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It’s already a different time of the year, but you would just love to be, bring in more patients into the practice while you’re in the right place. And this is Chen Yen, six and seven figure practice make-over mentor@introvertedvisionary.com and your host for the American Acupuncture Council show today.
Let’s talk about this because there are three tips I’m going to give you today that can help you with bring in more patients when you with to have them. So one great way to do this, especially when you’re slow is to be connecting with your patient base by email and why email? Because it is. Low hanging fruit for you there it think about it.
Your patients trust you the most because they have that connection in relationship with you. The other possibility of bringing in patients is to get new people, to hear about you and trust in you, which is likely a bit of a longer process typically compared to your existing patient base. And you could be Connecting with your existing patient base to, to encourage them to come back for treatments, to refer other people to you.
And then also to perhaps you might have other kinds of services or offerings that they may not even know about or not be as familiar with, so they could be benefiting from those two. So let’s talk about. If you did have a desire to do this. And I be pulling in patients from this what are some hot tips related to this?
So number one tip is that
it’s, I would say a lot of acupuncturists don’t do this right now. Because they’re busy. Like they don’t have a wit a consistent way of staying in touch with their patient base. Nine times out of 10. When I ask acupuncturists, if they stay connected with their patient base, it’s many times it’s no or infrequent or not consistent.
So the first tip is that consistency. Brings awareness about you. Consistency brings trust. So do you have a set. I have a schedule of communication with your patients by email. I, whether it is once a month, whether it is twice a month or more frequently than that, or do you just never do it or do you do it only when you think about.
So consistency can do so much for your practice, because just think about it there. What are some of the reasons why people aren’t coming in, or maybe not coming in as or not using your services to its fullest extent or referring it’s because they may not put the two and two together even, have you ever had times when you’ve helped patients with one thing and then they didn’t even realize you could help them with something.
It’s so obvious to you, but it doesn’t cross their mind that you could help them with a different kind of a health issue. And that might be the case for it. They might already have people in their lives, friends, family, people, they know who they could be referring to you, but because they don’t even put the two and two together about how you can help them.
They know they don’t even think about it. And how can you make them continuously? How can you educate them, make them continuously more and more aware about the benefits of acupuncture or for some of you who are doing other things like functional medicine, nutrition, and other kinds of creative things to how can you educate them about that consistently so that they start understanding more and and seeing you more referrals.
That’s tip number one, the second tip to bring in more patients from email when you are slow, is that is to not only educate in your emails, but also be letting people know. What you have to offer. So making an offer, that’s one of the biggest mistakes I often see. So I know an acupuncturist who was telling me, she actually sends out emails pretty regularly too, to her patient base.
And I, and then she said I wish I would get more. Patients coming in from my emails. And then I had to look at her emails and I noticed that it was missing many times. She gave a lot of good information, but many times it was missing a cause of action of. What step you would like your readers to take, whether it’s booking an appointment with you or taking you up on some kind of an offer you’re providing.
So having a good call to action can make a big difference at one that doesn’t make you feel like you’re being pushy or awkward or sales or anything like that you could see on me actually. And I’m happy to give you. PME. And if you see this, if you’re on YouTube then you can reach out@introvertedvisionary.com.
So introverted, visionary.com and then fill out a contact form and then asked me for it. I’ll give it to you. But if you’re watching us on other platforms than just private message me or comment below in the chat, and I’ll make sure that you get. R what you could be saying that would book more patients and or have people take you up on, on what you have to offer.
Now, when we talk about offer some of you might think I don’t know, I don’t do discounts or anything like that. So what do you mean by offer? I don’t think I can give an offer. So first let’s talk a little bit about that for some of you some acupuncturists are good with this. Like they, they do things like a new patient treatment specials.
And if you want to do that, then that could be an example of an offer. So we’re going to first talk about. Specials and different type of offering kinds of things. And we’re gonna talk about what if you don’t want to do anything special like that because you eat really are against discounts, which is totally fine.
But if you look at a new treatment specials, so some of you might think I don’t want to discount my fees with that, which is totally. I agree. I, for the most part I don’t always advocate discounting and think about. What hap what is. The value to you in attracting one patient, it’s a P a new patient who comes back weekly, or even monthly that could end up being, let’s say you charge a hundred dollars a visit.
If they come back weekly for a month, that’s $400. And over the course of a year, let’s say if they came in monthly, that’s $1,200 over the course of a year or so, is it worth it to you to perhaps give some kind of a treatment special and for the initial visit and then they end up being patients of yours.
And so it ends up bouncing out in the end. Now, as far as the other kinds of things, if you choose to give special offers at different times can be. You bring up perhaps about your herbs and maybe some of your herbs or supplements, maybe you are going to do some kind of a special about it. So could you explain more about how certain herbs can be good to keeping their cabinet If for, if they get sick or, being able to educate them on different herbs or supplements or products that you may have.
We have clients right now who are bringing in another stream of income from that, whether it’s herbs or supplements or products and you are between a thousand dollars a month to $10,000 a month and even more. And one of the strategies that one of our clients uses is. Be doing periodic sales of this very like at least quarterly sales with this.
And so he shares this with his email list with about it and brings in extra income from it. So that’s one, one other thing. No. As far as what, if you don’t want to give a savings and you don’t have to write and you no problem. And so what could it offer me an offer? It really doesn’t have to be anything crazy with discounts and that kind of thing.
It could just be you mentioning an aspect of how you could help people because. They might have come see for one health issue. It doesn’t cross their mind at all, that you could help them with different kind of health issues. So just simply by you educating people on a particular health issue and how acupuncture or functional medicine or nutrition or whatever you can help people with can help.
That brings that to the forefront of their mind. And I, you may mean more likely to attract patients because of that. The guy made a compelling call to action where it’s very clear, how are they going to take that next step with you? Are they going to book an appointment? And what to say there, so that it’s most effective.
And in having. Previous patients come in and also new patients get referred in. So again, if you want that, that the languaging, that’s helping our clients with booking more appointments through the email with that, then just private message me. Now let’s talk about. Tip about the third tip to bring in more patients by email.
So it is two in your emails. Have you ever felt okay, that sounds good, Chad but I don’t know what to say in my emails and I’m not a good writer or even if I am. Draw a blank about what to say, and then it might feel so time consuming to come up with something. So I just don’t do it, but would it be worth it to you if you were to share and educate and then be getting like, even if you got an extra couple of patients a week, Would it be worth it to you to be a bit busier.
And that’s just being conservative error. If you do it. If you have a system in place that works, which many of our clients do because we give it to them. And so as far as the a a hot tip is what do you send by email? And then, so one thing that I would say is I recommend varying up the emails a bit.
So I’ve seen some acupuncture send out things like newsletters, and sometimes there are so many different things within that newsletter. And how many of you are really. Raise your hand or type in the chat in the comments section. Yes. Busy. Yeah. So then it’s, how many of you don’t open up every email, right?
Is that true? And so the, if you end up getting, imagine if you got a newsletter from someone all the time, and it was really long with different sections do you read. Probably not. So it’s helpful to vary the length of your emails. Sometimes it’s really short, super sweet and short. And then I with a way to, to book with you or pay you for whatever service that you’re offering or products or supplements.
So very up that the length of the emails, and then the other thing is. To be aware that there are different types of Buyers. So this is something that’s really interesting. And I, when I first heard about it, I thought, wow, I never really thought about it this way. So we all have different way we go about making decisions with what we.
Once you purchase. And this goes for, even if you don’t look at your patients as buyers, you just look at them as patients. They still, each one of them has their own viewpoint of how they go about making decisions. So I’m going to share this with you here in a moment so that you could apply it to your practice.
Even if you never send out a single email, this is going to help you within your practice. I’m going to show this to you. But those of you who do have interest in getting free email templates from us, as far as what, what has worked for our clients to get them busier. When they’re slow, you can go to www.new patients, introverted way.com forward slash templates.
So again, it’s www.newpatientsintrovertedway.com. Forward slash templates. And I’ll see about popping the link in the comment section as well. So let’s talk about the four types of buyers. So it will be showing up on the screen here in a moment. So this is really interesting. There are four types of buyers.
And as I share this with you, I want you to think about what you mean. So one type of buyer is the competitive type of buyer. These are the kind of buyers who they are pretty fast with their decision-making. They are logical. Also they tend to be deadline dancers, so they will they’re the kind of people who, if you ever.
Give people offers, like if you didn’t have certain specials going on, they’ll try to ask you if they can still get the deal, like after the sale is over kind of thing. And then the, they also are one of those people who try to test how late they can get to the airport and still make it on time. So if you’re you think you’re more of a competitive kind of a buyer go ahead and type in the chat competitive.
And then some of you might be in, in some of our patients would be spontaneous buyers. So spontaneous buyers are, they tend to buy from emotion and but they’re like spontaneous about their decisions. And then there are methodical buyers. So methodical buyers are buyers who. Tend to ask a question with another question, I, and need to know all the details I’d like to know all the facts and everything like that.
And sometimes they could be a bit slower in their decision-making. How many of you think you’re more of a methodical buyer? Go ahead and type into the chat methodical, or if you think you’re more of a spontaneous buyer, that type of chat spontaneous, and then the fourth type of buyer is the humanistic kind of a buyer.
So this is a kind of buyer who is more moved by. Bye stories and feeling go by feeling a lot and emotions. And so they might not make a decision as quickly as a spontaneous buyer would, but they still, they will feel it and then they will. And so how many of you think you’re more of a humanistic buyer?
Like you get motivated by hearing other people’s success stories and that. So this is something to keep in mind because why is this important for you and your practice and why is important, where as it relates to email, if you are, for example, let’s say you’re looking at emailing someone about who is a methodical buyer.
If those people want a lot of details about things. So if you don’t share a lot of details, then they might feel like they need to know more details. Great. And and then the humanistic kind of buyers is if you share certain things and it’s a lot of details, it might overwhelm them.
They might gloss eyes might glaze over and then they won’t, they will move forward or anything like that. What they need is to feel like, feel into it that they need it, or that feel that they They’re emotionally connected to perhaps, working for someone else or that, that kind of a feeling.
So what that means is that in what you send out, it’s helpful to vary up your emails so that you are meeting the different types of buyers and what they tend to want to know about before they actually make big. And so this is theirs. I also promise that. What could you do to share with you?
What could you do to be. How this could help you as far as the bringing in more patients by email, if you don’t have a list or if you don’t have any kind of email software. So here’s the thing. You, even, if you don’t have a list, you can, if you do have patients, even if you have 500. You could still do this in terms of some of the strategies that I’m sharing with you.
For example, let your patient base know about a particular kind of health issue and how acupuncture could be really beneficial for that. I also, you could be inspiring referrals within the practice. So these kinds of principles can still apply to your practice and you could either share them verbally, or you could be having what we talked about here in the email.
W what you send out. Okay. It could be in marketing materials. Instead that you provide within the office so physically you could give it to them. And I and at the same time, see if you can start connecting with your patients outside of just within the practice, because what about patients who haven’t been in, in awhile?
We had a client of ours, an acupuncturist who gave her an exact template of what to send. And she actually offered something that was a detox program and she made, it was like 3000 or $4,000 from one. Email. And she had someone who emailed her, who hadn’t been in her practice for over 10 years and she bought it and she’s, she was really surprised.
She was like, oh, I didn’t even know she would read my emails. So this is the power of having a way to stay connected. Even when your patients aren’t actively seeing. So if you have that writer’s block, or if you feel like it is just not enough time in the day to, to do something like this, even though you can see how this could be an avenue that can bring patients in for you, then grab the free templates that are promising you.
This is from our new patients from email system and you can go to www.new patients. Introverted way.com forward slash tablets. And then I download the templates and you start easing it in your practice. Whether you, you plan on sending emails or not, you could use elements of it within your practice to bring in more new patients into your practice.
So that way you could focus more on just helping people. Instead of worrying about where to find more patients. And if you’re in a place where you’re at a plateau in your practice, and you just know that you’re capable of so much more and you would love to have a practice. You’re proud of that. It’s fulfilling for you and making six and seven figures the introverted way.
Feel free to reach out to us at introvertedvisionary.com and happy to help you grow your practice faster with less stress. So till next time,