Consistency beats talent!
The story of the iconic nightclub “Studio 54” in New York City was featured in an entrepreneurial publication I subscribe to and something quite exceptional caught my eye as I glanced through the article.
Not many people know this, but for the entire first year of the nightclubs existence they operated without a liquor licence after their applications were repeatedly denied.
So how did they survive?
To overcome this they stood in a long queue every single day for an entire year to apply for a single-day catering permit which allowed them to sell alcohol for 24 hours, therefore keeping the business operational and more importantly profitable.
Often as chiropractors, I think we get a little comfortable in our warm cosy practices. The suggestion of getting into the community and, for example, doing a weekly screening, talk or field marketing event is often followed by …
But Ryan, you don’t understand, screenings are hard! (BOOHOO, CRY ME A RIVER!)
When I owned 8 offices we had a screening team that did AT LEAST 3 screenings a week, and some weeks it was as many as 5 screenings in a week.
Consider also that while we had one “department” exclusively focusing on “field marketing” aka screenings, ADDITIONALLY we had 2 full time team members focused on cold outreach to local businesses to book “lunch and learns” and corporate events . So between screenings and corporate talks we could easily rack up 5 to 7 “events” a week!
But Ryan didn’t you hear me … (cue tears) IT’S HARD, and it is different for you, YOU HAD A TEAM!
YEP, I know showing up is hard … and let me tell ya, that team I had, didn’t fall from the sky. I, just like you, started doing these events myself. Then hired a team and delegated and achieved consistency that way!
What’s stopping you from doing the same!
I tell you what is… the prospect of thinking that “times have changed ryan” or “now we have social media ryan”.
“Traditional”, old school marketing, that requires tenacity and “elbow grease” will ALWAYS WORK. Things like screenings, newsletters (which we do for our inner circle clients), email marketing (which we also do for our clients ), and events etc, are “hard” and require investment, BUT THEY WORK!
Again I’m no genius, many “greats” did it before us! Just grab the “GREEN BOOK ” Chiropractic Advertiser published by Dr Harry Vedder in 1924 (yes I have it). He talks about events, newsletters sent to the entire patient lists, mailers, etc
IT’S FASCINATING!
BUT RYAN TIMES HAVE CHANGED, NOW WE HAVE FB AND GOOGLE!
There is a saying, “Be the wizard, don’t fall for the wizards tricks”.
With that context, did you know that Google spends more money on “offline” advertising than online advertising.
Just let that sink in for a second…
Google sells “online advertising” and they spend more money doing that offline than online, IN PERSON, ON THE STREETS AND SHOPPING MALLS, IN PRINT AND BRANDING.
Anybody else see the irony here?
AND …If it’s good enough for Google to show up to shopping centres and events in the community etc then…WHY THE HECK DO WE THINK IT WON’T WORK FOR US or that its beneath us?
Even though I personally used to spend over $100 000 a year on facebook ads alone to generate new patients for our 8 offices, and additionally now run a marketing agency that currently does all the online marketing for well over 100 practices worldwide…. I NEVER STOPPED DOING THE MARKETING THAT REQUIRED US TO SHOW UP AND OR ELBOW GREASE!
Consistency always wins..
Many years ago someone asked me if he could take me to lunch to learn my “screening secrets”. Over coffee he asked me what my secret was because in his mind he assumed my screeners had some magic script or skill. I stopped him right there and simply said “nah we get pretty average results actually, 5 -10 new patients per event”.
It wasn’t that we were that “good”, we were just good at consistently showing up!
JUST DO THIS …
Show up… Make those phone calls to businesses, show up to gyms, show up to the fetes and fairs, send those weekly emails, send the first adjustment message and phone calls, post the monthly newsletters to the high value patients, do the weekly health class, and weekly lunch and learns, lead the meetings and trainings with the team.
What do they all have in common …..SIMPLE ‘TO DO’ tasks and require MINIMAL TALENT… but that doesn’t mean they are EASY TO DO…
Remember, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it ☺
Im rooting for ya
Love and light
RY
