Because You’ve Made a Connection

By Ben Montgomery, BuildPT.com

We can all agree that effective communication is key when selling someone a product, a service, and yes, a more healthful outcome. And yet when private practice physical therapists make their pitch to potential clients either in person, online, or within marketing collateral, it isn’t enough to simply speak the same English language.

Effective written and verbal communication must be meaningful and relatable, with an eye toward making a personal connection. For this to happen, your words must be culturally significant to the consumer.

See, consumers don’t live in a clinical world, and neither should you, at least not while you’re wearing your sales/marketing hat. Instead, be a layperson, one who strives to connect with people where they are in their lives: the running trail, the bike commute to work, chasing after the kids, or fighting through low back pain to get the yard work done.

This means speaking their language. It means getting to know the client. And it means focusing on not just where it hurts, but why the pain and/or lack of functionality ultimately matter so much to your typical or ideal client.

It means mentally breaking away from the clinic and forming a connection based not around the physical therapy profession, but around the lives they strive to live every day. Such engagement can give client acquisition and retention a boost at your clinic, while also opening doors to more effective marketing and educational opportunities within your community.