Andrew’s 3 simple tips for clinicians who aren’t natural marketers

Have you ever been around someone who was such a natural at what they did that it was sort of…dazzling?

Someone who made you want to find your thing? The thing you could accomplish with mastery and ease?

Some of you may know I married a stellar athlete, a man so comfortable in his body and in the weight room that it’s hard to imagine him ever struggling with any physical endeavor (and he’s got the quads to prove it).

But I know Andrew’s backstory.

He’s NOT a genetically predisposed athlete.

Far from it.

And after 9 years of marriage and countless conversations about his journey from uncoordinated fat kid to collegiate football player to seriously fantastic personal trainer, I’ve picked up a tip or two on how to conquer and even command an area of business that, for most of us, feels wildly unfamiliar.

Yep, I’m talking about marketing.

You’re not the only one who feels super weird marketing your wellness business

Most of our clients tell us that marketing their practice feels unnatural.

That they feel most comfortable working with patients or writing their book…not making videos for Instagram or publishing another blog post.

Look, we get it.

We love marketing, but we understand that most clinicians feel best working in their business instead of working on it.

You got into this to help people…not perform a silly dance on TikTok.

But what if there were a way for marketing to feel a little less artificial and a little more natural?

Tip #1: Make sure you’re obsessed with your mission

The thing with marketing is that it gets much easier when you can’t stop (positively) obsessing about your practice.

How do you do that?

You choose a focus you love.

As promised, this tip is simple, but finding your passion (aka choosing a niche) doesn’t always feel so easy.

And I’m little help…it took me almost a decade to finally realize/stumble into my love for research writing and SEO marketing.

But Andrew realized this one early—he found wrestling and weightlifting at just 13, and while his love of movement has morphed over the years, he’s just as passionate today as he was in 8th grade. (Believe me, dear friends, our weekend mornings are not spent sleeping in.)

Consider a practice you are so excited about you cannot wait to get out of bed in the morning.

The moment you open your eyes, your mission is on your mind.

Click here to read more about nailing down your niche.

If your current business doesn’t elicit this level of passion, it might be time to rethink things.

The bottom line is that most clinicians who become successful marketers with profitable practices aren’t lukewarm about their subject matter…they’re compelled to tell anyone who will listen about the work they’re doing.

And this compulsion makes marketing much, much easier.

Think about subjects that are relatively easy for you to discuss…your son who just graduated from high school, the highlight-studded trip you just took to the Grand Canyon, maybe the esthetician who is a facial-giving genius…

It’s pretty easy to talk about the topics you love and appreciate.

Your practice should absolutely fall into this category. Remember, at the end of the day, marketing is simply telling people about what you do.

Tip #2: Start where you’re at

The guy in that photo up there has a top squat weight of 680 pounds.

Do you think he got there by picking up the heaviest weights in the gym on his first day?

Nope.

He started as a seriously out-of-shape, awkward guy who felt confined by a body he didn’t know how to manage.

But he knew he had to start where he was at. And then it took him a decade to get where he wanted to go.

Every day, we speak with clients who want our most technical SEO tips and tricks for getting found on Google or who want to create elaborate marketing funnels or social media plans that require them to post seven times per week.

But when we review their websites, they haven’t been blogging regularly.

They barely post on social media.

Or they don’t know who their ideal client is.

To be clear, this is NOT a criticism! It’s simply where you have to start.

Feeling out of place as a marketer is often due to believing that you’re not good enough or don’t know enough…and then just giving up on foundational marketing that, in reality, is VERY effective if implemented over time.

Like blogging.

Or posting on social.

Or doing your best to understand your audience.

Are you going to be the best of the best for even the first 20 blogs you publish?

Definitely not!

But are you going to learn over time, and are those blogs going to help your website grow in authority and get noticed by people who need your help?

Yes.

It’s ok to start where you’re at. It’s even better than ok…it’s mandatory if you want to grow.

Tip #3: Rest

When we first met, Andrew was appalled at my inability to chill the f*ck out.

I have a type-A, go-go-go personality, and I often ended up getting injured or exhausted and then couldn’t stick with a program that would help me achieve my goals (if you don’t know already, I’m a bit of a meathead myself).

It’s taken me nearly the entirety of our 9 years together to learn that days off mean better focus, strength, power, and, most importantly, the ability to stay consistent.

Building muscle relies on rest, and so does building your practice.

You might feel insecure about marketing because, from the outside, it appears that businesses never stop grinding.

But this is far from the truth…good marketing relies on taking breaks.

Now, you can rely on handy software that allows you to automate newsletters and posts and all kinds of other marketing strategies, but you, the person, have to step back once in a while and take a day (or week or two) off.

At our agency, August off is a non-negotiable. (And yes, we use a fantastic software to stay in touch with our clients when we’re on vacation. You can check that out here.)

Dependability, persistence, and consistency are the names of the game when it comes to effective marketing…not pushing so hard you burn out and don’t send a newsletter for weeks or months at a time.

Your potential patients need to hear from you for a long time, not in short, erratic bursts.

Need more marketing tips?

Click here for a free 7-day trial of our marketing membership.

The membership features over 250 practical marketing videos, weekly meetups with other badass wellness pros, co-working support to tackle those “ugh, I don’t want to do this” projects, and a private Facebook community of loving, supportive professionals.