Your Staff's Place In The Marketing Mix

Do you expect and encourage your staff to take an active role in your practice marketing?

If not, you should consider it.

Every member of your staff should be actively recommending your practice to friends and acquaintances whenever the opportunity presents itself. Who better to know how skilled you are and how patient friendly your practice is. And although it would be nice to think that staff would do this willingly, the likely reality is that few see themselves as a marketing arm of your practice.

How can you encourage and motivate your staff to take more of an active role in the marketing of your practice?

» Whenever you hire a new staff member, be sure to discuss their role in the overall marketing of the practice.

» Explain to the current staff that they can have a direct influence on the success of the practice through their personal word-of-mouth marketing. Encourage them to regularly recommend the practice.

» Make it worth the staff's time and effort. Develop some type of compensation package that remunerates staff members whenever they are responsible for bringing in new patients. It might be a flat dollar amount, a percentage of fees paid by the new patient (up to a given limit and within a certain time period), or any other number of options.

» Devise a system that makes it easy to track which new patients came through which staff member. There are any number of ways this can be accomplished but one of the easier ways is to give all of your staff professional business cards which they hand out to prospects (with instructions to the prospects to bring the card with them to their first appointment).

To make this system even more effective, allow staff members the right to authorize a prospective patient up to a 5% or 10% or 15% discount on any work done during their first year or first procedure or whatever you're comfortable with. The staff member handwrites this discount percentage on the card and tells the prospect to be sure to present that card when s/he gets to the office to be sure to get the discount.

If you're concerned about how much the discount might cost, you can always put a total dollar limit on it ... say 10% discount with a total limit of $500. (Of course, the limit should be mentioned to the prospect by the staff member.)

This is a win-win-win situation. The power to offer discounts (and have a vested financial interest) gives the staff member more incentive and confidence in broaching the subject with people. The new patient gains immediate respect for the staff member as someone with influence in the practice. And because of the special personal discount the prospect is more likely to make an appointment, keep the appointment, and follow through on your recommendations.

I'm not one who often recommends to my clients the use of discounts to attract new patients. That's not the image we're normally trying to promote. BUT, when it comes to motivating referrals -- particularly from staff -- I consider it a valuable marketing tool with little downside (as long as the staff handles it with care and respect).

If you're not actively trying to get your staff involved in the marketing mix, give it some thought. I'm sure you (or your staff) can come up with a plan that will make everyone happy.

Copyright 2007 by Galen Stilson