The Savvy Practitioner is a training series from Nutramedica laser-focused on giving you the tools you need to fulfill your potential as a clinician entrepreneur. Join host E Brian Johnson and Dr Meghan Walker, founder of Clinician Business Labs, and learn how to develop your niche, showcase your unique offering, leverage your time more profitably and deliver on your ultimate goal of maximizing your impact - and your income.
In this program “Why Finding Your Niche Is Key To Growth”, we're going to show you why you should narrow the focus of your practice to increase your revenue and keep you passionate about what you do every day.
Key Takeaways
The Move Online
Location is no longer the primary driver for consumers seeking care. Most people are searching for their care first and foremost online. Consumers used to make a decision about which practitioner to visit by the proximity of a clinic to their home or office. Today, people go to Google first. The pandemic accelerated that trend because, with clinics closed, patients sought out clinicians that offered their services through virtual visits.
Patients make the decision to engage with a clinic on the basis of two key factors. First, the placement of the clinic on the Google search page. The fact is, the clinic placed on page one or two of Google is the clinic that will get noticed. The second factor is what their online experience was like; Is the website professional? Is their social content relevant and inspiring? Finally, are they able to read reviews about the quality of care that other patients have received?
Search Engines
Google rewards businesses that fit a specific need based on search terms input into the search engine. People do not search for “I don’t feel well. What should I do?”, they search for “I have a rash” or “skincare practitioner near me”. Finding and defining your niche makes it easier for new patients to find you online.
Position Yourself As An Expert
Health is deeply personal. We want the best person for treating our particular ailment. When you niche your practice, it allows you to position yourself as an expert or authority in treating that particular condition. Consumers are looking for the best possible person to treat them, so when you list the 85 different conditions you can treat, you don’t build confidence, you create confusion.
What Is Your Niche?
If your practice is focused on treating women, your target market is women who seek natural health practitioners. That is still too broad to be useful in terms of search engines or defining your expertise. Your niche is a subset of your target market. Your niche is defined by what problem you can solve.
The easiest way to find your niche is to align it to a condition. Not a symptom of a condition, but an actual condition, a diagnosis that a patient could receive. Niche is defined by patient need and your ability to solve that problem. For example, menopause, infertility or PCOS.
How To Define Your Niche
Defining your niche is not about pigeonholing you into treating just one set of conditions. It is a marketing exercise, a way to connect with new patients. Every one of us has numerous issues that a good practitioner can help us deal with. A patient might come in for hot flashes but will reveal that they suffer from seasonal depression or pain in their spine - all of which you can either refer out or treat.
Test! Test! Test!
When you are defining your niche, start by writing down all the conditions that most excite you as a practitioner. Then apply a second lens to the list. How common are those conditions in the community you serve? And how urgent are those conditions? People who suffer from acne are more motivated to get help than people who feel fatigued or experience brain fog. Then test your new niche in the marketplace. Put your offer on your website and in your socials and focus your messaging on it for a month or two to see what kind of uptake you get from the community. You need to figure out if people will invest their time and money in solving that condition.
Your Ideal Client Avatar Once we have developed your niche, it’s time to focus on your ideal client avatar. Creating an ideal client avatar starts with understanding the wants and needs of the individual who comes through your door. In other words, the demographics and psychographics of your ideal client. The more you understand about the psychology and the demographics and the things that inform their desire to engage in their health, the easier it is for you to be able to come up with solutions in your own business to satisfy that need.
In Summary Your target market is your ideal client – the person or group of people you serve. In other words, the group of people you TARGET with your marketing. Your niche is your area of specialty. It's your service focus or HOW you help your target market.
Key Quotes
“We know that people pick their practitioner based on their expertise. But also on the likability of that practitioner. So how do you get out in front of people? How do you show your face? How do you share your voice? Because when people see you smile, when people hear your message they have an opportunity to assess your authenticity. Then they say “Whoa! She's not only an expert in the field but I really like her!” Dr Meghan Walker
We need to be able to articulate what our unique value is to patients who may be looking for us and to do that effectively, we need to understand the competition, but I don't think we need to say no to a particular niche because someone else is doing it. It's how you bring your unique voice and your unique strategy to those problems that are going to differentiate you in the marketplace.” Dr Meghan Walker
“One thing I wish we could sell is prevention. I wish we could just put up a sign that says, I am an expert in prevention. You can come and see me and I will prevent things from happening. The truth is, no one's interested in buying that. They will invest in prevention once you have fixed their acne, once you've assisted their Hashimoto's, once you've addressed their diabetes. It's like investing in their retirement.
So few people are going to have the discipline to do that. It's a very, very tiny market. So the reason that I start my niche exercise with actually writing down a series of medical problems is that’s where people are going to invest their time and money to get in to see us. Then we can get started on prevention!” Dr Meghan Walker
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The opinions expressed in this Nutramedica program are those of the guests and contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Nutritional Fundamentals For Health Inc.
This video is intended for licensed or registered health professionals and students of health professions only. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information contained in these programs is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
