Staff Education in Business

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Survival Strategies

Back to School is in the air…What about the education of your staff?

My profession is involved in the education of business owners and their staff. Having been at this for 30+ years, I wanted to pass on something quite interesting and which I think may help you.

I am also a professional musician, and work with other professionals, each usually trained in two areas: Theory and Practical.

This means a bit of theory is studied and its actions are practiced until they are well known and the desired result can be produced. This is very pronounced in musicianship.

In many industries and professions, this is the method to create the required skill, whether it is called an internship or an apprenticeship system.

You would think this method being known as a proven method, would be used in all education, but unfortunately, it somehow was omitted completely in the fields of management, administration and other areas of skill development. Continue reading →

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Recession – Dos and Don’ts

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Survival Strategies

I recently saw a sign in a company’s window which read: “WE ARE NOT PARTICIPATING IN THE RECESSION. HAVE A NICE DAY.” What a great viewpoint!

The absolute best thing to do in a tough economy is pour the coals into tons of outflow, tons of promotion, and enhance your services.

These things also do not take a ton of cash to do. Here are some simple ways to accomplish this:

DO’S:

1) Make positive your staff are treating and servicing your clients far and above the “norm”. Become known for great service.
2) Look back to any promotional actions you have done in the past that worked, and by “worked” means made you money, and do that exactly and more often.
3) If you can, write articles (which can be free to you), do public speaking, or contact past clients to see how they are doing/what else could you do to help them.
4) Referrals: Your clients are your best spokesperson and, if appropriate in your profession, offer them a referral reward if they bring you new clients.
5) Get your entire staff team to see they should have a huge vested interest in their job, and have them realize that part of every staff member’s duty is to drive in business somehow, some way. I.e. Write to past clients; ask clients for referrals, send shipments out faster and with courtesy, anything that promotes your business. Checklist these actions to keep them in and refer to it often. Continue reading →

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Relationship Development – Part Two

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Survival Strategies

Interest & Relationships


Have you ever experienced being around someone who continues to be “interesting”? They tell you all about their achievements, who they know or have seen lately, where they went and what they’ve been up to. This person is trying hard to engage your attention and curiosity by telling you ALL about themselves and is not really interested in anything you have to say.

Now consider being with a person who is genuinely interested in you. They ask questions about you and have their attention on you, not on themselves. That’s the person you will inevitably find interesting.

If you want to start a relationship with someone you need to put your attention on that person.

Let’s say you are meeting someone for the first time. Keep in mind that all the information you may want to know about this person is in their mind, all his/her interests, knowledge, problems, upsets, beliefs, opinions, solutions and ideas. Everything and anything you might want to know about this person in order to know if you would like to associate further with him/her, is sitting right there for the asking.

You may believe it best to let this person know all about yourself in the initial meeting so they would want to meet with you again. You may think to tell them all about yourself or your ideas, your opinions, your knowledge, etc. in hopes that they will find you interesting enough to want to associate with you again. So you basically run off at the mouth and are as “interesting” as you can be.
Continue reading →

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Relationship Development – Part One

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Survival Strategies

What is the value of a great relationship? What are the basics of a relationship? How do you form one, and even more importantly, how do you keep one going? How do you repair one after you’ve botched something up?

If you have never botched a relationship, or you feel all past failed relationships were “someone else’s fault”, this series of articles is not for you. For the past 25 years my company and I have trained thousands of people on professional relationship development. The training is based on exact workable principles and techniques with proven success every time.

I personally researched to find a good definition of this term “relationship development”. Please continue to read through to the end of this article and let me know if you agree. So what does “relationship development” mean? Let’s first break down the basic words themselves:

Relation:
1) A logical or natural association between two or more things; connection.
2) The way in which one person or thing is connected with another.
Derivation: Relation coming from relate, Latin relatum brought back, related, re- back + latum brought.

Relationship:
1) State or condition that exists between people or groups that deal with one another.

The derivation above shows where the word originated. It implies the idea of repetition or development or a connection that continues. We can conclude that to relate to someone must involve some repeated activity, connection and association seem to play a part in this.
Continue reading →

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Promoting on a Budget

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Survival Strategies

To expand your clientele you know you have to do some form of promotion but it’s important to do this on a budget and not break the bank. Your promotion needs to be effective and bring in a return more than what you spent on it.

Most people get into a dry-spell and the first thing they do is stop promoting their services. This is the kiss of death! If your business is suffering you MUST promote even harder to resolve this in such times.

Here are some simple promotional steps you can take that won’t break the bank:

• First of all do some short surveys of your current clientele and random people on the street. What are they looking for in terms of what you offer? (For example, if you own a bakery find out from the public how often they eat sweets, what are their favorites, what is their price range, what do they expect from a bakery, etc.)
• Using the survey responses create a small postcard mailing that pushes these survey results and buttons and positions your surveys as to being exactly what they’re looking for. (Search online for postcard companies or even use your local print and copy store.)
• Create a “buy now.” This is a sales technique where you offer a special for a limited time so the customer buys now rather than later. Create fliers and pass these out, or do a mailing.
Continue reading →

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Private Practice Independence

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Survival Strategies

Independence means “freedom from the control, influence, support, aid or the like of others.” If you are in Private Practice, then you’re in the business of being a free, independent entity separate from Physician-owned or Hospital-owned practices.

Now there are two cardinal rules:
1) Practice independence includes reaching and maintaining the highest possible quality of care as your top priority.
2) The owner must be trained and gain the exact skills required to be the executive and expand and run the practice (s). Then they also must train their staff. Part of any owner’s responsibility is the public relations and marketing of their practice.
So here’s the problem…independence is great, but you must have support from others to survive. No owner can “do it all independently” or they simply crash and burn. So how do we establish independence in the sense of a tight-running, well-oiled, profitability and quality machine that generates enough business to overcome its competition?

Continue reading →

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Creating Lasting Business Relationships

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Survival Strategies


With economic hardships, pressures and competition how do you keep your customers coming back for services or continue to generate new ones?
A practical definition of “survival” is: “the act or fact of surviving, especially under adverse or unusual circumstances.”

The way to survive ANY hardship requires building relationships with your customers, staff, community, etc. You have to have such a lasting “friendship” with them that even during hard times of affording your services, they would never consider looking elsewhere as they would be biased by the their affinity for you.

Continue reading →

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Cash-Paying Programs

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Survival Strategies

Article from  Impact Magazine, written by Harvey Schmiedeke, President:

Tired of declining reimbursements and insurance hassles? Cash-based programs can do more than eliminate paperwork and long delays in payment. They can add significantly to your bottom line, attract highly motivated patients for programs that are fun to deliver, and give your clinic a unique selling point to both the public and referral sources. Cash-based services range from simple services that you may already offer to programs that require significant outlay in time and money. They could, however, become the majority of your income. Here are some examples of specially focused programs that can be fine-tuned to add to practice income and might eventually develop into freestanding satellite programs all on their own:

Equipment, supplies, vitamin supplements, etc.: Every clinic supplies some of these items, but you’d be surprised how little they’re emphasized and how many practices let things like tubing and balls “walk” out the door without charging for them.

Sufficient care when insurance won’t cover: Because it is so difficult for most practice owners, let alone their staff, to ask for money, patients can have their treatment determined by what their insurance will pay for as opposed to what they actually need—full corrective care of the underlying cause and return to optimum function. Effective education is the key to getting treatment plan commitment and financial responsibility, regardless of insurance constraints.

Continue reading →

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Why Expand?

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Survival Strategies

A great truth: If a private practice is not permitted to expand, the ones that really get “hurt” are all those patients within your community that should be receiving your services that are not. This is the true reason for building up a private practice.

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Rounding Up Referrals – Part 3

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Survival Strategies

Here’s the third and final installment of the Rounding Up Referrals series we’ve been working on. I’ve gotten a lot of feed back and I apologize for the long delay, I know you all have been waiting so here goes.

PR and Marketing

Public relations and marketing also can stir up patient referrals.  By promoting your name in the community through health screenings and other opportunities, you can develop name recognition and direct referrals.

Here are some simple and inexpensive PR activities to consider:

Host educational seminars and workshops on topics of interest.  Educate the public about your services and prevention by offering seminars on health-related issues, such as back pain, growing old gracefully, keeping children fit, women’s health, aquatic therapy or sports performance enhancement.

To extend your reach, invite local health care professionals to co-present with you.  By working with other physicians, you’re exposing yourself to more referral sources.

Continue reading →

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