Tannus Quatre, PT, MBA

 

 
 
 

for customized considerations based on what type of PT you are. 

 
 
 
 

 

I know you. Well, at least 80% of you. You are a great physical therapist, maybe even the best in your area. You are passionate about quality care and you love the business side of physical therapy. Yet you are challenged by marketing. In fact, you hate selling. You believe that physical therapy is not something to be “sold,” it is something that is needed.

While I, too, feel uncomfortable when stepping foot onto a used car lot, the concept of “sales” and “selling” is one that we cannot shy away from in physical therapy. It is a requirement for our survival.

Believe it or not, sales is something that can—and should—be delivered naturally, sincerely, and with authenticity.

Within physical therapy, this is best achieved through a five-step process, parts of which you are likely already doing today. Infuse a little strategy and polish into the process, and you will be well on your way toward sales efforts that work and that you will begin to love.

The five-step process looks like this:

Awareness. Before all else, the target of your sales efforts must know you exist.

Engagement. Once aware, you must engage their interest, or be forgotten.

Education. Once engaged, you have the opportunity to share your value through education.

Conversion. Once educated, you can comfortably make “the ask,” converting the sale.

Amplification. Once the sale is made, you can now amplify sales through new relationships.

This five-step sales approach leverages your natural abilities as a physical therapist, moving you toward sales opportunities through an authentic and value-driven approach—one you can believe in.

This article deals with the foundational steps you need to get customers on the path to a sale: awareness and engagement.

 

It Starts with Awareness

Before we can even hope to sell, our target market must know we exist. Concepts such as branding, mindshare, and top-of-mind awareness come into play during this step, but this can all be boiled down to a simple premise: People can only buy something if they know it is there.

Think of the last tube of toothpaste, bottle of water, or oil change you purchased. Each of them had to be positioned in front of you, in some shape or form, before you could evaluate the purchase. You had to see it. You had to be aware.

Once aware—whether by walking past the toothpaste aisle in your supermarket or driving past your local oil and lube shop— you can then begin the process of evaluating each. Replace the awareness of your favorite brand with another, and your decision would put money into another brand’s pocket.

This awareness can come about actively or passively.

It happens actively when a consumer is looking for something specific to buy. They walk down the toothpaste aisle searching for their brand. They Google “oil and lube.” They ask a friend for a recommendation.

It happens passively when a consumer is not specifically looking for something to buy, and they may be sitting on the couch when they see a toothpaste commercial. They happen across a web advertisement related to their industry. A friend volunteers that they just had the best experience ever with their urologist. (It could happen.)

The same goes for physical therapy. Before we can expect a client to schedule time with us, they must know either actively or passively that we exist.

Before we can expect a referral source to send a patient our way, they must know our name. Before our phone will ring, our number must be published. Before someone can “like” us on social media, we have to have a social media account in the first place.

You get the point.

The first step toward selling is simply to make sure your target market is aware of you. Once aware, you can then take the next step toward bringing them closer to the sale through engagement.

Here are a few examples that can be used to create awareness for you and your practice.

Display prominent signage in and around your location.

Have an active social media presence.

Provide free information and updates to your community via email.

Send periodic mailers to those within your neighborhood.

Visit your top referral sources each month (even if just to check in to see how they are doing).

Submit story ideas or business updates to your local press each month.

There are as many ways to get noticed as there are people to generate ideas on how to get noticed, so I encourage you to share your ideas with others.

 

Time to Engage

Once your customer (or customer segment) is aware, however, you are still not ready to dive in and make the sale.

You can try—and sometimes you will get lucky—but if you are playing the odds, you need to engage your audience before you can ask them to buy from you (and by “buy,” I am referring to scheduling an appointment, making a referral, or anything else that is going to benefit you).

Think of the last time you took someone’s advice. Was it from someone you knew? Likely. Someone you trusted? Hopefully. A perfect stranger? Never (Remember “stranger danger”? Well, it applies here, too). When you are selling, you are giving your prospective customer some advice. You are advising them to buy from you. And you cannot advise a stranger.

So, you have to engage. Engagement brings you one step closer to your prospective client. It takes the awareness you have created, and molds it into a friendly and trusting resource which— at some point in the future—can provide the advice: “Buy from me.” How do we engage? Lots of ways.

Here are some examples that can be used to engage your audience, building a foundation that will allow you to eventually gain the trust of your potential clientele.

 

How to Engage in your Community

Like or Follow the social media accounts of businesses you wish to target. Comment on their posts, share their posts with your network, and provide value by sharing information your target businesses may find  useful.

Demonstrate your value to the local consumer market through free screenings, educational sessions, and guest lectures for synergistic businesses. Take the time to engage with your audience during and after these opportunities, and follow up personally (via email, phone, or other) with every contact made with a potential customer.

Make your contact information publicly available and respond in a timely way to pings via social media, email, or phone. Consumers are on the constant prowl for resources to help them, and they will reach out to those they find most readily engaging. It will be you or your competitor.

 

How to Engage Professional Referral Sources

Strike up a relationship with the office staff of your target referral sources. These are ambassadors who—once engaged—will help you immensely as you try to work toward referral decision makers. Know there is no relationship that is “beneath” you, and forming engaging relationships with office staff is often overlooked by your competition. Use it.

Collect and document personal information about your professional referral sources and use it in your conversations with them. It is not creepy—it is smart. While your competition is boring your target physician with details about their education and background, you should be asking about their spouse and children by name. It will win every time.

Use personal channels to communicate, such as email, handwritten notes, and social media. Personal channels are, well, personal. They stand apart from the networking luncheons used by your competitors. It allows for a level of engagement that will distance you from others vying for time from your target audience.

There are many, many ways to engage your audience and a good rule of thumb is, “What works on me?”

We are all the target of many a salesperson and the information we use to determine from whom we buy is useful in our own engagement tactics. Dissect the last time someone actually made an inroad with you that led to a sale and see if that could work for you as well. It probably will.

Tannus Quatre, PT, MBA, is a physical therapist and entrepreneur dedicated to improving the profession through innovative business and marketing solutions. His work can be seen in such projects as PT Pub Night® and BuildPT.com, as well as through numerous speaking and authored contributions to American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and Private Practice Section (PPS). He is president of Vantage Clinical Solutions and can be reached at tannus@vantageclinicalsolutions.com.

 

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