John Jansch from Duct Tape Marketing wrote a post recently called, The Power of Positive Expectancy. While there is nothing novel about his post, it is a good reminder of the importance of having a positive attitude about succeeding in your private practice. To quote John:
If you expect your clients to be thrilled with your services – they will.
If you flat out expect your clients to refer business your way – they will.
If you know a direct marketing piece will make the phone ring – it will.
Marketing a practice is hard work and results take time. Even those who are normally extremely confident can become discouraged and allow negative thoughts to influence them.
It’s a pretty obvious, however, that you won’t be able to thrive in your private practice if you don’t believe you can. Of course you still need to know how to develop effective promotional materials and how to market your practice effectively, but without believing that you will attract the clients you want, it is highly unlikely that you will.
When my clients get discouraged I often tell them a story about when I was first building my practice and the times that doubts surfaced for me. I remember that while reading about people who had achieved success, I learned that most of them along the way maintained an attitude that they would be successful. After hearing this several times, something in my brain “clicked’ with my attitude towards my own success. I can clearly recall that moment when I decided that I was going to succeed.
From that point on, everything changed. I simply decided that I was going to do whatever it took to succeed…And I did.
