 I was speaking with a frustrated financial advisor who asked, “How can I possibly compete with the national firms who run TV and radio ads? i’m just a small boutique firm.”
I told him that I liked his thinking. It’s important to think about how to beat the competition. However, I disagree about the identity of his—and your— competition. Your competition is not the national brand; it's your prospect’s current wealth-building plan. Every doctor has a financial plan. It may be a well-considered written plan. However, it could also be, “l’ll think about it later.” Or, “I know I’ll be working until I’m 80.” One doctor told me, “One day I’ll buy that winning Lotto ticket.” Please don't be lulled into complacency. The status quo is a formidable foe. Think about the brand of toothpaste you use. Why would need to happen for you to change brands? Here are some insights and tips to help you overcome the momentum of habit:
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 I got a call from a dear friend and colleague who retired a few years ago. While I follow her international travels through her Facebook posts, we haven’t seen each other in years. We reminisced about the projects and meals we shared, and then she said, “How about if we get together for lunch? I know a great place with outdoor seating.” We put a date and time on the calendar. I couldn't wait! However, as the day for this get-together grew nearer, I noticed my growing dis-ease. I had just heard from another colleague who told me that he, his wife and young child were all sick with COVID. He has some ideas about how he got infected. His perfectly healthy pastor visited his home on the way back from delivering his daughter to college. They were careful to maintain a 6-foot distance. A few days later the pastor was sick. He also shared an outdoor restaurant meal with a friend who was well at the time who went on to lose his sense of taste. Fortunately, everyone made an uneventful recovery. I flashed to my experience at the grocery store that day. I saw a woman pick up a peach, evaluate it and then put it back. I wondered how many times my hands came in contact with the COVID virus. My friend is a two-time cancer survivor who is at high risk for a bad outcome if she got infected. I called her and said, “As much as I want to see you, I’m unwilling to take the risk of exposing you to my COVID exposures.” We agreed to postpone our lunch plans until we knew it was safer. Unfortunately there is little data about the true risk of getting on an airplane or sharing a restaurant meal or sitting across the conference table from your client. However, you and your prospects and clients and family all have a perception of the risks of any given activity. In general the familiar feels safer. How do you decide whether to get knee-to-knee with prospects and clients to support your business growth? Here are some tips:
 I was speaking with a physician friend—let’s call her Jan— who was in a state of panic. How was she going to pay her mortgage? Was she going to lose her house?
Jan, like many of your clients, feels the many financial stressors that accompany the COVID pandemic. Her employer asked all physicians on staff to take a 15% pay cut. She decided to place her kids in expensive private school so they would be in a smaller classroom environment. Less money coming in and more money going out added up to a crisis in Jan’s head. Jan’s a close enough friend so that I know that she could pay off her mortgage today. It sounded like she was talking about imaginary monsters under the bed. How did she get so disconnected from her current financial reality? Jan is suffering from financial PTSD. She is responding to events in the past as if they were unfolding today. This is like a soldier coming back from Iran, hearing a truck backfire and suddenly being transported back to the desert battlefield. When Jan was 5 years old, her family lost their house in foreclosure. Her parents were embarrassed and depressed and withdrawn afterword. She quickly learned that no one was to speak about this. Her parents were not available to help Jan process the many feelings she had around this loss. So, Jan did her best with her 5-year-old emotional resources and problem-solving skills to deal with this traumatic event. In PTSD, the brain believes the past is the current reality. It’s like Groundhog Day without Bill Murray’s insight that he is living a redo. Jan’s anxiety about her house was not a response to her current circumstances; she was responding to an event from the past. Further, in the grips of financial PTSD she was not an adult managing the problem. Suddenly she's running the brain software of a 5-year-old. PTSD therapist Cathy Thorpe would say that Jan forgot that she now has car keys and credit cards. When you find a client in a state of panic, consider that they might be responding to an old childhood trauma. Gently ask the question, “How was money handled in your family? Did you ever go through a time when you family did not have enough?” Sometimes that simple exercise is enough to remind the brain that the past is over. It's like shining a flashlight under the bed. Then you are in a better position to make a financial plan that responds to today’s financial reality.  A funny thing happened in my small cul-de-sac. And as a student of success, it made me think.
As my dog and I headed out for our morning walk, my neighbor Jim was outside observing the demolition of his concrete driveway. When I asked Jim what was happening, he told me that he was making an investment to avoid a big home repair bill. His contractor told him that the newly-observed water in the basement was caused by the house settling, leaving a separation between the driveway and the garage. Jim was replacing the driveway and sidewalks to eliminate the cracks through which water entered the basement. A few days later, I admired the pristine uniformity of Jim’s freshly-poured concrete. I will admit to having driveway envy. I saw the cracks in my own driveway with a fresh set of eyes. The next week, loud construction noises interrupted the webinar I was delivering. (Sorry if you attended that webinar and heard the din.) My next-door neighbors had decided to upgrade their driveway. I wanted a fresh driveway, too! I walked over to my neighbors' house and asked for a quote to replace my sidewalk and driveway. The driveway guys said they would deliver the bid when they returned next week to replace a third neighbor’s driveway. That’s at least four new driveways poured in a cul-de-sac with 16 houses in the middle of a COVID pandemic. And the driveway guys did not ring a single doorbell, distribute a single brochure or approach a single neighbor. Here are some ideas to help you duplicate the driveway company’s client acquisition success. Make a plan to connect with prospects who NEED you. Jim got the name of the driveway guy from his contractor. To whom do doctors turn first as they think about managing their finances? Here are a few “power partners” with whom you can build relationships:
Make a plan to connect with prospects who WANT the outcome you deliver. Wants drive purchases. At least 75% of the driveway guys' new clients in my neighborhood wanted the look of a new driveway. What do your doctor prospects really want? Make the invisible value visible. The beauty of Jim’s new driveway created longing and inspired neighbors to get new driveways. If you help doctors legally and ethically lower their tax bills, give them two sheets of paper--one with the tax bill they would have paid and another with the tax bill they will pay after implementing the strategies you recommended. Circle the numbers in red. Write "tax savings of $53,400" in red. Now doctors have visible reminders of the value you delivered. Harness the power of people influencing people. Doctors influence doctors just like the neighbors in my cul-de-sac influence neighbors. Give your doctor clients the language to talk about you with their colleagues. Recruit doctor evangelists. They make a huge difference!  “I hate selling!” I said those words over and over as I made my transition from a practicing surgeon to an entrepreneur two decades ago. I loved what I did in my fledgling consulting business. As an introvert, though, I hated making cold calls, tooting my own horn and persuading prospects to give me money. My bank account reflected my aversion to activities that lead to client acquisition. I knew that if I wanted to run a profitable venture, I must reinvent marketing and selling in a way that worked for me. First, I changed my mindset. I decided that marketing was simply the act of engaging prospects in conversation, and selling was inspiring people to take action. Second, I launched marketing campaigns that worked for me. I decided to show prospects I could help them by actually helping them. I distributed ideas in the same way vendors pass out samples at the grocery store. My new mantra became, “Selling is serving.” And my bank account started to grow. The physical/social distancing associated with COVID 19 means that you are engaging prospects in a different way. We are reinventing the way in which we conduct conversations and build relationships. Would you like some ideas about how to do that? You’re inviting to my upcoming complimentary webinar “How to Grow Your Practice in a Time of Social Distancing” on Tuesday, August 25th at Noon Eastern/ 11 AM Central/ 9 AM Pacific. Introverts are welcome! Click here to learn more and to register.  If you're on my mailling list, you will notice a new look to the newsletter. Gone are the style elements that make the emails look pretty.
Why did I do it? I learned that plain text newsletters outperform newsletters with pictures and lots of links. How well do you keep up with best practices, and incorporate them into your marketing campaigns? I’m on an email list of a marketing guru. Every time I get an email from him, I get three. I just noticed that the subject lines are slightly different. He’s testing to see which subject line does best! I wonder if he’s on his own list and knows that he’s sending out three emails to each subscriber. When you launch marketing campaigns, everything counts. Test and tweak to make sure that you’re optimizing the performance.  I remember a scene from my surgical career like it was yesterday. One of my patients—let’s call her Sally— invited her mother Joy to come to town and be there for the birth of her first child.
During the visit, Sally saw that Joy was often in pain. Sally brought Joy to see me, and I diagnosed a hernia. Sally encouraged Joy get the surgical repair in Seattle, so that Sally could take care of her as she recovered. As I performed the operation, I saw that Joy’s belly was studded with small cancerous tumors. While I wished I had a magic wand that could make these tumors disappear, I knew that Joy’s life would be measured in weeks to months. My guess is that you would like a magic wand to cure your clients’ financial woes, with the full knowledge that we face a long economic recovery. Here are some things I learned about responding to disappointing outcomes that might help you. Remember that our current financial reality is not your fault. You did not create the economic fallout from the COVID pandemic any more than I created Joy’s cancer. Be humble. You are not gifted with superpowers to fix the economy any more than I could take away Joy’s tumors. Accept that disappointment is part of day-to-day COVID reality. Sometimes you or your friends or your clients will experience sadness about the losses we face. Sometimes it’s little things like going to a live ball game or throwing a child’s birthday party. Sometimes it's about big things. A business has failed or plans for retirement must be postponed. Resist the urge to run away. It's hard to listen to someone say, "I'm disappointed." Your first impulse might be to fix it. If you cannot, you may want to run away. Remember that your clients' disappointment does not mean you have failed. Know you can make a positive difference even if you cannot fix things. Yes, your clients have financial pain. Most people can tolerate pain. What's intolerable is being alone in the pain; this is what leads to suffering. You can make a positive difference just by being there. Remind clients that they will recover. Let them know that you will be bringing all the lessons from your extensive experience to optimize their condition. Reconsider how you measure whether you're doing a good job for your clients. Consider these metrics:
Being present with Joy and her family as they said no to chemotherapy and said yes to quality days was one of the toughest things I did in my career. And it was one of the most rewarding. I hope that you can say the same thing in ten or twenty years as you look back on this challenging time. You may reproduce this blog with the following by line: © 2020. Vicki Rackner MD is an author, speaker and consultant who offers a bridge between the world of medicine and the world of business. She helps businesses acquire physician clients, and she helps physicians run more successful practices. Contact her at (425) 451-3777.  The most influential person in a doctor's life is another doctor. This is one of the 10 Laws of Physician Engagement.
High-performing financial advisors harness the power of physician evangelism. Two videos created by the Practice Protection Committee of the American College of Surgeons can help you engage and persuade doctor prospects and clients. In the first video, transplant surgeon- and former financial advisor -- Mark Aeder, MD, FACS explains the “three A’s” of financial team—advisor, accountant and attorney. (Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the video.) In the second video. Dr. Aeder encourages surgeons to discuss retirement goals with their spouses or partners and to have a clear understanding of their needs. He then offers his ideas about how to find a financial advisor. How can you leverage these videos?
Let Dr. Aeder become your own physician evangelist persuading doctor prospects and clients! You may reproduce this blog with the following by line: © 2020. Vicki Rackner MD is an author, speaker and consultant who offers a bridge between the world of medicine and the world of business. She helps businesses acquire physician clients, and she helps physicians run more successful practices. Contact her at (425) 451-3777.  This week I would like to put on my doctor hat and take on a tough topic: suicide.
What do you do if you run into a prospect or a client or a loved one in despair? As the weeks of sheltering in place turn to months, you might notice that more people are finding it difficult to maintain hope. Depression, addiction and despair are on the rise. So is suicide. You may have read about Dr. Lorna Breen. She was a top ER physician in New Your City who herself was treated for COVID-19. Then she took her own life. In the pre-COVID world, physicians experienced twice the incidence of suicide as the general population. According to a recent Medscape study, one in four physicians contemplated suicide in the past year. Did you know that someone with financial concerns is twice as likely to consider suicide than those without financial worries? Further, lack of human connection increases the risk of suicide. What can YOU do? You can make a positive difference for someone in pain. Here's how. Ask Two Questions If you run into someone in physical, emotional or financial pain, here are two questions you can ask: 1. Where does it hurt? 2. How can I help? Ask Three Follow-Up Questions If you hear despair, here are three follow up questions: 1. Have you thought about hurting yourself? 2. Do you have a plan? 3. Do you have the means to do it? If you think that someone is at risk of suicide, err on the side of conservatism. Advise this person to seek professional help. Don't worry about planting the seed of suicide; it's either there or it's not there. Experience shows that people answer these questions truthfully. Be Kind You never know what has happened in the lives of others. One simple act of kindness could make the difference between life and death for someone who is suffering. We're all in this together. We'll get through it together.  Photo by Jal Schrof at PBase.com It was a Fourth of July celebration I will never forget.
I was honored to be invited to a friend’s naturalization ceremony. He came to the US as an adult to live the American dream. I witnessed the long hours he invested learning what he needed to know to become an engaged American citizen. On a warm July Fourth, I joined thousands of people who cheered as their loved ones and friends said the Pledge of Allegiance as US citizens for the first time. Gary Locke congratulated the new Americans and told his story. A hundred years earlier, his grandfather left China on a steamboat to work as a houseboy for an American family in Washington State. His grandfather washed dishes, gardened and swept floors in exchange for English lessons. And a hundred years later, this man's grandson was sworn in as the Governor of the State of Washington. Governor Locke's then home--the Governor’s mansion-- is one mile from the house where his grandfather worked. He noted that it took his family one hundred years to travel one hundred yards. That July 4th I celebrated the American Dream. I understood viscerally that we are blessed to live in this land of opportunity. In my home we have a saying, "For any problem, there is a solution." Sometimes the problems seem daunting. Sometimes the solutions are not easy to find. That's when I call on my belief in the American Dream. On April 1, 2020 a dozen anesthesiology resident physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital kicked off an audacious public challenge to design a ventilator that could address the shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just three months and more than 200 submissions later, a team of engineering alumnae, staff and faculty from Smith College won the competition. Smith College Engineering Professor Susannah Howe said, “To a person, we came into this not knowing anything about ventilators. In two months we went from knowing nothing to having a functional prototype. That’s just crazy." That's the crazy American Dream. Yes, on July 4th, 2020 we face big challenges. We're all also invited into our greatness so that one day we can declare independence from the things that keep us apart from each other --and from each of our dreams. Have a safe and happy 4th! You may reproduce this blog with the following by line: © 2020. Vicki Rackner MD is an author, speaker and consultant who offers a bridge between the world of medicine and the world of business. She helps businesses acquire physician clients, and she helps physicians run more successful practices. Contact her at (425) 451-3777. |
