How to Grow, Starting With One Patient

Overview

I often am asked, "So how do I go from ONE patient to MANY patients?"  I can tell you-- it wasn't luck that my practice grew to over one hundred patients in just one year.  

In-Person Outreach vs. Online Outreach

When I was first starting, I had a brick-and-mortar, and I did not have a virtual practice. Community outreach felt very natural as I was tangibly established in the community. However, I recommend reaching out to the community where you live, whether you are brick-and-mortar, virtual, or a combo of both. I am a firm believer that how you start getting patients is through reaching out into your community and being a presence; extending to the online realm is secondary.

When you get out there in your community, you are more able to create real connections, and people are much more apt to move forward with your discovery call or foundational assessment (which is the track to success that we teach here at Incubator). Online is great to stay up to date and to keep followers informed, but it isn't always the best introduction. Think of human nature in general. The people you trust most are the people you have had face-to-face interactions with. You can genuinely like someone you actually meet. This relationship is more difficult to establish virtually.

What does it mean to "go into the community"?

Have you introduced yourself to providers for referrals? Have you provided a talk in the community?  If not, you should! Start by simply adding two times per month where you will do community outreach. You must be intentional about this. For example, in my first year, two times a month, I went out and introduced myself to not only primary care doctors, but also any sort of allied health provider who we might share. I sought out those who valued integrated lifestyle based approaches to health and wellness. Think physical therapists, primary care doctors, acupuncturists, chiropractors, speech therapists, mental health therapists, dentists... the list goes on and on.  

Primary Care Allies

In terms of people who are providing health services, primary care physicians are key. In my practice, I operate as an extension of the primary care team. I do that because while I want to have my own practice, I do not want to be on call 24/7. I don't want to be triaging emergencies or acute issues. I want to be the person who takes on patients who have had, for example, IBS or GI complaints for quite some time. At this point, these patients have already had a workup, already ruled out anything acute or anything that would need to be pharmaceutically or surgically intervened. Usually, these types of patients have already been given "bandaids" to control symptoms, but they are still wanting true healing and to feel better without medication. Enter: a functional medicine physician!

This is an ideal situation for introducing yourself to primary care doctors, saying, "You know those patients where you feel like you've done all that you know how to do for them? I think I can help."  And be sure to bring up things like IBS, migraines, insomnia, etc. Some conditions don't have that deep of a tool kit in conventional medicine. Simply tell the PCP, "These are my ideal patients; refer them to me."  Explain how you will take the time to go through their lifestyle, their nutrition, nervous system, etc.  Be sure to say something along the lines of, "I don't compete with you. I'm not going to be taking your patients. I'm even not doing any preventative annual things (such as pap smears). If the patient has a sore throat and they think they have strep, for example, of course I will tell them to go right back to you."

Creating this type of referral network is huge because if that potential patient trusts the provider, and this provider trusts you, then you automatically have that direct referral. 

Create a Strong Referral Network

Have you created a list of health providers that could refer to you? In my course, I teach you the verbiage to use and how to put together a small guide so that people can refer back to. I also highly recommend that you offer them a foundational assessment, that first initial deep dive appointment, either at a discount or even complementary, so that they really know what you do. This way, they can also discuss it more easily with a patient.

Community Talks

The other way to gain patients is through community talks. Oftentimes, when I see the physicians that I help not getting patients at the pace that they would like, I find that they're spending way too much time online and not enough time getting their face out there in their own neighborhoods. So the next step is just introducing yourself to other storefronts. I'm not talking about health care businesses here. These storefronts might be farm stands, yoga practices, juice places, etc. Think in terms of shops, stores, and businesses that your client would potentially frequent.

Then, you give a community talk on a topic that you treat, such as gut health, stress, thyroid, adrenals, or brain health. What I recommend is book-ending the talk with a personal touch rather than a ton of information, which can present as salesy. Your talk will bring more connection if you tell the story about how you came to do what you do or if you share your own health journey story. Speak of your WHY and your intention.

And to begin your talk, tell the group that you are speaking to something along these lines, "This talk is going to provide a lot of value and you're going to have actionable steps to do tomorrow. Additionally, if this aligns for you and if you would like to work with me, look in the folder I gave you for more information." Then the individuals in the group will have the opportunity to have an appointment or schedule a call, and you can go from there. Let them know in the very beginning that you're open for business, and that you're ready to help them with the x y & z problem. Then you go through the talk, you invite them again to do either the discovery call or the foundational assessment, and end with a personal note.

On a typical day of this, I probably introduced myself to from 10-20+ healthcare providers and store fronts. At the end of the day, I usually had three regularly referred to me, and three who directly inquired, and that's plenty. That was enough. Keep in mind that you may introduce yourself to 20-25 different stores, but you might just get into a cadence two of the twenty stores. This is great!  You will soon gain a good rapport with them, you'll continue to frequent their places, and you are building little communities within your larger area. 

It's important to note that community talks also simply provide a good service and a good education for people who may not be able to afford your services at this time.

Next Stop: Online!

After you are established in your community, you can start putting your effort into social media and your online presence. The whole time you were reaching out in the community, you were collecting email addresses and you have an email list. Great start!  So now you might have hundreds of people on this list, and it would be a good time to start engaging them in a newsletter, email content, video content, whatever you are most comfortable with. Eventually you might create a waitlist, and you can always market to people in other ways, even while they are waiting-- supplement packages for cold and flu season, for example, including information on the immune system, special promotion offers, etc. 

So, by doing that initial outreach, you generate an email list to start. When you make that email content or newsletter content, that can be the material that you use for your social media and your posts as well.  Next, a lot of physicians want to do a type of online program. Make sure you first spend ample time with your initial patients to understand what works and doesn't work. I know that in the beginning, I spent a lot more time creating patient plans and pouring over their notes because I was just getting my feet wet and getting the hang of it. When it comes to the online program, once you have tons of data, you've worked with all these patients for a year or two as you were growing your practice, then it may be able to be optimized. But not until you know what works and doesn't work, what moves the needle and doesn't move the needle for patients, can you accurately create this online program. 

Organic Growth

You will soon begin to see how your practice starts to organically grow. Just allow yourself to be a beginner and to have the space and time to grow with those first few patients. Get out there; get your face out there. Introduce yourself to the community, and you will see how your business just grows so much faster. Once you start consistently, I promise you that it'll grow a lot more efficiently than only working online with your marketing. 

Know that in our course, we really talk about the details-- how to do your business cards, your postcards, how to clearly discuss your foundational assessment, what information to provide storefronts, and so much more. Those are really important pieces of literature and presentations to accurately understand. I think it's the missed piece sometimes.

Keep doing great. And please reach out with any questions at any time.

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