Hello again! This is Daniel from CSMi and I wanted to give a quick update on how my experience is going opening a new clinic. If you recall, last month I posted about my financial targets and this month I want to discuss my marketing approach.
With opening my clinic, I need to be strategic with my time. Not only am I working with my clients and patients, but I’m keeping up my role with CSMi as an installer and educator. I first identified various referral resources including the traditional ones such as physicians and orthopedic surgeons but also some non-traditional including chiropractors, personal trainers, sport coaches, worker’s comp, pre-employment services, and personal attorneys. However, in order to reach a greater number of ACL’ers in Atlanta, I need to first approach the providers who have the most time spent with the athlete; the ones who are most invested in their successful rehab outcome. And that would be the local-area physical therapists and athletic trainers.
I’ve never seen an ACL rehab protocol out there that doesn’t mention isokinetic testing at RTP (and throughout the rehab process) and in a perfect rehab world, every clinician would have access to isokinetic and force plate testing, but that’s not the reality we live in. My initial approach to marketing is to establish relationships with and demonstrate to local clinicians that I’m working alongside them to provide the testing services they wished they had access to. By doing this, they can make a better-informed decision on their athlete’s plan of care and return to sport which improves their patient outcomes and makes their doctors happy.
Another important factor to consider is that the barrier to entry for PT clinics is much lower than for the orthopedic surgeon. It’s much easier for me to drop in to a PT clinic and introduce myself and services or email/text back and forth with clinicians that it is for an orthopedic surgeon. Not to mention, I’m still going to reach the surgeon through the PT because whenever I perform a test, I’ll be sending my reports and interpretations to the PT as well as the surgeon.
Now, Atlanta is a big city, so I’m first focusing on the areas within a 30-minute commute from my clinic and I’ve identified 176 local clinics (not including hospital-based clinics). Getting into the clinic is only the first step to developing a relationship and building my network. At each location, I’ll introduce myself and grab business cards. That way I can get their contact info to send follow-up emails to move to the next step of the marketing process. I’ll see you again next month where I’ll discuss the first step to building the relationship which is the drop-in and introduction.
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