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Other Added - Private Practice Marketing: Eight Steps to a Thriving Managed-Care Free Psychology Practice
Recently, an Associated Press article reported on a study suggesting that company staff meetings may "rank among the most inefficient exercises we perform." The study, conducted for GroupSystems Corp., included 130 responses from workers in organizations ranging from Intel to the U.S. Navy to George Washington University.If you attend regular staff meetings at work, you might not be surprised that most respondents in this study found these meetings to often be too long, too poorly organized, and too unproductive, rarely resulting in implemented action items.Many of us attend a lot of meetings. In fact, approximately 11 million meetings occur in the U.S. each day, and most managers attend about 60 meetings each month. That’s a lot of meetings, especially if many of them are not very valuable.A meeting — for the purposes of this article — occurs anytime two or more people come together for a scheduled interaction and a specific (if not stated) purpose. Here are some of the common types of meetings:One-on-one meetings:You probably conduct or participate in one-on-one meetings with your manager and/or your direct reports (in performance reviews, coaching sessions, career development discussions, and so on). These meetings allow for private and confidential discussions and allow you and the othe
Marketing skills and execution get better with time, experience and practice. To get the word out about you, become a good communicator so people can understand the impact that your services can offer. A business coach can be very beneficial with this step as well as the other seven.
Your task is to develop a referral engine.
Build a self-generating engine that keeps going easily and yields a steady flow of referrals.
You might do this by some or all of the following:
- Schedule a networking lunch with different referral sources each month.
- Give free talks to organizations.
- Send out a mailing every month or every quarter to your mailing list of past clients, referral sources and others.
- Get out of the office and meet people. Expand your mailing list by 10 names each month.
To work out a plan for marketing, you will need to set aside some time on a weekly basis.
To be successful, you will have to make marketing a priority and consistently engage in the most strategic activities.
7. Create a Follow-Up System
For those who do not initially accept your services, have a follow-up system in place.
The goal of marketing is to get prospective clients or referral sources to know, like and trust you. This usually takes multiple exposures to you over time.
A follow-up system makes sure you keep in contact with valuable referral sources and prospects and exposes them to you over and over.
Examples of elements in a follow-up system include a periodic newsletter, a database of contacts, periodic coffee or lunch appointments with referral sources and appearances at venues where these people circulate.
In addition, I regularly mail a brochure about each of my services to the target groups of each service.
You will, in t
Would you like to earn steady, dependable income as a writer?If you answered yes, consider technical writing. It isn't sexy, and it won't make you famous. But working as a technical writer has provided me with an excellent, steady income, and greatly increased my creative writing skills.The field of technical writing is exploding, due to the need to keep up with advancing technology, so there are plenty of opportunities. After all, SOMEBODY has to write the instructions for all the products and services we use. And age is NOT an issue! I began my technical writing career in my 40s, and know plenty of technical writers who began in their 50s.In 2004, according to the Society for Technical Communication (from the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook), the median annual salary for entry level technical writers was $42,500. The median annual salary for midlevel nonsupervisory technical writers was $51,500, and for senior nonsupervisory technical writers, $66,000. Rates for contractors are always higher at each level. In fact, I've earned as much as $38/hour.While you do need good writing skills and the ability to communicate instructions clearly to become a technical writer, you do not need a specialized degree or certification. And you can begin in this field at any stage of your life. While some technic
Getting clients is key to building a thriving practice. But this is where many practitioners struggle.
The thing is, you can make a living helping others. But you have to let go of the idea that the traditional way is the only way.
Psychotherapists can leverage their talents, expertise and abilities in many ways. There are many possible formats for delivering psychological help.
So, how do you, as a therapist, format what you have to offer? To begin, try looking at your services as a solution to a specific problem rather than as treatment for an illness.
The Eight Steps
To organize your efforts, you may find the following eight-step process useful.
1. Find a Niche
To niche or not to niche? There are many advantages to focusing your practice on a niche or set of niches, as described previously.
Specialties attract more clients than a general practice.
So, how do you decide on a niche?
To start with, look for the convergence of three factors:
1) What do you love to do? What type of clients, services or work do you thrive on the most? What are you passionate about?
2) What you are best at? Where do your talents lie? What do you have the potential to become the best at in your locale or region? What are your favorite skills?
3) What is lucrative? Will people pay for this service? Is there potential to have well-paying clients for this?
When you find a niche service that taps into these three factors, you have a potentially good niche.
Does that stimulate any ideas?
Ideally, you will find an underserved area that will continue to grow. For example, in my area, there are a shortage of child psychiatrists and play therapists.
Do some market research. Look in the media. What are the urgent concerns and felt needs that people have?
Your personal and professional experiences may give you some good ideas.
Colleagues may also be a good source of ideas. What are they talking about in the way of innovative psychological services?
To see what other professionals on the entrepreneurial side are doing, see the monthly newsletter Psychotherapy Finances (visit www.PsyFin.com for more information). Each issue contains at least one article about what practioners are successfully developing as niches.
2. Discover the Niche Markets’ Problems
What are the felt needs, which are not always the same as real needs, of the niche group?
How can you find out? Do some market research. Review literature on this target group. What are articles in relevant publications discussing? Read publications that people in this niche market read.
One of the best ways to do this research is to sit down over lunch with an individual in your niche market and interview him/her. While you are at it, you can also test market some of the ideas you have for services and programs you might offer to see what kind of reaction you get.
Another way might be to conduct a poll, forum or focus group. Survey the needs of your niche.
Know your target market.
3. Develop Solutions
How can you help meet the felt needs and address the urgent concerns of your niche market?
Decide on a service or set of services you can offer that will help the niche market with its challenges in an effective way.
To get ideas for this service, research the literature on what may be an effective treatment. Obtain training and supervision as needed. Are there any programs or approaches that you can adapt?
Example:
Niche Market: Heart surgery patients, post-surgery.
Problem: Compliance with post-surgery health recommendations, such as medication regimen, diet and exercise programs.
Solution: A behavioral health component to the aftercare program to help with cardiac care compliance. Some therapists are doing this with good results and profits.
Think in terms of a range of services for the niche market: workshops, groups, psychotherapy, consultation and coaching.
4. Design Packaging
Packaging is important.
After you have identified a solution for your niche market’s felt needs, I suggest you develop it into a step-by-step program.
Clients understand products easier than services, which are less tangible.
An example of a mental health package or product is a stress-management program with:
- A set of curriculum
- A workbook
- A fixed price
Have a process that you deliver. Let your prospective clients know you have as plan and a process to help them.
This gives you more credibility and the potential client hope that it will be beneficial.
The process description answers the questions about how you help people and what you would do with them in therapy.
Delineate the steps of your process in a way that leads a person to say, “I want that.”
There are several other advantages to this. One is the way this will crystallize your thinking. You will also become much more articulate in describing the features and benefits of your services.
Now you have a marketable service to add to your service line.
For example, years ago, I identified divorced parents embroiled in high conflict over their co-parenting issues as a niche market. This, as we know, has harmful affects on the children and causes stress for the parents. And it’s a common problem.
My solution was to do targeted counseling with these parents on co-parenting more collaboratively.
I packaged this into a six- to 12-session program I called, “Cooperative Co-parenting for Divorcing Parents.” I outlined a five-step program and wrote a booklet describing the steps. This became a good marketing tool as well as an aid for my clients. (Niche + Problem + Program = Service)
- Pick a niche market
- dentify a specific problem that the niche market experiences
- Develop a program to deliver your solution
5. Develop a Marketing Plan
Consumers do not know you or what you do unless you communicate that to them.
Develop a plan to let people know what you do, how you can help them and how they can contact you.
For each service in your repertoire, write a marketing plan.
How will you fill your reservoir of contacts and attract people to your practice?
To whom will you market this service? What strategies will you use? What tools do you need to develop?
For example, for my Cooperative Co-parenting program, I realized that the target group for marketing this service was often not the embattled parents or the children, but the family court judges who would mandate the service and the divorce attorneys who see the struggling parents in their offices.
I developed a brochure as well as the booklet mentioned previously, and handed them out to many judges and attorneys with whom I networked.
A basic marketing plan will outline each service in your service line, each services’ target market and several strategies to promote your service to the target group.
How will you establish yourself as an expert in this area? Develop, disseminate and repeat your message to each target market.
How will you create opportunities to interact with your referral sources and prospective clients?
6. Implement Marketing
This is sometimes more challenging than it sounds.
Besides the challenge of initial inertia, there is the challenge of getting good and comfortable with articulating your services in a way that will connect with your target market.
I find that many mental health professionals are not great at articulating their services in laymen’s terms.
So, consider how you can develop your skills in doing this.
One helpful exercise would be to write out a 30-second commercial or description about the service and get feedback on it. Once you have a good one, practice it until it’s natural.
Marketing skills and execution get better with time, experience and practice. To get the word out about you, become a good communicator so people can understand the impact that your services can offer. A business coach can be very beneficial with this step as well as the other seven.
Your task is to develop a referral engine.
Build a self-generating engine that keeps going easily and yields a steady flow of referrals.
You might do this by some or all of the following:
- Schedule a networking lunch with different referral sources each month.
- Give free talks to organizations.
- Send out a mailing every month or every quarter to your mailing list of past clients, referral sources and others.
- Get out of the office and meet people. Expand your mailing list by 10 names each month.
To work out a plan for marketing, you will need to set aside some time on a weekly basis.
To be successful, you will have to make marketing a priority and consistently engage in the most strategic activities.
7. Create a Follow-Up System
For those who do not initially accept your services, have a follow-up system in place.
The goal of marketing is to get prospective clients or referral sources to know, like and trust you. This usually takes multiple exposures to you over time.
A follow-up system makes sure you keep in contact with valuable referral sources and prospects and exposes them to you over and over.
Examples of elements in a follow-up system include a periodic newsletter, a database of contacts, periodic coffee or lunch appointments with referral sources and appearances at venues where these people circulate.
In addition, I regularly mail a brochure about each of my services to the target groups of each service.
You will, in ti
If you're anything like me, you'll frequently get sick and tired of the boss man constantly on your back. Does the company you work with grate on your nerves to the extent where you'd love to just scream for some relief? Did they give you the bonus they promised, or that well earned pay increase. If this sounds all too familiar, you might want to think about other potential avenues of employment.Big corporations aren't the only route nowadays. Over the last decade, the times have changed. Recently it has become much more feasible to go it alone and make money for yourself, particularly thanks to the rise of the internet. I bet such a career move has been sitting in the back of your mind for some time. It's only natural. We all ponder things like that from time to time. I understand this can be a daunting prospect, but isn't the possibility of losing your job whenever cutbacks have to be made just as scary?SO many people decide to go it alone, and you can start your own business too. I think the most attractive part is the freedom you get. Let's face it, when you start your own business, your the boss and you make the rules. No one likes to be told what to do - it's in our nature. However, when you start your own business, there's more than being in charge of yourself; there is a lot to do with your actual income. Everyone knows that when
Colleagues may also be a good source of ideas. What are they talking about in the way of innovative psychological services?
To see what other professionals on the entrepreneurial side are doing, see the monthly newsletter Psychotherapy Finances (visit www.PsyFin.com for more information). Each issue contains at least one article about what practioners are successfully developing as niches.
2. Discover the Niche Markets’ Problems
What are the felt needs, which are not always the same as real needs, of the niche group?
How can you find out? Do some market research. Review literature on this target group. What are articles in relevant publications discussing? Read publications that people in this niche market read.
One of the best ways to do this research is to sit down over lunch with an individual in your niche market and interview him/her. While you are at it, you can also test market some of the ideas you have for services and programs you might offer to see what kind of reaction you get.
Another way might be to conduct a poll, forum or focus group. Survey the needs of your niche.
Know your target market.
3. Develop Solutions
How can you help meet the felt needs and address the urgent concerns of your niche market?
Decide on a service or set of services you can offer that will help the niche market with its challenges in an effective way.
To get ideas for this service, research the literature on what may be an effective treatment. Obtain training and supervision as needed. Are there any programs or approaches that you can adapt?
Example:
Niche Market: Heart surgery patients, post-surgery.
Problem: Compliance with post-surgery health recommendations, such as medication regimen, diet and exercise programs.
Solution: A behavioral health component to the aftercare program to help with cardiac care compliance. Some therapists are doing this with good results and profits.
Think in terms of a range of services for the niche market: workshops, groups, psychotherapy, consultation and coaching.
4. Design Packaging
Packaging is important.
After you have identified a solution for your niche market’s felt needs, I suggest you develop it into a step-by-step program.
Clients understand products easier than services, which are less tangible.
An example of a mental health package or product is a stress-management program with:
- A set of curriculum
- A workbook
- A fixed price
Have a process that you deliver. Let your prospective clients know you have as plan and a process to help them.
This gives you more credibility and the potential client hope that it will be beneficial.
The process description answers the questions about how you help people and what you would do with them in therapy.
Delineate the steps of your process in a way that leads a person to say, “I want that.”
There are several other advantages to this. One is the way this will crystallize your thinking. You will also become much more articulate in describing the features and benefits of your services.
Now you have a marketable service to add to your service line.
For example, years ago, I identified divorced parents embroiled in high conflict over their co-parenting issues as a niche market. This, as we know, has harmful affects on the children and causes stress for the parents. And it’s a common problem.
My solution was to do targeted counseling with these parents on co-parenting more collaboratively.
I packaged this into a six- to 12-session program I called, “Cooperative Co-parenting for Divorcing Parents.” I outlined a five-step program and wrote a booklet describing the steps. This became a good marketing tool as well as an aid for my clients. (Niche + Problem + Program = Service)
- Pick a niche market
- dentify a specific problem that the niche market experiences
- Develop a program to deliver your solution
5. Develop a Marketing Plan
Consumers do not know you or what you do unless you communicate that to them.
Develop a plan to let people know what you do, how you can help them and how they can contact you.
For each service in your repertoire, write a marketing plan.
How will you fill your reservoir of contacts and attract people to your practice?
To whom will you market this service? What strategies will you use? What tools do you need to develop?
For example, for my Cooperative Co-parenting program, I realized that the target group for marketing this service was often not the embattled parents or the children, but the family court judges who would mandate the service and the divorce attorneys who see the struggling parents in their offices.
I developed a brochure as well as the booklet mentioned previously, and handed them out to many judges and attorneys with whom I networked.
A basic marketing plan will outline each service in your service line, each services’ target market and several strategies to promote your service to the target group.
How will you establish yourself as an expert in this area? Develop, disseminate and repeat your message to each target market.
How will you create opportunities to interact with your referral sources and prospective clients?
6. Implement Marketing
This is sometimes more challenging than it sounds.
Besides the challenge of initial inertia, there is the challenge of getting good and comfortable with articulating your services in a way that will connect with your target market.
I find that many mental health professionals are not great at articulating their services in laymen’s terms.
So, consider how you can develop your skills in doing this.
One helpful exercise would be to write out a 30-second commercial or description about the service and get feedback on it. Once you have a good one, practice it until it’s natural.
Marketing skills and execution get better with time, experience and practice. To get the word out about you, become a good communicator so people can understand the impact that your services can offer. A business coach can be very beneficial with this step as well as the other seven.
Your task is to develop a referral engine.
Build a self-generating engine that keeps going easily and yields a steady flow of referrals.
You might do this by some or all of the following:
- Schedule a networking lunch with different referral sources each month.
- Give free talks to organizations.
- Send out a mailing every month or every quarter to your mailing list of past clients, referral sources and others.
- Get out of the office and meet people. Expand your mailing list by 10 names each month.
To work out a plan for marketing, you will need to set aside some time on a weekly basis.
To be successful, you will have to make marketing a priority and consistently engage in the most strategic activities.
7. Create a Follow-Up System
For those who do not initially accept your services, have a follow-up system in place.
The goal of marketing is to get prospective clients or referral sources to know, like and trust you. This usually takes multiple exposures to you over time.
A follow-up system makes sure you keep in contact with valuable referral sources and prospects and exposes them to you over and over.
Examples of elements in a follow-up system include a periodic newsletter, a database of contacts, periodic coffee or lunch appointments with referral sources and appearances at venues where these people circulate.
In addition, I regularly mail a brochure about each of my services to the target groups of each service.
You will, in t
You probably know this already, but there are generally held to be four main personality types, which I call: Extrovert, Amiable, Analytical and Pragmatic . Let's take a moment to consider each of them in the workplace. Extrovert: someone who probably has a messy desk; who leaves projects 75% completed then gets distracted by new, 'more exciting' projects; someone who communicates their ideas with enthusiasm and charm; makes instant decisions; hates 'paperwork' and the 'dull routines' of life, such as filling in order forms, checking bank statements, etc.; is usually 'fashionably late' to meetings, events and parties (and they love entertaining clients!); always has interesting screen savers. Amiable: someone who is the 'peacemaker' in the office; is always striving for a 'win-win' in everything in life; someone who probably isn't terribly ambitious and striving, but is very happy to support and encourage others who are; someone who cannot say "No" very easily and so are probably on every committee going (whether they actually want to be or not); is more likely to make a decision on the spot if only to stop you 'hassling' them, otherwise will take weeks to make a d
Think in terms of a range of services for the niche market: workshops, groups, psychotherapy, consultation and coaching.
4. Design Packaging
Packaging is important.
After you have identified a solution for your niche market’s felt needs, I suggest you develop it into a step-by-step program.
Clients understand products easier than services, which are less tangible.
An example of a mental health package or product is a stress-management program with:
- A set of curriculum
- A workbook
- A fixed price
Have a process that you deliver. Let your prospective clients know you have as plan and a process to help them.
This gives you more credibility and the potential client hope that it will be beneficial.
The process description answers the questions about how you help people and what you would do with them in therapy.
Delineate the steps of your process in a way that leads a person to say, “I want that.”
There are several other advantages to this. One is the way this will crystallize your thinking. You will also become much more articulate in describing the features and benefits of your services.
Now you have a marketable service to add to your service line.
For example, years ago, I identified divorced parents embroiled in high conflict over their co-parenting issues as a niche market. This, as we know, has harmful affects on the children and causes stress for the parents. And it’s a common problem.
My solution was to do targeted counseling with these parents on co-parenting more collaboratively.
I packaged this into a six- to 12-session program I called, “Cooperative Co-parenting for Divorcing Parents.” I outlined a five-step program and wrote a booklet describing the steps. This became a good marketing tool as well as an aid for my clients. (Niche + Problem + Program = Service)
- Pick a niche market
- dentify a specific problem that the niche market experiences
- Develop a program to deliver your solution
5. Develop a Marketing Plan
Consumers do not know you or what you do unless you communicate that to them.
Develop a plan to let people know what you do, how you can help them and how they can contact you.
For each service in your repertoire, write a marketing plan.
How will you fill your reservoir of contacts and attract people to your practice?
To whom will you market this service? What strategies will you use? What tools do you need to develop?
For example, for my Cooperative Co-parenting program, I realized that the target group for marketing this service was often not the embattled parents or the children, but the family court judges who would mandate the service and the divorce attorneys who see the struggling parents in their offices.
I developed a brochure as well as the booklet mentioned previously, and handed them out to many judges and attorneys with whom I networked.
A basic marketing plan will outline each service in your service line, each services’ target market and several strategies to promote your service to the target group.
How will you establish yourself as an expert in this area? Develop, disseminate and repeat your message to each target market.
How will you create opportunities to interact with your referral sources and prospective clients?
6. Implement Marketing
This is sometimes more challenging than it sounds.
Besides the challenge of initial inertia, there is the challenge of getting good and comfortable with articulating your services in a way that will connect with your target market.
I find that many mental health professionals are not great at articulating their services in laymen’s terms.
So, consider how you can develop your skills in doing this.
One helpful exercise would be to write out a 30-second commercial or description about the service and get feedback on it. Once you have a good one, practice it until it’s natural.
Marketing skills and execution get better with time, experience and practice. To get the word out about you, become a good communicator so people can understand the impact that your services can offer. A business coach can be very beneficial with this step as well as the other seven.
Your task is to develop a referral engine.
Build a self-generating engine that keeps going easily and yields a steady flow of referrals.
You might do this by some or all of the following:
- Schedule a networking lunch with different referral sources each month.
- Give free talks to organizations.
- Send out a mailing every month or every quarter to your mailing list of past clients, referral sources and others.
- Get out of the office and meet people. Expand your mailing list by 10 names each month.
To work out a plan for marketing, you will need to set aside some time on a weekly basis.
To be successful, you will have to make marketing a priority and consistently engage in the most strategic activities.
7. Create a Follow-Up System
For those who do not initially accept your services, have a follow-up system in place.
The goal of marketing is to get prospective clients or referral sources to know, like and trust you. This usually takes multiple exposures to you over time.
A follow-up system makes sure you keep in contact with valuable referral sources and prospects and exposes them to you over and over.
Examples of elements in a follow-up system include a periodic newsletter, a database of contacts, periodic coffee or lunch appointments with referral sources and appearances at venues where these people circulate.
In addition, I regularly mail a brochure about each of my services to the target groups of each service.
You will, in t
Pick one thing, one focus for this year. That’s right – one. I’ve never been fond of new year’s resolutions, for all the reasons most observers report. However, I am completely in favor of identifying a theme for the year. The theme is a guide for decisions you make throughout the year. It’s not a way to stifle you or shut you down.Some themes for your business could be one specific topic among many areas of your expertise. Or your theme might be product development or approaching a specific new audience or traveling more for business or staying within your own zip code as much as possible. Those are a few of many choices.What about the booklet or booklets you’ve already done or the one you are considering doing? View it as part of a bigger picture, fitting into a year-long theme. Is your booklet the first of a new product line for you, or the low-priced smaller addition to an existing product-line? Where can you go with it if your theme is product development? The booklet manuscript has at least a dozen or two ways it can be expanded and modified to be offered for sale. Write it once, leverage it many times. You can record it as an audio CD, make it into a card deck, expand it into a manual, or develop it into a teleclass or ecourse. All of these formats and many more can be offered as both hard copy and as digital downloads. Your mi
5. Develop a Marketing Plan
Consumers do not know you or what you do unless you communicate that to them.
Develop a plan to let people know what you do, how you can help them and how they can contact you.
For each service in your repertoire, write a marketing plan.
How will you fill your reservoir of contacts and attract people to your practice?
To whom will you market this service? What strategies will you use? What tools do you need to develop?
For example, for my Cooperative Co-parenting program, I realized that the target group for marketing this service was often not the embattled parents or the children, but the family court judges who would mandate the service and the divorce attorneys who see the struggling parents in their offices.
I developed a brochure as well as the booklet mentioned previously, and handed them out to many judges and attorneys with whom I networked.
A basic marketing plan will outline each service in your service line, each services’ target market and several strategies to promote your service to the target group.
How will you establish yourself as an expert in this area? Develop, disseminate and repeat your message to each target market.
How will you create opportunities to interact with your referral sources and prospective clients?
6. Implement Marketing
This is sometimes more challenging than it sounds.
Besides the challenge of initial inertia, there is the challenge of getting good and comfortable with articulating your services in a way that will connect with your target market.
I find that many mental health professionals are not great at articulating their services in laymen’s terms.
So, consider how you can develop your skills in doing this.
One helpful exercise would be to write out a 30-second commercial or description about the service and get feedback on it. Once you have a good one, practice it until it’s natural.
Marketing skills and execution get better with time, experience and practice. To get the word out about you, become a good communicator so people can understand the impact that your services can offer. A business coach can be very beneficial with this step as well as the other seven.
Your task is to develop a referral engine.
Build a self-generating engine that keeps going easily and yields a steady flow of referrals.
You might do this by some or all of the following:
- Schedule a networking lunch with different referral sources each month.
- Give free talks to organizations.
- Send out a mailing every month or every quarter to your mailing list of past clients, referral sources and others.
- Get out of the office and meet people. Expand your mailing list by 10 names each month.
To work out a plan for marketing, you will need to set aside some time on a weekly basis.
To be successful, you will have to make marketing a priority and consistently engage in the most strategic activities.
7. Create a Follow-Up System
For those who do not initially accept your services, have a follow-up system in place.
The goal of marketing is to get prospective clients or referral sources to know, like and trust you. This usually takes multiple exposures to you over time.
A follow-up system makes sure you keep in contact with valuable referral sources and prospects and exposes them to you over and over.
Examples of elements in a follow-up system include a periodic newsletter, a database of contacts, periodic coffee or lunch appointments with referral sources and appearances at venues where these people circulate.
In addition, I regularly mail a brochure about each of my services to the target groups of each service.
You will, in t
Why is a company culture so important?I was reading a book call The World is Flat and the author was discussing the importance of a country’s culture in making changes in adapting to changes in the world’s economy. He was referring to a country’s culture as: • How well the country adapted to change • How open the country are to other nationalities • Their willingness the country is to embracing change • How each country valued education • How easy each country was to do business with • How well each country’s political systems responded to changeBeing a small business coach I could not help notice how relevant creating a culture is to the success of a business.Before we go further we must define what culture means. Culture can be defined as the way a company defines and captures what’s important to ensure a company’s success. After the culture is defined, storing that knowledge so it can be passed down to future generation (new employees) takes on a whole new meaning. We can begin to understand why defining and implementing a corporate culture is so important.Some things to consider when defining the type of culture you want to create would include: • How do you and how much do you empower your employees to make decisions? • Do you delegate and what do you delegate? • How op
Marketing skills and execution get better with time, experience and practice. To get the word out about you, become a good communicator so people can understand the impact that your services can offer. A business coach can be very beneficial with this step as well as the other seven.
Your task is to develop a referral engine.
Build a self-generating engine that keeps going easily and yields a steady flow of referrals.
You might do this by some or all of the following:
- Schedule a networking lunch with different referral sources each month.
- Give free talks to organizations.
- Send out a mailing every month or every quarter to your mailing list of past clients, referral sources and others.
- Get out of the office and meet people. Expand your mailing list by 10 names each month.
To work out a plan for marketing, you will need to set aside some time on a weekly basis.
To be successful, you will have to make marketing a priority and consistently engage in the most strategic activities.
7. Create a Follow-Up System
For those who do not initially accept your services, have a follow-up system in place.
The goal of marketing is to get prospective clients or referral sources to know, like and trust you. This usually takes multiple exposures to you over time.
A follow-up system makes sure you keep in contact with valuable referral sources and prospects and exposes them to you over and over.
Examples of elements in a follow-up system include a periodic newsletter, a database of contacts, periodic coffee or lunch appointments with referral sources and appearances at venues where these people circulate.
In addition, I regularly mail a brochure about each of my services to the target groups of each service.
You will, in time, accumulate a valuable mailing or e-mailing list and referral sources. I find each time I mail out the periodic newsletter or brochures, my phone starts ringing in the coming weeks with referrals as people are reminded of my services.
8. Keep it Going and Growing
Some suggestions to keep things going and growing:
- Maintain balance in your life and good self-care.
- Be persistent and persevere.
- Find support in friends, colleagues and referral partners.
- Develop and maintain good business systems. Automate things
as much as possible. Invest in a good computer, software and
telephone system.
- Maintain quality services.
Provide excellent customer service.
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