naturopathydigest.com -- Electronic Marketing for Naturopathic Physicians, Part One

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Electronic Marketing for Naturopathic Physicians, Part One

Let's Get Our Message Out There! Five Steps to Overcoming Resistance to Selling

By Dicken Weatherby, ND

Many of my classmates (NCNM 1998) are no longer practicing as naturopathic physicians; when I ask them why, they often say they couldn't make a decent living doing what they love and were trained to do.

I find this sad and unnecessary, yet understandable, because when I graduated, I was well-trained in naturopathy, but had no idea how to run a business, and I didn't like the idea of having to sell myself.
It took me a long time to get comfortable with the whole idea of marketing. Many of us are of the do-gooder mentality, identifying ourselves as helpers, not takers; thus, the idea of "selling" ourselves might seem equivalent to "selling out." I thought of sales types as pushy at best, many of them manipulative and desperate, possibly even having questionable values. It's rare that anyone goes to naturopathic school with the aim of huge financial success. We tend to be motivated to help and serve, and to delve deeply into our passions for health and healing on scales that range from the individual to the global. While we're not going for the life of the rich and famous, we certainly expect and deserve to be compensated for our skill level and hard work. I certainly held the belief that as a skilled medical practitioner, I would be valued enough by society that I wouldn't ever have to enter the "rat race," while having to deal with the unsavory world of self-promotion. I was rudely awakened as I spent the first couple of years out of school frustrated and barely able to cover my monthly overhead.
I tried what seemed like everything: working under a veteran naturopath; joining forces with a team of multidisciplinary practitioners, whom I hoped would refer me all the patients I needed; printing out pricey business cards; networking at conferences; and doing a few newspaper ads, as well as one in the Yellow Pages. But I wouldn't commit to marketing; it was more like a side thing. I held my nose and did for a few minutes a week. It just didn't seem to fit with my self-image and my idea of what a decent, self-respecting doctor should have to do.
The good news is that I've gotten over my prejudice of marketing and now see it as a necessary and even enjoyable part of my business life. It's especially gratifying when it works, which it does for me, now that I know how to do it. I use the Internet for almost all of my marketing. It was a daunting idea when I didn't know the first thing about it, but once I delved into it, it became a much-appreciated ally; one that enables me to do what I love to do on a big scale.
These days, I think of marketing as a way to communicate with no value or judgment added. Communication is a necessary and everyday skill. Some are better at it than others. It can be anything we make it: honest, manipulative, clear, eloquent or misleading. It can certainly be helpful to consumers (i.e., patients). When I needed a specific part to fix my car, I quickly found a local foreign auto parts dealer in the Yellow Pages, glad he had the sense to market himself there so I could find him easily. I felt grateful, not manipulated, for that straightforward communication, because he had the part I wanted and sold it to me for a fair price. When a chiropractor friend suggested a new immune system remedy, I tried it and have used it ever since, again grateful she recommended it, rather than keeping the information to herself.
You may not like to think of yourself as "selling" anything, yet if you really consider what you do, we are all sellers. When you tell a patient why you think they should eat organic produce, you're selling that idea. When you recommend a great supplement for PMS, you're selling that supplement, whether your patients buy it from you or at the local health food shop. In getting a patient to spend tens or even hundreds of dollars on a diagnostic panel, you have to be willing to sell it to them by explaining the benefits. You can't just mention it and hope they do the research themselves. Selling is something you do all the time, not just in work-related situations. It doesn't have to involve anything related to the exchange of money. When you recommend a movie or a book you enjoyed, you're selling it.
When you begin to think this way, selling becomes a less loaded term. It's just a form of necessary communication. You've created a service or a product; your customers deserve to know how they can get those, and marketing is the only way to get them that information. Let's get our message out there; you have great things to share and teach! You didn't study, work and go into debt to hide your knowledge and gifts behind a fear of marketing. People are thrilled to get helpful information and services, and you deserve to do well at what you work hard at and love.
Here are five steps you can do now to improve your ability to market:
STEP 1: What is the state of your practice today? Are you living out your passions or have you scaled them back due to the "realities" you face? Are you doing everything you can to do what you love? Are you connecting with the numbers and kind of patient you aim to?
STEP 2: Think back to your decision to pursue naturopathy. What motivated you? What was your vision? How did you hope your working life would look when you finished training? Try to recreate the sense of passion and inspiration that propelled you to embark on the long journey you began back then.
STEP 3: Think of the top reasons you give to justify a lack of enthusiasm for marketing. Do you think of it as manipulative? Degrading? A sign of desperation? Too time-consuming? Not what you signed up for when you decided to become an ND? Do you think of yourself as unsuited to do it? Have you tried and been disappointed by your results? Does it seem too uncertain; too much of a gamble?
STEP 4: Think of three concrete things you use regularly in your life and see if you can remember how you found out about them. Were they marketed to you by word of mouth, a print ad or the Internet? See if you can connect with a sense of gratitude that someone's effort brought those things into your life. You also might want to see if you communicate your appreciation of those things with others. No right answers here; just an interesting inquiry.
STEP 5: Write down the top three things you wish you could share with people. What are your pet passions? Do you wish everyone knew about the harmful effects of hydrogenated oils? Antibiotics? Certain vaccinations? Do you have a product you swear by and wish others would try? Do you wish you could get people to exercise more? Take saunas? When considering these, take away any natural inclinations to shyness, respect for others' privacy, and reluctance to preach; just let yourself dream big for a moment.
In my next article, I'll begin to explain the nuts and bolts of Internet marketing, which in my view is an essential component of almost every practice.

About the Author: Dr. Dicken Weatherby is a naturopathic physician based in Southern Oregon. A graduate of NCNM, Dicken is co-author of the best-selling book Blood Chemistry and CBC Analysis – Clinical Laboratory Testing From a Functional Perspective. He is involved in research, writing and consulting, with a particular emphasis on teaching Web marketing to health practitioners.