Entrepreneurial physicians have answers to important marketing questions

I promised a while back to blog regularly about tips and tricks to help you in your marketing efforts.

My personal experience of marketing my coaching business began poorly when I realized how much I dreaded the thought of picking up the phone or engaging someone in conversation at a networking event and having to "push" my services.

Marketing posed a significant challenge to me, and when faced with such a challenge, I did what I usually do -- immerse myself in books, classes and conversations with experts. I'm grateful to be able to tell you that marketing my services no longer terrifies me.  In fact, some of the most enjoyable conversations I've had have taken place in a "marketing" setting.

One of the earliest steps that you need to take in order to become a successful business person is to know exactly to whom you want to provide services and products. This is called your target market.

By "exactly", I mean down to the nearest detail possible.  Not only what are their demographics (age range, gender, income level, ethnicity, etc.), but what their psychographics are.

What is it that your ideal clients/customers/patients like to do or spend money on?
What are their attitudes towards spending money?
What are their motives for purchasing services or products such as yours? 
What are their work preferences?
How do they recreate?
Where do they hang out together?
What keeps them up at night or frustrates them during the day? 
What solutions are they trying, with limited or no success?

Your goal in finding answers to questions such as these is not only to understand the problems, pain points and desires of your ideal customers, but it's also to begin positioning your business, with its products and/or services, as their best solution.

This is Lesson #1 in marketing -- define and know your target market intimately!

If you want to give yourself some homework to get a better handle on your marketing, try answering the questions above.

How entrepreneurial physicians think may make a difference

As a business coach, I'm fascinated by how we humans think.  I've had opportunity to observe not only my own thoughts, but also those that my clients choose to share with me, and I'm always struck by the powerful influence of our thoughts on the results we obtain.

As they say: "Your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings create your actions"!

When I discover a "thinking wonk" like Ed Boyden at MIT who leads the Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Group (can you imagine such a title?), I'm excited to learn what it is that science is revealing about how we think.

It's even more helpful to encounter a practical and applicable article such as appeared in his blog last week. Titled "How to Think: Managing Brain Resources in an Age of Complexity", the article offers 10 rules for clear thinking, with suggestions for implementation.

Here they are (I suggest you click on the article link above to read more about the implementation details):

1. Synthesize new ideas constantly.

2. Learn how to learn (rapidly).

3. Work backward from your goal or else you may never get there.

4. Always have a long-term plan.

5. Make contingency maps.

6. Collaborate.

7. Make your mistakes quickly.

8. As you develop skills, write up best-practices protocols.

9. Document everything obsessively.

10. Keep it simple.

While these may sound like common sense, as well they are, they bear paying attention to, as reminders of how to produce better outcomes as physicians in business.

Can a Gratitude Journal be an effective business tool?

A physician coaching client of mine experienced a recent major setback, while in the throes of preparing to open his new practice. His was the kind of setback that is not typically discussed publicly, but may occur more often than we realize.

He sank into a significant depression.

The triggers for his negative mood included a sense of overwhelm about all that had to be handled to open his new business, a lack of confidence that he could pull it off, and a disconnection from his long-standing identity as a physician in a different specialty.

Six weeks later, thanks to his own insights about needing to seek help, excellent support from his network, and his own efforts, my client is back on track with renewed energy, zest and optimism.

I share this story to illustrate the power of a gratitude journal.  In response to my suggestion, my client began writing down, almost daily, the small things for which he was grateful, despite his poor mood.

In his words,

"I began to focus on the positive and realized that by doing so, I could begin to turn bad into good. It's so much easier, when you're depressed, to turn good in to bad but it leaves you feeling a whole lot worse. The opposite is true when you work on finding what it is you're grateful for."

With Thanksgiving weekend drawing to a close, it seems appropriate to mention a gratitude journal, as it occurred to me that this might be one of the more helpful tools at your disposal, while facing the sometimes daunting challenge of switching careers or starting a new business.

Researchers have begun to focus on the science of gratitude, and much is being written about it in lay publications like Time magazine's article "The new science of happiness".

In mild to moderate depression, keeping a gratitude journal and writing gratitude letters have even been touted as mood elevators that are comparable to antidepressant medications.

One thing is apparent.  Being thankful and expressing gratitude for those things in your life that are going right are powerful mechanisms that contribute to your overall sense of well-being.

Maybe it's time to make a Thanksgiving resolution -- Are you willing to find ways to express your gratitude as you launch or grow your entrepreneurial venture, in order to "vaccinate" yourself against overwhelm and depression?

Update on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 11:22AM by Philippa Kennealy

Here's an interesting blog post on three simple inexpensive activities you can engage in to increase your happiness quota! Nice to reinforce the proof that expressing gratitude works.

The long hard road to succeeding as an entrepreneurial physician

Not every physician entrepreneur is raking in the big bucks from his or her venture. Just ask Kirsti Dyer.

Kirsti Dyer MD, MS, FT, FAAETS, NCBF is a highly trained and qualified physician with a passion for easing the grief of loss and bereavement, as well as improving the well-being of anyone who wants to listen and learn.

This passion has positioned her as a health educator and Internet entrepreneur, with several websites: Journey of Hearts, the Violet Heart and NICU Parent Support.

While this may sound glamorous, Kirsti is the first to confess that she has struggled to find a way to derive income from her labors of love. Having given up clinical medical practice, she has chosen to pursue her love of teaching, and fulfill her sense of purpose by helping others cope and learn. Her entrepreneurial businesses are a work in progress!

Listen to my interview with this dedicated and articulate physician at The Entrepreneurial MD Podcast this week (it's 24 minutes long), and discover that being an entrepreneur is not only about making more money -- it's about having the freedom to create something of value and to express what lies deep within yourself. A concept that is completely in line with my own philosophy about entrepreneurship.

Helping out in time for the holidays - One Laptop Per Child

Having been swept up last weekend in the emotionally gripping, uplifting and outstanding documentary film "War Dance", I was delighted to learn from several sources last week about a helpful way to ease (a teeny bit!) the discomfort of recognizing just how fortunate most of the children that I know are (including my own) and being powerless to remedy the brutality forced upon some children.

Here's a way to share some of your wealth, and have a bit rub off on a child you know.

The program is One Laptop Per Child -- Give one, Get one and it's only here until November 26th.

How does OLPC work?

For $399, you will be donating the revolutionary XO laptop (the "$100 laptop") to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life, in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the value of your laptop) AND you receive one of these totally cool kid-indestructible laptops for a child you know. This is a definition of "Win-Win".

Ours will be a birthday present for my daughter who turns 5 in a couple of weeks, and is beginning to show an interest in computers. I can't wait to begin playing with it!