I often get asked by my business and practice owner clients for good ideas for marketing to attract new patients and customers.

I am a huge proponent of promoting because, done correctly, it drives up patient and customer counts, and drives up income. Here are my thoughts and ideas.

Referrals Are Pure Gold

I know you have heard this before, and it is absolutely true. But equally important to asking for referrals, and running a referral program, is finding an inexpensive, easy way to show appreciation to those who refer patients or customers to you.

I have found this SOCProgram works great and I use it all the time to send appreciation cards and even small high quality but inexpensive gifts, right from my computer. Check it out and try it out in step 2 for free. You can mail 2 cards at no cost to you, so mail one to someone else and one to yourself to experience what it is like to get a card from this fantastic service. (more…)

Life-Event Marketing programs create unique marketing opportunities for virtually every dental practice.

In the past, these programs were not available to small dental practices because it was cost-prohibitive and very difficult to coordinate…but all that has changed!

Join me for this live, one-night-only, special event webinar as my guests, Mark Epperly and Dan Roselli, demonstrate a simple, cost effective, on-demand system that pulls this uniquely effective marketing strategy together with a few clicks of the mouse right from your computer.

You really can attract new patients to your dental practice using your computer, while reducing the cost of new patient acquisition.

You don’t want to miss this opportunity to learn how you can, even on a small budget, build new patient counts with just a few clicks of the computer mouse.

And there is a special bonus only for those who attend.



Seriously, you can’t afford to miss this webinar. Learn more at www.BizWebTV.com/New Patients

Your dental practice can benefit from this new tool.

If your business isn’t doing as well as it used to; isn’t making enough income to meet your financial goals; the money management solution activity called Income Planning says it boils down to ONE THING…

The one thing you need to investigate is WHAT CHANGED. I’m not talking about looking outside your business at the economy, or the fact a competitor opened up down the street. That is something the practice owner can’t control. I’m talking about what changed inside the practice. Something did. It may be hard to spot, but investigating what changed can reverse the falling statistics immediately.

Here’s one example. I started working one-on-one with an optometrist who bought the Money Management Solutions software program. As part of the weekly money management process, we spent a great deal of time on income planning, and focused on promoting the business.

An investigation into what promotional activities had worked well in the past revealed that some of the most successful had been dropped out over time. Those were immediately put back into action, and the new patient and income statistics started going back up. We brainstormed creative new promotional ideas focused on new, innovative products and tested those.

In just a few weeks the new patient statistic increased even more. So far so good, but we weren’t satisfied yet.

Correct money management says it’s smart to have several sources of income so if one dries up, your cash flow is still okay. I noticed the optometrist most enjoyed talking about her work designing a line of signature sunglasses. Hmmm. Here we were trying to increase her current practice and she had much of her attention focused on a manufacturing-for-retail venture.

So what else had changed? She finally realized she was BORED with her current practice.  While she loves her work, the one practice was no longer a big enough game for her. She was trying to develop a bigger game to play by going into the sunglass design business, which is great, but, even that wasn’t enough. The discovery that she was bored, that opened the floodgates of opportunity!

What did she do to relieve her boredom? Last month she partnered up with another optometrist and they bought 6 failing optometry practices that had tons of potential all at once. That’s right, SIX! Needless to say, she is no longer bored.

By using the money management software  on a weekly basis for each of the new clinics, they turned a profit the very first month. Her financial statistics are on the rise, she is enthusiastic about her business again, and, to top it off, her first sunglass design just got delivered from the manufacturer, and they are gorgeous!

If your business was doing well in the past, but income and patient counts have been going down, then correct money management, and finding out what changed, can quickly lead to renewed growth. A great tool to help you find out what changed is Dr. Brian Dawson’s new book Breaking the Profit Barrier – The Healthcare Practitioners Guide so check out this book!

If you would like a money management consultation regarding your practice or business, contact Sandra Simmons at 727-448-1011 or email her at info@MoneyMgmtSolutions.com . Or visit her website at  http://www.moneymgmtsolutions.com/.

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.