Marketing in 2012

For the Naturopathic physician, having a business plan is integral to success, however over the past few months I have had numerous requests regarding marketing the professional practice to attract and retain patients.  In response to these inquiries, I will be alternating between business plan development and marketing strategy over the next three months.  The marketing strategy will focus on an integrated approach to reach out to prospective patients, and retain current patients using emails, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter posts all to increase your exposure.  The first marketing post will be January 12.

Essential Elements in the Naturopathic Business Plan

The opening, body and attachments of your Naturopathic business plan need not be seen as daunting challenges, but opportunities to fine tune your vision and mission as a healthcare provider.

The most common business plan structure is developed from short general statements or summaries to more detailed explanations.  With this in mind, the executive summary and the business descriptions are both brief overviews of your professional practice.  The body of your business plan will be comprised of more detailed and in-depth descriptions of the fundamental elements of your private practice - the who, how, what and where of your Naturopathic practice. 

At this point I take a departure from the standard format and urge you to focus also on the why you are developing a naturopathic practice.  People, or more specifically your investors, or future patients are more interested in "why" you chose to practice in the field of naturopathic medicine than any other reason.  It is your passion for your chosen profession that will enfluence more people than where or how you practice.

The attachements at the end will include the most detailed information - financial projections and data, professional resumes, licensure verifications, and professional organization memberships.

Here is the typical structure for your professional practice business plan:

• Cover page
• Executive summary
• Professional practice description
• Practice environment analysis
• Naturopathic profession background
• Competition analysis
• Demographic/market analysis
• Practice marketing plan
• Practice operations plan
• Management summary
• Financial plan
• Attachments, licenses, organization affiliations

Not all professional business plans will follow the model exactly.  Your plan may combine elements, add new sections, and eliminate others, but the critical information for the audience you will be sharing the plan with must be included.

NEXT POST:  The Cover Page, Table of Contents, and Executive Summary

How to Insure Your Naturopathic Practice Success

Naturopaths completing their education launch into the world of private practice armed with extraordinary medical skills.  Yet, year after year we hear of friends and colleagues struggling to succeed or leaving practice entirely.  What is the single leading factor to naturopaths not achieving their vision of success - lack of a clearly defined business plan - and monitoring it year after year.

Ugh - business you say!  Let's be frank, as a naturopathic physician you are engaged in the business enterprise of medicine as a health care provider - period.  Unless you have found the fountain of youth and your patients are crying from the mountain tops about your discovery, success is going to be built on clearly defining goals, strategies to reach those goals, and monitoring successes and failure in your business to make adjustments.

Every naturopathic practice, or major project in your practice needs a business plan.  Just like you would not begin treating a patient without a treatment plan, why are you trying to run a business without a business plan. Your business plan is your practice road map to success.  It helps you navigate through your unique competitive environment.

Over the course of the next six posts we will explore how to create a workable business plan - not a volume of scholarly work to be put on the shelf and admired, but a usable tool to insure your future as a competent and successful naturopathic doctor.

NEXT POST - General Format and Presentation

If you would like to discuss how your practice is performing, or have a question to develop your plan, please email to naturoeconomics@gmail.com

Eight Areas of Business You Must Understand to Run a Practice

Since launching Naturopathic Economics I have had numerous inquiries about what are the key areas a naturopath must understand to build a solid practice.  Over the next couple of months I will go into these areas in some depth to help the new naturopathic physician as well as the seasoned veteran.  So what are the eight areas we will learn about?  Here they are in order:

1.  Applying an easy system of measurable goals
2.  How to solve problems by developing your decision making process
3.  Building an office staff you can lean on and other personnel issues
4.  Establishing harmony in your practice allowing it to grow and prosper
5.  Five proven concepts to create your personalized advertising program
6.  How to write your own advertising copy using eight proven rules
7.  How to utilize office statistics to make sound management decisons by following simple guidelines
8.  Developing simple charts to give you advance notice of problems affecting the future of your practice

As we go through this mini-course in practice development and management, feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.  Just email to naturoeconomics@gmail.com .  You can also follow helpfull hints at my Twitter http://twitter.com/naturoecon/

"Dreams are the seeds of reality"