Many before us have claimed persistence as a key element to success–taking small, effective steps to obtain a larger goal rather than hoping to achieve success in a few large swoops of hard effort. While we’ve heard it all before, it’s surely a simple recipe for success that still holds true to this day, and it’s surely applicable to the success of your practice.
While there are several entities that make up the sum of all your practice marketing efforts such as web-based, internal, or external marketing, a main contributing factor to the success of your practice lies in the hands of your referral-based marketing. Building relationships with referring physicians is extremely critical, though, like building anything durable and dependable, it takes time, patience, and persistence.
The thought of building these relationships is often overwhelming and daunting. We’re discouraged by
not-so-warm welcomes or overzealous about reaching the finish line as quickly as possible. But as we know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built nonetheless. If every worker was discouraged with each measly brick they laid down and gave up, Rome would be a mere dream versus a reality. The same is true when building our practices. No one can guarantee that you won’t receive negative reactions nor can they guarantee the relationships themselves, however, if we’re persistent in our efforts, we can lay down the foundation for solid, lasting relationships comparable to Rome’s magnitude.
Keep in mind however, rushing to lay as many bricks as possible may in fact leave you with an unsteady foundation that may fail you in the end. Similarly, we want to make sure that we’re not confusing persistence with being pushy. When visiting physician offices, it’s important to not only be persistent in how often you visit, but it’s imperative that we remain tactful about what our visits consist of. Even brief momentary visits can leave lasting impressions so we have to be mindful about the quality of our visit and not just the quantity of information we leave or time we spend there.
Building these relationships is crucial to building a successful practice. However, it takes time and patience—one brick at a time. Stay persistent in your efforts, and with time, watch your practice go the distance.
Click here to download an article about developing strong relationships with physicians’ offices.
By Chad Schwarz
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