You’ve probably been there. You take a look at the pile on your desk, or the to-do list, or you scroll through your mental file of marketing tasks you should be tackling, and suddenly all the initiative just drains right out of you. For any one single task, you probably know what to do. The problem seems to be deciding where to begin. Things are just too complex in their present form.

Sometimes, the best place to begin is with the low-hanging fruit – things that don’t take a lot of time or money, but deliver great results. This is particularly true when you need to get results quickly.

Perhaps you’re in a dip in practice, for example – maybe client visits have slowed and you want to take action, but you aren’t sure what’s going to get faces in the door the fastest, and you can’t afford to waste time and money on things that won’t deliver for a few months. You’ve got a lot of marketing ideas floating around in your mind. You may even have a bunch written down somewhere. But every time you look at the list, your brain kind of fogs up, and you just end up pushing paper around or checking your email.

Here’s the system we use to find the low-hanging fruit. Don’t be deceived by how easy it is – this is a great way to build momentum and confidence, and get results.

What You’ll Need

I’ve made the simple template we use available here (PDF). Just download it, and print it out.

The steps are pretty simple. You can probably get through a trial run of a full single page in about 10 minutes.

Step 1.  The Brain Dump

Our first job is to get as much of your “to-do’s” on paper as quickly as possible. In this case, you want to simply write down, as quickly as possible, all the marketing & practice growth  ideas already you have in your mind or on paper, and any more you can generate in 2-3 minutes of brainstorming. Write them all down, one per row in the first column.

Here are some we wrote down the last time we did this:

1. Contact new clients who never showed up for their first appointment
2. Send out an email newsletter
3. Create a video for our website showcasing the clinic and our services
4. Arrange a lunch date with another practitioner
5. Start a Twitter feed
6. Contact existing clients who’ve fallen off the radar
7. Send a letter to other practitioners who refer to us

Try to come up with at least 20. They can be big ideas, or small tasks. Your sheet will start to look like this:

Step 2. Prioritize

If you look across the worksheet, you’ll see two columns near the right: Impact and Ease. For each item you’ve listed, you’re going to allocate a score between 1 and 5 in the Impact column, and the Ease column.

Impact: This is your guess as to how effective this item will be. Something that will generate a lot of business in your practice, for example, would score a 5. Something that might do very little would be closer to 1. In our case, contacting the new clients who for whatever reason had to cancel their appointment, was likely a 4 (or even a 5). They’re already interested – we just have to get in touch and rebook.

Ease: This is your guess as to how much this is going to cost you, in time and money, to do. In our case, making a video was going to take a lot of time and money, so it got a 1. Reaching out to those new clients who had to cancel was just a few phone calls – it was an easy 5.

The trick here is to estimate. Sometimes you don’t really know – don’t worry about it. Use your judgment and guess. You may have something that will have big long-term impact, but nothing for a while. Because we’re looking for quick results, that’s going to get a lower impact score.

Now the important part: for each item, multiply the ease x the impact. You should get a number between 1 and 25 for each item, and a sheet that looks something like this:

Step 3: Final Details

Next circle the top five scores in the Total column. You’ve now got five things that are easy to do, and deliver results!

You’ll notice, however, that there are three other columns. You only need to use these for your five circled items. Here’s how to use them:

Next Action: Sometimes the items on your list are just a single to-do, like, write an article for the local paper. In that case, the next action is really just that. Sometimes, though, it’s got a few more steps. To create an email newsletter, for example, you might need to pick a system to use, sign up, add your email addresses, etc. before you can start writing. It’s not hard, but there are a few steps – to avoid being overwhelmed, you’ll want to decide, what’s the very next action for this item?

Person: If you’ve got help, then it’s not always you that needs to actually do the thing on the list. If you have some admin support, or a web guru, or a willing partner, this is where you offload to them.

Date: When will this item be done by?

Step 4: Accountability

This step is optional, but it truly makes a difference. Find someone who can hold you accountable to those top five. Their job is to check in with you on those five easy, high impact choices, and make sure you’re on track. Just forward this to a colleague and ask them to partner with you – it’s that easy.

The Beauty of the System

You’re now staring at five things that are easy to do, and deliver results. It’s like having someone say to you, “Just do these five things in order. It’ll be great for your practice.” All you have to do now is just follow orders.

The beauty of this system is that it quickly finds the low-hanging fruit – things that are easy to do, that will almost certainly work. Because of that combination, you get great results quickly, and build some success and momentum. It makes it easier to keep going. It’s inspiring, effective, and takes that tough dilemma of what to do next off the table.

The Rest of the List

And as for the rest of your items? Don’t throw them away. Those things still have value, they’re just not fruit that’s as juicy and easy to pick.

There are likely things on that list that are critical in the long term. You’ll still want to tackle them. But when you’re feeling overwhelmed and need quick results, this system really works well.

The challenge is that these are pretty big projects, and it’s easy to bite off more than your practice can chew. Instead, I like to think of one principle to focus on in the coming year. It’s a bit like herding – I need one idea that can guide all those tiny details, decisions and actions in the right direction. Each “cow” might have its own unique path and nature, but at the end of the year, I want all those bovine bits to arrive at the same place.

The guiding word for this year? SERVE.

Why Service is Everything in Practice

It’s hard to be the cheapest in this industry. Or to have the biggest selection. It’s not usually that helpful to be the fastest, either. So how do you compete?

The truth is you’re not really competing with the practitioner down the road, you’re competing with a preconceived notion about what health care is. You’re competing with ideas in the minds of prospective clients. Things like “free”, “covered by insurance” “requires an MD”, “needs a white coat”, and “happens in a hospital only”. These are ideas that pop up when someone needs care, and they stop people from choosing you.

So how do you compete, and grow? In this industry, you can best compete by providing incredible service, all the time. You grow, in other words, when you serve. It’s the word for this year, but it’s probably the word for every year.

As Gandhi said:

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”

What We’re Doing About It (and You Can, Too)

We have two pushes on for the year to help us serve better.

1. Project 52: We’ve been rolling out a big service push at our office – it started back with the parking bowl phenomenon, really, but our niche has always been high service, and I want to take it up a notch. We’ve started what we call Project 52, which is our goal to make one customer service improvement every week all year. It’s fun, it’s tangible, and everyone gets on board.
2. Random Acts of Service: Sometimes an opportunity appears to go that extra mile. We’re going to try to seize more of them. A client is an avid reader? We send them a book that will really help them. A client loves the warm slippers we provide in a treatment room? We mail them a pair. These are little things that we don’t do for everyone, but that we do when we know someone will really love it. It feels wonderful to do it, and it’s great for business.

The great thing about this stuff is that it’s inexpensive. I bet most of our Project 52 ideas will be free (so far they are) – they’ll be tiny tweaks and improvements that really aren’t hard or costly.

People Who Can Help YOU

Here’s some 2008 gratitude and some 2009 well-wishes to the people out there who are doing their best to serve YOU so you can better serve others. I think these folks are an important part of what we’re all doing to help people get better. I’d say most aren’t making millions doing this – they’re just jazzed about helping you so you can help others. You should pay them a visit. They’ll help you serve.

To all of the following, in no particular order: thanks for all you do to serve, and thanks for the great interactions we’ve had in the last year. (If I’ve missed you please let me know!!)

• Acupuncture Clinic Marketing
• The Healthcare Marketer
• Alternative Growth Streams
• CAMLAW Blog
• Chinese Medicine Notes
• Professional Practice Success
• Acupuncture Business School
• IntegrativePractitioner.com
• Advance My Practice
• Chinese Medicine Tools
• Marketing Matters
• The Healthcare Marketing Connection
• Create a Thriving Business
• Insights for Acupuncturists
• Natural Medicine Business Success
• Community Acupuncture Network
• Build Your Dream Practice
• AltMD Pro Center
• Holistic PR
• The Acupuncture Marketing Blog
• TheBodyWorker.com
• The Integrator Blog
• DC Practice Tools

To all of our regular readers and visitors, and to practitioners everywhere: Thank you, and may 2009 be as remarkable as you are.

-Dan and Tara

In that same spirit, we’re excited to announce Train For Humanity, a non-profit organization that I co-founded with a handful of like-minded bloggers, including Mark Hayward, and Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.

How TFH Makes a Difference

The premise is as simple as it is effective: TFH “everyday athletes” (like me) train and participate in endurance events such as triathlons and marathons. The money they raise from sponsors online goes to humanitarian causes.

We’re aiming to raise $50,000 during this pilot phase, 100% of which will flow through to the Darfur Peace and Development Organization. Darfur is currently the scene of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, the biggest U.N. aid operation, and the 21st century’s first genocide.

How You Can Help

1. Sponsor Me

As one of the three pilot project “everyday athletes”, I’ll be running the Niagara Falls Half Marathon on October 26, 2008. You can sponsor my run here. You can sponsor for any amount you like -even a dollar can make a difference.

2. Help Spread the Word

Helping isn’t just about money. If you have a blog, a website, a Facebook or Twitter account, or just an email address book, I’d like to ask you to take just a few moments of your time to post, Digg, Stumble, forward, tweet, email, or otherwise help spread the word about Train for Humanity. You can find pre-written blog posts, badges for your site/blog, and other easy word-spreading ideas right here.

3. Become a Participant

We’ll soon be opening TFH to other “everyday athletes”. Anyone with a desire to make a difference can participate – the only requirement is that you take part in an endurance event, such as running, walking, cycling, or swimming. The distance isn’t important. Some TFH participants will run marathons, others will walk a few miles, but they’ll all be making a difference. You can signup here.

Thank you all in advance for your time, and for helping to make a difference.

With much gratitude,

Dan

One of the small drawbacks, though, is that our patients have to pay for parking – ouch. It was one of those little things that didn’t sit well with me, and it didn’t seem to fit our vision for the clinic.

What to do? Pay for it, of course. We put a small bowl on the counter full of change, with a sign reading “Please allow us to pay for your parking.” We encourage patients can help themselves to whatever they need.

It made sense for us – the cost of a visit in our office is relatively high, so paying a little bit for our patients to park is easy and seemed like the right thing to do.

When service becomes more than service

It turns out that people love it. What’s interesting, though, is that most patients comment on how nice it is but don’t actually take any money.

What’s really wonderful though, is how many people put money in to pay for other people’s parking! I love it. People keep tossing in change “For the next person.”

For some reason, our little parking dish seems to spark a little something. That little spark, though, is more than just pay-it-forward niceness. It adds one more little bit of positive joy to the customer experience, too, and sends people out the door feeling that much better.

Our decision to provide a little extra service to our patients seems to just bring out the shiny side of folks, and I like that. A lot.

Are you missing any opportunities to help your clients shine by serving them better?

You can check out the interview here, but what I really want to draw your attention to is his interview with Scott Rigsby, who became the first double amputee in the world to finish an Ironman distance triathlon.

Rigsby used “swim legs” to navigate the difficult 2.4 mile ocean swim, “bike legs” to cycle 112 miles through the heat and gusting winds of the Big Island lava fields on a standard road bike, and “run legs” to complete the marathon segment in darkness and intense pain.

It’s a great piece of inspiration to share with your colleagues and patients, and a heck of a fine way to start off a weekend. Check it out: Do the Unthinkable – The Scott Rigsby Interview.