The world has collectively hit the pause button, and many dentist and specialty doctor offices have been caught up in that pause. The doors have closed in order to better fight the coronavirus, or COVID-19 pandemic that’s been sweeping the U.S. and the world. While these are certainly challenging times, and there’s plenty to be concerned about, you can also use this window to strengthen your practice.
Shakespeare wrote King Lear while his hometown was being ravished by the Bubonic plague. This quarantine is a time all of us can use to strengthen what we’ve built. While no patients are walking through the doors, it’s a good time to reevaluate key practice documents and strategies to better position yourself for a brighter future.
How Do You Stand In These Key Areas?
A Comprehensive Review of Your Business Plan – When you began your practice, you likely set out with a number of goals and objectives. You determined the strategies necessary to meet those goals. You thought long and hard about what type of practice you wanted to run, and the ways that you would conduct business.
At least that’s the idea behind a business plan, anyway. Whether you’ve been in business for months, years, or decades, the COVID-19 outbreak offers the perfect time to review your practice’s business plan. Where are your revenues compared to those initial projections? How are you doing with patient loyalty and retention? Are you receiving enough new patients? A comprehensive review of your business plan right now can help you to make the necessary adjustments when you are safe to reopen.
Read more about how to conduct a comprehensive review of your business plan.
Enhancing Your Marketing – One of the questions mentioned above in the business plan had to do with whether you were attracting enough new patient leads. The most effective way to accomplish that is through your marketing efforts. Your practice should be blogging and participating in the conversation on social media as part of your marketing efforts, but there’s more.
Now is the perfect time to get creative with your marketing and consider options that you’ve wanted to try, but haven’t had the time to truly investigate. Options such as video marketing or podcasting might become more viable under current circumstances. Take a look at your practice and your patients. Now is the time to consider how to become more visible in the online locations where your patients spend time.
Read more about how to get more out of your practice’s marketing.
Plan More Involvement Within Your Local Community – This might be a healthy mental exercise during trying times. While we can’t reach out and create those stronger connections (at least in person) right now, we can plot our moves forward for when the time comes. Your practice’s brand can exponentially benefit from local community exposure.
What networking groups could you participate in? Are you part of your local Chamber of Commerce? What local sponsorship opportunities could you take advantage of to help your community and gain visibility at the same time?
Your Practice Can Come Out of this Situation Stronger
The coronavirus outbreak is a situation that none of us asked for, and it can be quite nerve-racking. But how you decide to use the time that you’ve been given is up to you. If you focus on methods for improving your business, there is potential to come out of this stronger than ever before.
Apex Design Build has an established reputation as a top-quality healthcare facility design build firm. The Apex Continuum combines focused healthcare expertise with a comprehensive, one stop solution for design, architecture and construction to ultimately provide a best in class experience for every client we partner with. To discover how Apex can take your vision of the perfect healthcare facility and bring it to life, contact our integrated team today.