Being successful in business all comes down to being able to communicate effectively, whether that’s defining your vision, working together as a team, taking on services or communicating to your prospective, current and former patients.

Sales and marketing is simply communicating the value you can offer others. I hope that the 5Cs below support you in feeling more confident and comfortable (another 2 Cs!!) in getting you message out there!

Care

It all starts with caring. What do you care about? Hopefully a few of the answers to this are that you care about your patients getting better, you care about the health of people in your community and you care about ensuring that patients stay better.

We encourage our clients to come up with a short statement that encapsulates the purpose of your practice – what you care about. Our purpose and what we care about is to see every health practitioner feel as confident as business owners as they are therapists. What is yours?

Curious

Take time to really understand what problems your patients and prospective patients are experiencing. Yes, they have an injury or a condition or pain but what is that problem getting in the way of them doing? How is it affecting their life?

Take time in the first appointment to understand your patient more. Find out what their goals are. This is an area that is often brushed over but when you take time to understand your patient better, beyond the injury they present with, you will start making even more of a positive difference.

Connect

Once you understand how your patient’s problem they present with impacts their daily life you can really then connect with them on an emotional level. People buy things for emotional reasons. Find out how your patient is feeling and how they will feel when they get back to doing what they love. 

As an example I might go to my physio because I am in pain and it’s preventing me from playing golf but what I am actual after is the solution to feeling frustrated and upset that I am unable to do the things I love. The negative emotion is what is driving me to seek a solution. The positive emotion I experience when I play golf is what keeps me committed to my physio’s recommendations. 

Compelled

If you have taken your time to define the first 3 Cs being compelled should happen naturally. You will want to help each patient to reach their potential and you’ll be compelled to find and suggest the right solution for them.

Feeling compelled helps you to not means test your patients, worrying about whether they can afford treatment. It gives you the confidence to recommend what is clinically in each patients’ best interest. Being compelled will help you to not under-treat and instead just provide the quality care your patient came to you for.

Commitment

The final C is where you and your patient agree to what commitments you will make to each other. This is another step to be very careful not to brush over in your communication with your patient. 

Think about what commitments you want to re-iterate to your patients. Let them know the quality of care they can expect from you and your team for both the clinical and non-clinical steps of their journey. Be very clear with your patients about what they need to  commit to in order to get better and keep better. 

I hope that the 5 Cs help you feel more comfortable and confident in communicating with prospective, former and existing patients.