implants - the journal of oral implantology UK Edition

38 I I business _ marketing implants1_2012 _2012: are you staring into the abyss? Have you a thought out a plan for how you are going to continue growing your business? Are you going to continue doing what you do and see diminishing returns in our struggling economy or wing it and take up opportunities as they present themselves? I would suggest you formulate your vision for three years from now. Include every area: team, marketing, sales, operations, customer service, finance, etc. You need to imagine that you are walking into your practice three years from now. What do you see? What are patients saying about your practice? What is the team talking about in the staff room? What does your day look like? What treatments are you carrying out? What are your plans for the evening? Think about it NOW and WRITE it down. Studies repeatedly show that writing your thoughts down and then sharing them with your close friends make them more likely to happen. It makes you accountable. Your vision document will probably fill three pages. Re-read and refine it. Once you are happy with it, share it with your team. It will help them understand their role and whether this is the sort of practice they would love to be associated with. Once you have your plans, don’t just bury them away in your desk. Take them out at least every month and read them out loud. Do they still excite you? Perhaps you have changed your mind. Tweak and revisit this picture regularly. _Marketing first steps Before you formulate an expensive plan of how you are going to populate your daybook with loads of new patients, ask yourself: Do you know what sort of patients you want to treat? Do you know why your current patients come and see you? What is your ideal patient? Everyone has a different idea of what makes a patient ideal; some characteristics are non- negotiable, like ‘pays their bills on time’; some may not be important to you, like ‘smells nice’. For me, the ideal patient: • Is punctual and informs you if he or she is running late • Is a raving fan (enjoys being in your practice and refers others, who also become raving fans) some practices never need to do any marketing; the raving fans do it for them My marketing plan Author_ Dr James Goolnik Fig 1 Fig 2