The type of marketing you do varies depending on the condition and circumstances of your business. If you are just beginning a practice, you must spend a large percentage of your time and budget on marketing, especially direct response marketing. If you have built up your business, the focus of your marketing can be more on retaining your patients, creating alliances, and world-class customer service and outcomes.

There is real science behind this, but it is sort of obvious. People perform better when they have something, or someone, giving them feedback!

I don’t recall a single doctor telling me they wanted to be chained to their practice so they could never leave it. Nearly every doctor I’ve worked with wanted a business that was not entirely dependent upon their daily production or constant supervision. Michael Gerber (The E-Myth) wrote about the system-driven business. I talk about a Goal Driven Practice. In every case, the objective is the same: The business should not depend on the personality of the owner.

Positioning is a marketing concept that means borrowing meaning from things people already trust, admire, or desire—and letting that meaning transfer to your service.