Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with 50 employees of Intuit Health (live in Cary, NC and virtually in Menlo Park, CA) on the workflow of the medical practice and what makes medical practices unique from a marketing prospective.
Why is healthcare so very different from other markets and so often frustrating for medical salespeople?
- Confusion over who has the “D” – who is the decision maker? Is it the practice administrator, the formal physician leader or the informal physician leader? Is it a consultant or adviser?
- Lack of business training by the business owners (the physicians.)
- Lack of strategic planning and budgeting for capital expenditures. Practices are well known for being penny wise and pound foolish.
- Heavily referral-based system which means no practice wants to be first to use any product and every practice wants at least one solid reference from a similarly-sized practice in the same specialty.
- A dearth of current, helpful information about who practice administrators are.
- Difficulty in getting through the switchboard operator or front desk to the practice administrator.
- Physicians rarely take calls from patients, much less salespersons.
- Most practice administrators are completely averse to cold calls and you might get on their blacklist just for calling.
- Doctors and administrators are suspicious that everyone has their hand in the doctor’s pocket.
Thanks to Yvette and Jim and the amazing folks at Intuit Health for a great afternoon!
If you are interested in a presentation to your sales or customer service team about marketing to medical practices, or understanding medical practice operations and workflow, please email me here, or call me at 919.370.0504.
