What’s the best way to generate 30 new patients per month?

The reality is there are dozens of ways to successfully generate patient flow.

Want to know what else?

You should be using many of them concurrently. This creates what is known as the Snowball Effect, as described in some detail in my course Monster Patient Flow! Vol 1 

Have you ever heard this said at a seminar:

“I don’t know one way to generate 30 patients, but I know 30 ways to generate 1 patient… and you should use them all!”

That quote has been making the rounds at practice management seminars for years. It is as sound advice today as it’s ever been.

Luckily, I have developed a few ways to generate significant patient flow using a handful of high probability methods. In this article, I’m going to discuss two highly successful and proven ways to generate serious patient flow.

These two methods are rarely used by doctors because they require you to break through some comfort zones. Both have turned around and built million dollar practices for:

– Chiropractors

– Dentists and Orthodontists

– Plastic surgeons, one of which was featured on an E! reality t.v. recently

– Podiatrists

And others, including the use of these two tactics to build two hugely successful legal and CPA practices that I know about.

Big Opportunity = Breaking out of the box

More than likely, your peers will never use these strategies. If they did, their growth would dwarf most of their competition within 36 months.

Like all marketing strategies, we need to be adult about the potential outcomes. Sometimes these strategies will work for a doctor. Sometimes they won’t.

Nothing in life is 100% certain, accept paying taxes. And getting divorced at the peak of your financial success. (Only kidding – I think)

When they work, they can literally become a millionaire maker strategy for doctors. Both strategies can be tested cheaply for less than the cost of many other marketing activities you’ve attempted in the past.

Here are two methods for generating new patients, that my successful clients have used: 

The Practice Infomercial:

For some reason, a doctor is more likely to spend a few thousand dollars running a bunch of stupid 30 second TV commercials then they are to run a 30 minute TV-show style practice infomercial that could generate substantially more patients.

The Practice Infomercial is one of the most reliable and inexpensive forms of mass marketing that exists for you. Inexpensive in terms of bang for the buck.

I know what you’re thinking.

I can’t see myself running a television infomercial. Aren’t those things for selling Ginsu knives?

Let’s set those misconceptions aside. You’ll realize this may be a sound and valid idea for every practitioner reading this.

The reason the Practice Infomercial works so well is as follows: Doctors in all fields have had great success in building patient flow, through giving community lectures. One doctor built and sold 3 million dollar practices, using this strategy alone.

In short, it has proven the test of time to work. Period.  

Imagine if you could package your proven lecture and instead of presenting it for 20 people at the rotary club, you could present it for thousands of people – all of whom could become a patient!

The Ability to Multiply Yourself!

Imagine if you were able to give your 20-minute community lecture to tens of thousands of people at once. What would be the impact of 5,000 people hearing all about how you can help them?

We could both agree that the law of averages would insure us a certain percentage of patients.

The power of the Practice Infomercial is you get to give a complete educational lecture to thousands of people for less then it costs for billboard advertising.           

You see, doctors always think that running infomercials is too costly.

Trust me, most people reading this spend more on their yellow page ad every month than it would to run a successful Infomercial program.

It’s affordable

With an infomercial you do the work one time, and you get to run it over and over! 

One of my Mentor clients, Dr. Jeff Hockings has been using his infomercial for years to generate an average of 45 new patients per month for two different offices. This is his entire marketing plan. It works.

There are certain misconceptions when it comes to the practice infomercial:

1.      They think it’s too expensive.

Wrong. There’s no need to spend thousands to produce a 30-minute infomercial. Dr. Jeff Hockings spent less than $900 to produce it. Shop around and avoid the big budget video producers.

With today’s technology you can produce incredibly good looking productions, from your home P.C. So shop around and find someone inexpensive, who is what I call the “professional hobbyist.”

They’re out there in every city.

You might even be able to run your 30-minute infomercial for as little as $1.00! In doing research for this article I ran across this interesting website, pictured below: www.leasedaccessinfo.com

I have heard of doctors running on “access stations” with good results. I have not purchased any products from this website, so do your due diligence.

2.      They think the cost to purchase the TV time is cost prohibitive.

This is mostly wrong.

The most expensive rate I’ve heard to date was in Phoenix. Even that was only $400 per 30 minute spot. The average rate seems to be around $200.

The secret to cutting your rate in half, is to sell space within your own infomercial. This is easy to do. If a chiropractor approached an attorney he did business with, and asked for $50 to place legal ads within the framework of his 30 minute infomercial, most would jump at this chance.

Selling one $50 “ad” reduces your $200 infomercial cost by 25%. Dr. Hockings usually finds 3 of four such people to advertise. This can often pay for the entire cost to run your infomercial!

Through co-op advertising he is able to run his infomercials more often, and multiply his results.

3.      They don’t know what their infomercial should look like or what should be said.

What would you say in a community lecture about the benefits of becoming a patient? What offer do you make to the audience to entice them to come in and take advantage of your services?

That’s pretty much all you have to do to film and record a decent infomercial. Of course, what you say and how you say it makes a major difference. 

Low downside risk, with large upside potential

I suggest you view your infomercial as a test.

There is a big upside to this project.

If it doesn’t work, you’re out no more than a couple thousand dollars. It should cost you no more than $3,000.00 to produce it and test run it on T.V. Jeff does it for a lot less. So, your down side risk is defined and limited.

Big upside with a limited pre-determined downside. We know what our worst case scenario is which would be a loss of our $3,000 investment. But if it’s a winner you’re looking at a $30,000.00 increase in the practice.

The reality is even if your test turns out to be a looser, chances are good you’ll at get one patient from it which would of course return a portion of your investment.

So, I consider this strategy an excellent one for most every one reading this. It might just be the big boost you’ve been searching for.

I would bet most of my readers have lost $3,000 in the stock market on a stock that had UNLIMITED DOWN SIDE RISK, with only a tiny upside return potential to make 12% a year. Yet, that same doctor won’t consider testing an infomercial program that could provide a large income boost.

Let’s talk money

Is it expensive? I use the figure of $3,000 as a maximum dollar amount.

In most cases it should cost less than $3,000.

Personally, I would never spend more than $1,000 to shoot a decent quality infomercial.

Then plan to invest another $1,000 to test it at least 3 or 4 times.

With the co-op strategy, you could turn the same $1,000 into twice as many viewings on t.v.

The benefit of T.V. marketing is you’ll know your results within 2-5 days!

On the other side of the marketing spectrum is a strategy that requires almost no investment, but requires a lot of work.

We’ll cover that strategy in Part II.

Don’t keep us a secret! Tell another practitioner about our practice building community.