspective do you have that would allow them to see something differently, or even just be interesting?

And please don’t do the “My Practice Newsletter!” thing that we see so often.  It’s simply not relevant to most people.  Only your die-hard practice fans are going to be interested in whether you’re getting a new water cooler, or what the educational background of your new assistant may be.

People want human connection, so talk to them like they’re humans.  You don’t need fancy branding or, honestly, any branding at all.  If you really want it, you can always add flashier graphics later.  Just stay out of that “newsletter” territory.

However you communicate, pick one or two of your favorite patients (the ones who really love you and your work) and write or speak as if you were communicating with JUST that person.

Will it apply to everyone on your list? No.  But it’s far more valuable to tailor individual messages to particular subsets of your group, rather than trying to reach every person with every message.

For that matter, just because you’re sending out email doesn’t mean all your messages have to come in the form of text.  Communicate in whatever form seems the most natural to you.

If you like writing, write.

If you feel natural shooting videos, go for it.  (And if you’re afraid to get in front of the camera, the best thing you can do is just do more.  You WILL gain comfort over time if you keep at it.)

You can even record a basic podcast to send out to your list.  There are copious instructions to be found online on this topic, so if that path feels right to you, get to it!

Build Your List

Now that you have an idea of what you might send out, let’s get into the mechanics.  The first thing you need is a collection of email addresses – or a list.

Even if it’s only 10 people, it’s a good start, and you can (and should) build it over time.  Since a good email list builds more and more value as you nurture it over time, the sooner you start doing this, the better.

If you haven’t done this before, don’t worry.

Now is the PERFECT time to start communicating with your patients, because there’s a very easy (and real) excuse: there’s a seriously stressful set of events happening across the globe right now, and you’re just taking the time to check in.

If you want to get started fast, it IS possible to simply send a message to a small list by crafting a message in your regular email program and hitting “send”.  As your list gets larger, though (and if you work at this even a little, it WILL get larger), sending messages that way quickly becomes cumbersome.

In particular, you need to be able to give people a clear and easy way to UNsubscribe from your messages you send.  This is the polite and, in many cases, legal thing to do.

You also want to be able to track how many people open and read your messages, so you can gauge the effectiveness of your content over time.

For this and many other reasons, the best thing you can do is use an email marketing service.  These are services that specialize in managing your email list and allowing you to send, and track, messages to your people.

There are many of these available, and more online reviews of email marketing systems than I can count.  All of them will more than get the job done for any beginner, and many of them have very cheap or even free options for you to get started.

Once you’re signed up, make sure you have a process in place to collect email addresses.

The easiest way is through a simple option on your intake form.  Have wording that lets people know that if they want to receive additional content from you, all they have to do is check a box.

The beauty of this is that you will get paid to send things out.

How?

Easy.  Without fail, every time I send out a message — and this was true even when I had a small list of less than a hundred people — I get more people coming in to see me the following week.

I used to charge $75 for a followup session.  This means for every message I earned hundreds and sometimes thousands more, all just for taking the time to sit down and write a well-crafted, helpful message to my patients about some topic that interested me.

If your practice wasn’t busy and you had some extra time on your hands, and someone told you they’d pay you hundreds of dollars to spend a few hours researching and writing about something that interests you, would you do it?

If your practice isn’t full, you have the time to do it.  And why wouldn’t you use that time to do something that builds your knowledge and skill, and simultaneously brings more people in the door and reinforces your connection with your existing patients?

No Excuses

This is no time to give in to fear.  Despite everything that’s happening in the world, you CAN build exactly the kind of practice you want, without going down the same, stressed-out, high-overhead path that has been worn by so many other practitioners.

Are you ready to build your list?  Tell me why or why not.  I want to know.