Dr. Kelley Mulhern - Dr. Kelley

Can you believe we’re halfway through the year! It’s time for a mid-year goal check so we can see how far we’ve come and how far we have to go before the end of the year.

Review Your Goals

Earlier, we discussed setting goals . Because summer is slower for many practices, now is the ideal time to track your progress. Look at each goal. Why was it important? If you don’t have a good answer for that question, you aren’t likely to stick to those goals. Reaching a goal requires sacrifice, and if the goal isn’t compelling, you aren’t going to be motivated to work towards it.

A lot can happen in six months; you may have to make adjustments to both your goals and your plans to reach them. There’s nothing wrong with that, running a business is dynamic, and you have to be willing to change what isn’t working. What seemed urgent in January might not be a priority now.

Be careful that you aren’t doubling down on a goal that isn’t helping your business. It’s easy to fall victim to sunk cost fallacy when making business decisions. Car repairs are a typical example of the sunk cost fallacy. You spent money to put in a new transmission and then the brakes go out. The cost of the transmission and brakes together add up to more than the car is worth. The ideal decision would be to eat the cost of the transmission, it’s money already spent that you can’t get back, and buy a new car. But because you just spent all that money, you decide to spend money on new brakes too. Admit a mistake and don’t throw good money after bad.

Use a Real Measure

Hard numbers don’t lie, so make sure you look at them when you measure progress. Did your marketing campaign grow your patient numbers? Did the EMR system you implemented save you the time and money you thought it would? If the numbers aren’t adding up, you need to reassess your goals so you can “right the ship” before the end of the year.

Prioritize

Now that you’ve reviewed your goals, you need to spend your energy in the right place. Is there a goal on your list that stands out? There should be! Focus your attention on the big goals, the ones that will grow your business. That might mean enhancing your web presence, spending more time on community outreach programs, or improving the training methods for your staff.

No Zero Days

“No zero days” means that every day, you have to do something towards a goal, it can be a small thing, but you can’t let a day pass without doing something. Getting started is often the hardest part for many people. They’re fine once they get going, but getting going can be hard. That’s why implementing a “no zero days” policy is so helpful to eliminate that kind of procrastination.

You want to communicate more often with your patients by sending out a monthly newsletter, but it never seems to happen. From now on, you’ll do something to reach that goal every day. Sit down and decide on a subject for your next letter. Got the subject? Great, you can quit for today. But you’re already in front of your computer, and you already know what you want to write about, so you might as well write the opener.

Now that you have the opener, you might as well write the first paragraph. And so on until, voila! You’ve written the entire newsletter!

Accountability

Did you know that people who write down their goals and share them with others are much more likely to meet those goals? It’s true! A study found that more than 70% of people who wrote down their goals and gave weekly updates to a friend on their progress, met those goals, compared to just 35% of people who didn’t do the same.

Get yourself an accountability partner and let them give you the push you need.

Goals Not Traditions

If you find yourself making the same goals year after year, they’ve stopped being goals and become traditions. Use the mid-year goal check to cross those goals off your list once and for all. There’s nothing as motivating as a clean slate. That’s what you want to take into 2025, a clean slate, so you have a place to write down your new goals.

For more information on building community connections, I encourage you to read my new book Community Connections! Relationship Marketing for Healthcare Professionals. If you want more valuable information about how to Connect with YOUR Community, you can find FREE healthcare practice marketing content, PowerPoint Presentation Jumpstart Kits, workbooks, blog articles, and my FREE “Practice Marketing Planner” Now!

Healthcare Marketing Mindset Series: Pace Yourself

The way in which you think about marketing your healthcare practice – what I call your healthcare marketing mindset – is critical to the success of your business. In my last blog, we explored the difference between looking at your practice marketing as an expense versus as an investment. (To briefly recap, marketing your practice is an investment in the future health and success of your business, and should be viewed as such.) In today’s second installment of the healthcare marketing mindset series, I’d like to consider attitudes about time and pace as they relate to marketing.

When a patient receives your service, treatment, or product, when do they wish or expect to see results? Immediately, right? (One of my professors jokingly used to say “patients want a forever cure, yesterday, in the mail, for free.”) We’ve been conditioned to expect fast results in this fast-paced world. How many times have you had to explain to a patient that results – and healing – take time? It’s common sense: You can’t take one small action and reverse months or years of behaviors and choices.

However, many practice owners are guilty of looking at their practice marketing in much the same way patients look at their health. These practitioners want (and perhaps need) a “quick fix” to generate cash flow, dozens of new patients, office visits, and referrals. My professor might say they want marketing results…yesterday…easily…for free.

In this mindset, practice marketing might be thought of as a sprint, with the practice pushing fast and hard for immediate results. The focus is on the short-term, such as how many marketing activities can be done in a short amount of time to obtain the desired results. There’s a brief flurry of activity, then the event is over and although you’re exhausted it’s time to plan the next activity. Does this sound familiar?

Imagine if – instead of viewing marketing as a sprint – you approached practice marketing as a marathon. You’re in it for the duration. The expectation is not about quick results, but rather a steady pace. Practitioners with this mindset focus on the long-term, and their marketing reflects that attitude. They take the time they need to develop genuine relationships in the community instead of seeing how many business cards they can distribute in 15 minutes. Healthcare practice marketing activities are carefully selected and planned for maximum impact.

In the end, the businesses of the practice marketing sprinter and the practice marketing marathoner may wind up in a similar place, but the sprinter expended much more energy and perhaps burned themselves out mentally and physically. I’d like to hear from you! Do you approach your marketing from a short-term or long-term view? How has your healthcare marketing mentality changed over the years? I invite you to share your story in the comments section, below.