Everyone can relax....
Posted October 1st, 2008 by lupine
the American Acupuncture Council is here to help!!!
At first, I thought this lovely letter of enlightenment we received today was a little personal note to Skip from Marilyn Allen herself...wishing him a Happy Birthday (sorry Skip...the bacon-flavored toothpicks from me will have to do)....but, noooooo, it was even better than that! They want to help YOU! Here is the letter we (and I'm sure many of you) received along with the forty million invoices we receive every 2 days from the AAC:
((Note: all strange grammer - and advice - is from original document.))
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Dear Licensed Acupuncturist,
As autumn approaches, it is time to remind your patients of the importance to keep their body in balance. Acupuncture treatments can help.
October 24th is National Oriental Medicine Day. Tell your patients so they can tell their friends and family. Plan a celebration in your clinic. Invite all your old, new and prospective patients to join you for a time of informative fun. Call your local newspaper and provide them with information about Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine - they might just write an article.
I will be sending you a marketing idea in your invoice. I hope you will find it helpful and useful. If you have a marketing idea that has proven to be successful in your practice and want to share it - we would like to hear it. If you have questions please call - 800-838-0383.
Yours in good health,
Marilyn Allen
Director of Marketing
Editor of Acupuncture Today
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So, I don't know about you, but I am FOR SURE sitting by my mailbox waiting for this ONE marketing idea. And, while waiting, I am planning the biggest, craziest, "time of informative fun" for all of my friends and family on National Oriental Medicine Day to tell them that acupuncture treatments work! Oh, wait, I'll be with LAcs from all over the country at the October Revolution spouting social justice propaganda and finishing up that bottle of wine that Marilyn must have started while she wrote this...I think that counts as a celebration, eh? (For those of you that have already registered for the workshop, if you want a refund once you get Marilyn's tip, I'll understand, call me...)
Yours in poor taste,
Lupine Hudson
Director of Directional Things
Editor of the Horrible Thoughts in my Head (okay, I don't do so well at that one)
From my inside man....
Funny you wrote about this, Lupine. My guy on the inside at the AAC leaked me the "marketing idea" straight off the hard drive of Marilyn herself. Here it is, unedited.
"Dear Licensed Acupuncturist,
We at the AAC understand the value of the dollar. In fact, it is our sole motivator. We trust you feel the same way. That is why we wanted to use this opportunity to remind you that you are not making as much money as you should and wanted to help you expose yourself to more potential clients with a cheap and gimmicky marketing trick. After all, that is what AOM day really is; a desperate attempt to attract attention to an increasingly irrelevant profession. I mean, how pathetic is that?! At least on a day like "Secretary Day" or "Mother's Day" other people actually acknowledge those that the holiday is supposed to be for. Leave it to us self-serving, self-absorbed, naricissistic egomaniacs to actually create a day in our own honor...and then force it on an unsuspecting public! At the very least, we must try to give the appearance that we are acting on behalf of the medicine and our patients.
So this AOM Day, try this tried and true marketing ploy. Send out a mass mailer to all your past and current patients. Inform them that if they refer a friend to you on AOM Day, that you will take 50% off their next treatment. The trick is, that while you are really fishing for their money, you have to try to appear that you are their friend and want to help them...kind of like what we're doing to you with this whole marketing advice/invoice combo. It's sneaky, yes? You probably didn't recognize that it was happening. But after all, I'm not the Director of Marketing over here at the AAC for nothing!
So happy AOM Day, friends. And don't forget to pay your bill.
Yours in good health,
Marilyn Allen
Director of Marketing
Editor of Acupuncture Today"
That's advice you can take straight to the bank. Thanks AAC!
http://thezangfool.blogspot.com/
Fuck the AAC.
Who needs marketing anyway -- the mail I got yesterday has the answer to all of our money problems. Dubbed "Financial Success in a Bottle," it's called Zrii, and it's endorsed by the Chopra Center. Take that, Marilyn. We're all covered. I'll bring the product and details to Portland on the 24th, it'll be much better than Marilyn's leftover wine.
Power to the peeps
Yup.
Had an insurance company approach me last year to dialogue about my colleague's interest in another malpractice product for our profession. We haven't chatted about it since Feb. I'll check-in and see where they're at, reiterating our desire for something new.
"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." --Rumi
www.TheTurningPointAcupuncture.com
Follow-up
I'd like to get some feedback about what you would/wouldn't like in a new malpractice package because I'll be talking with the underwriters this week about their rough draft. For more discussion, visit this thread inside the forums...
"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." --Rumi
www.TheTurningPointAcupuncture.com
Here Here...
to finding someone to underwrite us. I recently asked Wood Ins. group, who is reasonable beyond belief compared to AAC, for a copy of their policy. The person "helping" me "didn't have one available" (ahem) and thought it might take her a while to send me a copy, because after all she would have to blank out the insured person's name...I guess they have a big bottle of white out so they can change it every time someone buys an acupuncture policy. I much prefer the idea of using the monies invested in in all of these mostly useless policies, to further the CAN in some other real way... Cris
As a soon-to- open CA
make some tea,
make some time, kick back, and read, read, read. everything you need to know for a successful CA right out of the chute is right here in the forums.
as far as insurance goes, that's gonna take a little more time to get going, right now we're pretty much stuuck with AAC, there may be a few other providers out there.
what he means is...
Join Join Join....most of the tasty tidbits of info are behind the scenes in 1,000s of posts that are visible once you are a member of CAN. Enjoy!