Paul Wright is a well-known allied healthcare business mentor. Founder of Practiceology, Paul’s career has taken many paths. Somewhere between his respective roles as a Physical Education teacher in 1987 and a physiotherapist in 1990, he developed a knack for opening healthcare clinics across multiple disciplines. Along the way, he developed strong business acumen and turned his efforts to helping practice owners in areas including business marketing, recruitment, and practice growth. Though he didn’t follow an identical path, Paul’s professional journey sounds like that of our Founder and Director, Prabin Gautam.
It’s no wonder Paul invited Prabin to speak on the latest episode of his podcast, ‘7 Questions in 7 Minutes’.
In this podcast episode, Prabin talks about the major ongoing issue for healthcare organizations in Australia: understaffing. He talks about how branding and online presence can be a great avenue for attracting and retaining quality talent. Culminating such allied health marketing and recruitment efforts beneath the roof of a medical marketing agency is a novel approach that few other organizations have attempted. He also talks about the errors he has seen at least one other healthcare marketing agency make in terms of recruitment and generating patients.
What are practice owners’ common errors?
In the podcast, Prabin cites three common mistakes that practice owners make in terms of digital marketing and recruitment:
- Not hiring the right people
If you’re running a boutique allied healthcare service, you’ll want to hire outstanding members of the profession with years of experience. If practice owners are settling for less, this is a sign that something is awry.
- Repeating past mistakes
To quote the words often misattributed to Albert Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If practice owners’ strategies do not work the first few times, repeating them will achieve nothing.
- Not building the correct foundations
This point ties into the above, but it pertains to a practice owner thinking like, well, a practice owner and less like an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial thinking is not a prerequisite for running a practice—you can delegate the marketing and recruitment components elsewhere, be it internally or to someone like Prabin. However, the issue arises when practice owners neglect these strategies altogether. That’s where an allied health marketing agency like VIS Health can step in.
How can practice owners address these errors?
The answer to this question is not straightforward. It involves shifting from an administrative, task-oriented mindset to an entrepreneurial one. In an hour-long interview with Paul, Prabin describes the process of shifting between his technological and entrepreneurial mindsets. Unfortunately, the two do not work together. Whilst the former is perfectionistic at the expense of time and all else, the latter is savvier when it comes to opportunities. It understands that sometimes you must compromise quality to meet timeframes or focus on the grander picture.
Actual footage of the inside of an entrepreneur’s brain.
If we had to choose a synonym for ‘entrepreneurial’, it would be ‘opportunity-aware’. Entrepreneurs see opportunities and possibilities in everything they cast their eyes on. For example, whilst a practice manager may be preoccupied with the day-to-day running of their clinic, entrepreneurs will see all the opportunity costs of focusing on that one (albeit all-consuming) aspect. Prabin’s advice is to send the right messages to the right clients at the right time. Rather than taking a general approach, you need to know your target audience, tailor the messaging to them, and send it in their direction. Don’t just make it a one-off thing, either. If they didn’t engage the first time, send the messaging again—but long enough after the first one to not appear irritating.
What do we mean by ‘messaging’? This can take a number of forms. Digital marketing for allied health can take the form of targeted advertising on social media or Google. If you already have clients on your database, it can take the form of EDMs. Another aspect of this is SEO for allied health professionals, but that is a whole other blog post in itself.
If practice managers are having a hard time alternating between the two mindsets, they have the option to delegate the targeted messaging to a healthcare marketing agency that can.
Are you getting the most out of your practice?
If you’re running a healthcare practice, you deserve to get the most out of it. This means recruiting the right employees and attracting the right patients. As described above, there are some strategies you can take to make this happen—but it is a whole other job in itself. If you’ve got enough on your plate, why not employ a medical marketing agency that can grow conversions for you?
If this resonates with you, reach out to VIS Health and we can work together to grow your practice faster and better. We also run an allied health marketing agency exclusively for dental practices, so be sure to check out 360° Dental Marketing, too. At VIS, we pride ourselves on being your trusted growth partner. Work with us and we will be in touch every week—like your own personal marketing team!
In the meantime, you can view Prabin’s episode of ‘7 Questions in 7 Minutes here. For Paul’s full interview with Prabin, check out the YouTube link here.
