How To Get New Patients To Come Into Your Therapy Clinic
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[00:00:00] How to get patients through your door and how to keep them. Those are two separate problems. I want to talk about both of them separately. My name is Huang. I'm an occupational therapist, certified hand therapist. And over 10 years ago, I created my clinic. And then five years ago, I created my online program.
I don't know when you're going to see this, but if you're an occupational therapist and you want to. start your own business, open your own clinic, do something online, you know, this video can help you. So let's talk about how do you get someone to come into your clinic. Um, there's a lot of different marketing strategies out there, but I'm just going to share it with you.
Really, really simple, this process. Now, obviously there's a lot more within each steps, but Here are the three. You have to create the interest, you have to create the offer, and then you have to create a follow up system. So these are all major systems that help to get someone to call you. First of all, if you have a business, you have to tell more people about it.
So that is all [00:01:00] about marketing and getting, um, getting people to be interested. So create the interest. So we can create the interest in a couple of different ways. I love my little blackboard, not blackboard, my whiteboard. So, um, if you think about creating interest, how can you create interest, right? So, there's a lot of different ways, but let's say there's social media, right?
Um, let's say there's your website. Let's say there's newspaper or, um, or magazines, right? Magazines. Let's say there's um, like local events, local events. So in order to create the interest, you've got to have various [00:02:00] ways to get people to look at you and say, Hey, this is Huang's clinic. Um, you know, what does she offer?
But no one would know unless you're creating some kind of interest. What's great about this is that all of them play a role. It's not one thing or another, but usually if you're having a local event, how are you gonna get people there? You have to use social media essentially to get people there. You have to maybe put stuff on your website to make sure that they have somewhere to go to, you know?
And then of course, you have to create your offer. So here's your offer, right? You have to have something, you have to have a service. You have to have a product, you have to have something. So I'm going to use myself as an example. Um, just so you can have a visual. When I started my therapy clinic, I had an offer, right?
I had an offer at a clinic, at a clinic, and then people would come to my clinic [00:03:00] and I offered therapy services. Right. Well, I kind of offer, you know, let's, I'm going to keep it simple and talk about therapy services. There's a different way to, you know, see it as well, which is what I was going to get into, which is like, I'm a problem solver, right?
So I solve problems. So my offer is I'll solve your problem. I'll solve your problem of hand pain. I'll solve your problem of, you know, you don't know what to do after surgery. You don't know what to do because your hand went numb. You know, I solved that problem, AKA therapy services. So I created this offer and my offer was 60 minute therapy.
evaluations, and then 60 minute treatments. This is my offer. Now you can have other offers. Maybe you provide yoga [00:04:00] classes, maybe you provide Pilates classes, you know, whatever. Maybe you also provide fitness classes, um, you know, whatever it is that you offer. I literally only had one product. When you're a therapist and you're starting out, you have one product, and that's your therapy services.
Even within the realm of therapy services, I offered wound care, I offered splinting, you know, custom fitted splinting. All of that still falls under therapy services. But how would people know that I have this offer? I have to create the interest, right? So that's how you get people to know who you are.
Now on social media, I would talk about what I did, right? So social media, I opened a Facebook account. I opened an Instagram account. I, um, I didn't open my, I didn't open my YouTube account until like two years into having my own business. And then I [00:05:00] decided, okay, I'm going to get on camera. I need to do this thing.
And I need to tell more people about what I do and sharing my perspective. And back then people had a longer attention span. Uh, now it's even shorter. So if you're still here, can you let me know. Um, because we're about like five minutes into it. Is this currently helping you? And what other questions do you have around what i've already been speaking about if you're still here?
So on social media, I would post and you have to just post consistently And you would share something, you know, and then tell them to give you a call You have to have a call to action. You have to have them do something, you know, leave a comment Send me a dm Grab my free guide You Give me a call. You know, something.
You want to ask them to do something. Right. So that's what I would do. Um, I would start posting. And the thing is, is I didn't realize I was doing this. And so that's why I share this so often is I used to attract a lot of [00:06:00] other therapists. Therapists are not your customer. You know, as a therapist, sometimes we tend to put out content.
Sometimes you tend to put out educational pieces. And because we're therapists, we have a tendency. to talk to other therapists. And what's happening is you're attracting the wrong people into your business. Therapists are not coming in to buy your, your therapy services. They're like, we want to learn from you and see what you can teach me, but they're not your customer.
And so how you craft your message and how you educate people or how you share your perspective makes a big difference. I'm not here to be liked, right? I'm not here. So you can be like kudos You're such a great therapist. Screw that I am looking for patients who need my help as a therapist I think that was a biggest mistake I made in the past when I first started and now it's something like I'm Constantly thinking about and constantly think about like who am I looking to serve?
Who am I looking to help in Miami? My clinic is in Miami. I am [00:07:00] serving the people in Miami. If they happen to be a therapist kudos, right? Thank you for watching, but you're not my customer and I don't get you know Like you have to be mentally brutal. Like I don't give a shit about you, right? Like you have to think that way because otherwise you're writing the wrong things You're sharing the wrong things and you're not getting customers if you're wondering that That was my first indication when I started posting my videos If you go back over 10 years, you're going to see all the videos.
Please don't do that. I'm just like, that was rhetorical. Um, but I used to get a lot of therapists making comments on it. And what does that do? It makes you feel like shit. It makes you feel like, Oh my God, people are watching me. You know, maybe I shouldn't share. Um, but that's the wrong, that's the wrong thing to do because you need to create interest for people to come to your clinic.
Right? So you have to mentally be like, okay. F thumb therapist. F thumb therapist. Who am I really talking to here? So on your social media channels, you must [00:08:00] post, you must share. Now, can you create a business that doesn't require social media? Um, I don't think so in this day and age. I think in this day and age, you have to do something to create interest and that's where most people live.
Most people are I put this shit here, but most people are not living here. Most people are not. I mean, your age range makes a difference. If you're working with older people, they might be here, but it's expensive. This costs money. This doesn't cost anything. Now, if you are in a small little hometown, you might get your shit in for free, but let me tell you, I used to pay several hundred dollars just to get I think I paid like four or five hundred dollars just to get one article Into a magazine that they publish once a month who is reading about carpal tunnel in a freaking lifestyle magazine You know that shit's an ad right?
I am not some pharmaceutical company I am not some big name [00:09:00] You know a corporation or hospital i'm here competing putting my articles putting my thing in here And it was costing me a ton of money and I was getting You Very little calls, right? Do what you want, but you can do that. Another thing is you can send out flyers, mail outs, right?
Mail outs. All of this costs money, right? Local events can cost money too because you become a sponsor. Right. So I, I sponsored an event. I mean, listen, I have done all of this shit and I know what works for me and my style. And my job here is to help you discover what, you know, what will work for you and your style.
Cause I, I believe that it's. It's a huge lifestyle and personality component within building your business and we need to talk about that. Um, part of it is getting really good at what you're doing and it does require trying some things, but you're trying some things when you have some money, [00:10:00] right? I made some money and then I went, I was like, let me try this and let me see if it works.
Right. Um, but it requires a certain amount of consistent effort. So if you're going to throw like 500 or 1, 000 into, you know, one of these things that costs money, doing it one time isn't going to work. You have to do it multiple times to see if it's going to work. I did that magazine. For a year. It actually ended when, um, the pandemic hit.
And then I was like, yeah, that's not working for me. But you have to make that commitment to try something for a certain period of time. Otherwise it's not going to work. You know, just like therapy, you did that therapy one time. And you thought it was going to work. No, it takes some time and effort, right?
And so if you're asking that of your patients, you kind of have to apply it to yourself too. Like, Hey, listen, for me to know if this really works, I've got to put some effort into it. But creating an interest is the biggest component of getting patients through your door. You have to have an [00:11:00] offer. If you have no offer, Then it's really hard for you to kind of um, Create interest because you're like what if they call me and I can't work You got to be able to work.
So create that offer. You can create if you're starting as a side thing You know make make it make it like structured. I can offer it from these times So anytime anyone asks these are the times that you have available um, if you know if it's saturdays if it's You know, early evenings, like make it available.
And so you have some structure around it. If you're mobile, that's your offer of mobile therapy services. If you have a clinic, physical location clinic, you can come to me, this is my price, you know, this is what you'll get. And so that's how you get those patients. My last one is a follow up system, which is, um, part of the, the sales aspects of it, right?
You have to have a way of following up with people and of. of calling them consistently so [00:12:00] that you can, um, one, be able to get them to come into your clinic. And it's a really big topic and is a really big topic within my program. But follow up is like, Hey, are you ready to make a decision? You know, follow up is, is not about being desperate, but it's about selling your services and therapists are not well versed in selling, um, their services because they've never been taught.
They've never been trained and I can tell you, I have trained multiple therapists who I have put through my experience. Program who have become certified hand therapists and they all struggle with this and the reason why they struggle with the, you know, creating that a follow up system and um, creating that follow up system and selling their therapy services is because Because you kind of care too much.
You come, come across as desperate. Do you know how I know? Because that was me. I came across as caring. Um, I came across as desperate. And it's not to say I don't care. I actually care a lot and I care [00:13:00] a little bit too much sometimes. Um, but when you are selling, you're trying to make your match, right? So when I train my therapist or I'm training my, my front desk, my, you know, admin team is not that I don't care.
I care so much about you that I want to make sure that this is the right fit, right? So if you're coming for something that I cannot deliver, I'm going to say no, right? I am okay saying no. Okay. because not everyone is your patient. Um, if I have someone who's come to me and I know I can help them, then I am doing a disservice to them by not following up because I feel embarrassed that, oh, maybe I'm bothering them.
So you got, these are mindset shifts that you have to take as you move from being an employee to being a business owner. There are certain things that you have to learn from a skill level. You learned how to be clinically great. Now you have to [00:14:00] learn how to be business great in order to, um, keep the ones that are interested in you.
Right. And I, I did this pretty well. I did this pretty well. And then. My follow up system was utter shit when I first started, but now I have a whole system in place and I teach that inside my program so much in more detail because it requires a lot more, you know, talk than just like two minutes here.
But these are the two biggest easiest steps and then of course you have to have a follow up system in order to have conversations and be able to find the people, you know, that want to work with you. Right. So that's how you get patience. Tune in to the next video. I'm going to share with you how you keep patience because that's really important.
So that you don't lose the dollars that you've spent and you don't lose the time that you have spent. [00:15:00] And that's really important in order to be able to keep a full schedule and make more money.
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