New clinic, free treatments

It occurred to me that the last month or so of preparation for opening my clinic has been filled with a lot of really mundane details. It feels great to get all that preparatory stuff out of the way—accumulating the furniture, setting up the reception area, getting the logo designed, making new intake forms, consent forms, and all the rest. I feel like a benchmark has been reached, and I feel like celebrating, but I think an open house is premature. For one thing, I only have one patient so far! Community Health Acupuncture Center in Royal Oak, MI, is finally ready for patients, but are the patients ready for CHAC?

All the marketing I’ve done to date has consisted of a series of networking events— meetings of the National Association of Career Women, Business Networking International, Local Business Networking, local chambers of commerce coffees—all these have generated so far are lots of phone calls wondering if I need to buy insurance, send-out cards, essential oils, printing, web site design services, local newspaper advertising, and on and on. Admittedly, some of the people I met at these groups have helped me get the clinic open and legal, and they were welcome contacts, but now comes the task of finding the people who need me.

I have to admit feeling a little anxious about getting out there to sell myself and the clinic, but I’m also looking forward to it in some ways. One of the things Lisa mentioned as a marketing technique in the Maine 2007 Nuts and Bolts of Community Acupuncture training seminar was offering to let people try a treatment for free. As I canvas for CHAC in the coming weeks, I am prepared to make this offer to people, and I am truly looking forward to it because it doesn’t require such a hard sell. I am anticipating that people who are truly interested will take me up on the offer, and I am excited about filling my appointment book, even if it is with free treatments in the beginning!