Why won’t that department head respond to your emails?
Why won’t the CNO get back to you?
Getting the attention of large health systems is probably the trickiest aspect of running a business in the healthcare sector.
These are super busy people. And everybody wants to sell them something.
That’s something you need to keep in mind – otherwise you’ll fall prey to these common mistakes …
The first is assuming the director or exec is as interested in what you offer as you are. Because, I hate to tell you this, but they’re not. They have a thousand other things on their plate – and it’s up to you to break through the noise.
Which often leads to the second most common mistake: starting with a sales pitch. All too often, businesses feel they have to get to the point quickly so they start selling – and the other person shuts down.
Sales pitches are the very last stage of getting a customer. You don’t want to spring them on someone you’ve just met.
Instead, you need to play a long game and focus on building connection.
To do that, you need to:
- Learn as much about them and their role as you can.
- Offer them something of interest to entice them to start interacting with you.
Typically, when people want to learn about their prospective customer, they think about demographics, like what their title is and how big their organization is.
But you will get much further if you start by thinking about what their day is like.
How many meetings do they have to attend? What problems keep landing on their desk? What work keeps getting bumped down their list? Do they work directly with patients? Are they managing clinicians?
When you can answer questions like that, you will be able to come up with an idea of what to offer them. Your offer, of course, should relate to your business. And it should be free, so it’s very low stakes.
You are not selling them here, you are letting them know that you have an expertise they might find helpful.
Perhaps you can create a guide for dealing with burned out medical staff. Or maybe a checklist to help them prepare for a specific regulatory audit that you specialize in.
The key is to get to know the ins and outs of their workday and then offer them something that helps them out.
People respond better when they feel understood and when they feel helped. That’s why this method is so much more effective than launching into a sales pitch.
Of course, this is only the first piece of the puzzle. If you would like to learn more about getting on the radar of large health systems and medical practices, you might be interested in my class, Healthcare Marketing 101. This self-paced video class shows you exactly how to create a professional, multi-channel marketing strategy for your healthcare business.
Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash