26. How To Differentiate Yourself As A Naturopathic Doctor

Burhaan Pattel  0:00  
Welcome to the marketing stack podcast. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about how to differentiate yourself as a naturopathic doctor or functional medicine doctor, or functional medicine practitioner. As I say, in the episode, you know, you're probably a doctor who's growing your practice who's looking for more clients, during this time of the year 2020. During this time of our lives, we are struggling the most to get customers, there are a lot of businesses that are thriving, because they are set that they've set themselves up in that way. But what I've seen online, and I mentioned this is that a lot of people are struggling to find their voice. And so that's what this episode is all about.

Burhaan Pattel  0:37
And that's ultimately what I do, I help my customers, and my clients grow their businesses online, so that they can get time freedom, and build systems around them so that they can actually be the CEO of their life. This is the challenge today is there are just so many doctors, so many new practices that are coming up so many new professional people that are coming up, a lot of people spend time educating themselves, they've gone to university, they've taken courses, they've taken classes on, you know, becoming a skilled person in this profession. And in researching a whole bunch of practices online, is I'm finding a very common sort of theme, where people have got these doctors offering the same services to the to the same bunch of people, I think, in their local area, because you know, maybe they have a physical clinic, or maybe they work as a clinician.

Burhaan Pattel  1:26  
And so you know, the service offering, the thing that you're giving people is pretty much the same. Maybe you have different ideas, or maybe different prescriptions for different people, maybe different supplements, maybe you're offering different products to these people. But ultimately, everybody is saying the same thing. And so this video addresses that problem, where, because you're online, because there's so much competition, because there's so many other doctors around you in your either your physical space or in your country, in your city in your town, you have to find a way to differentiate yourself. So that's what this video is all about online.

Burhaan Pattel  2:03  
And this applies to offline as well. So some of the principles, some of the techniques that I'm going to be talking about will apply to your business. No matter where you're marketing yourself, I use this word marketing very specifically. And I'll cover the marketing aspect, which basically is what we're talking about. But let's first talk about where you are in your business, or where you are in your career, maybe you're a new doctor to the space, and you're just establishing yourself, so you have no brand, you have no real name out there except for your qualification. And unfortunately, the trouble is, you don't have any business experience, you have no marketing skills.

Burhaan Pattel  2:40  
Usually in university, they don't actually give you the skills to market yourself as a business, or to generate an income from your skill, the model that they teach you in university, and I'm a university graduate, as well. And I did Information Technology specifically, where, you know, I learned all the technical aspects behind sort of computers and the internet and how to actually build a website and, and all of those things. But I didn't learn the marketing side, I didn't learn the business side from the university, right, I learned business from my dad, I learned business from people online, I learned business from YouTube, I learned business from people like me make, I learn business from books. And these are not sort of natural things, or these are not things that you just get through your university degree or through your education.

Burhaan Pattel  3:27  
These are things that you have to seek outside, because the universities are just not catering for it. Right. Your professors are probably just professors, maybe they're practicing, maybe they have a clinic of their own. But the part of the curriculum doesn't cater for the business side. And hopefully, I my wishes that that changes. But the fact of the matter is that there are resources available, like YouTube to teach you marketing to teach you how to actually differentiate yourself. And so your desire, right, the thing that you want the most, I think if you're a new doctor, then you're trying to figure out how to get clients, that's the first thing or if you're working for somebody else, if you're working in a clinic, then definitely your head, the head of your department or the owner of the practice, his his job, ideally, is to get more clients, more patients to the business, right.

Burhaan Pattel  4:22  
And so that's where maybe you are, maybe you have a clinic, and your mission is to get more clients for your clinic because maybe you know, you build your practice up to where you have a few doctors working with you. You're partnering with a couple of people to support and to treat more patients. Ultimately, that's what we all want to do is we want to help as many people as we can and make make a good living doing that. But your your, your priority is money, of course. But ultimately what you want to do is you want to build yourself your business that caters for your lifestyle, and you just want to be more fulfilled just want to be healthier, happier, and ultimately right, because you're just maybe you're just starting out, you're spending most of your time in your practice, either working for somebody else or building your practice.

Burhaan Pattel  5:08  
And so ultimately, your your end goal is probably just to have your business where it's generating income, where you actually don't have to do much work. So you become the CEO of your business. And so that's where this whole conversation is going, right? How to differentiate yourself so that you can attract your clients. Then in a future video, I'll talk about how to build systems around your business or inside your business, so that it functions as a business so that you're not the business, but the business functions with you in it, right. And I'll talk about that on a future video. So consider subscribing, if you want to, if you want to catch that video when it comes out. And definitely hit the notification bell. So you can you don't miss that video. But that's coming up in the future.

Burhaan Pattel  5:51  
This video is specifically about how to differentiate yourself so that you actually build yourself a business. And then, you know, maybe you have zero following online, maybe you like I said, you're just starting out or you haven't quite focused online, maybe you get most of your clients via referrals, because you have a good practice, because you're a really good doctor, because your education is really good, because you're helping lots of clients, because you've got a lot of testimonials. That's great. That's perfect. That's where you want to be. But maybe you haven't got that following, maybe you haven't got that reach. Maybe when COVID came around, your eyes opened up to the fact that, hey, I can't just rely on walking traffic, I can't just rely on the board or the signage that's outside my clinic that says, hey, I can help you with your medical related issues.

Burhaan Pattel  6:37  
And so when you're trying to go online, and you realize that, hey, you're competing with even more people that are in your local area, and that you need to do maybe Facebook ads, you need to do blog posts, or you need to do videos, or you need to do something online, to attract those clients. Ultimately, it comes down to differentiation, what is your unique selling proposition? Right? What is what is the thing that people are going to come to you for? Or why are people going to come to you, as opposed to going to your neighbor, who offers a very same or a very similar service? Or that can promise that they can help with this person's issues with their problems?

Burhaan Pattel  7:21  
This is the conversation where we're going to. All right and then, of course, when it comes to online, whether it's offline, it's how do you how do you get attention? How do you communicate in a way that creates that conversation with people? How do you start that conversation with people, either from your website or from your social media? And I've got another video where I talked about, you know, the reasons why your website isn't working. So definitely click on the card here, if you already have a website, which most probably you do. And I talked about the conversation that needs to happen in that video. So definitely check that one out if you haven't already. But let's continue this this journey, right.

Burhaan Pattel  8:02
So, you know, externally, like I said, you have all of these competitors, you have everybody posting very similar content, they're all talking about foods related to healthy living or healthy lifestyle, you're talking you know, most people are talking about different programs or weight loss programs, or you know how to cure diabetes, how to get your diabetes under control, the content is available in vast quantities, you've got, you know, people talking about natural remedies, you've got supplement companies that are doing ads and running against you because, well, they can sell direct to the customer. And you've got customers going to Amazon and self prescribe prescribing things to themselves. And so all of these things are working against you. Because well the market is open. Right? This is what the Internet has done is it's created an open marketplace for anybody to share their message and to get the information and to find the solutions for themselves.

Burhaan Pattel  8:03  
Then you have your own sort of qualms about what what's going on, like maybe you don't put you're not posting on Facebook, because you feel like you're not good enough. Maybe you've got zero followers until you say to yourself, well, nobody's listening anyway so why should I bother? Maybe you're not saying the right things and you're not, you know, you're posting the content, but it's just not hitting the mark. It's just not getting the people to you, and, you know, you internally, maybe you feel like you just can't help people change their habits. And so as part of developing a differentiated approach, or as part of building your unique proposition, unique selling proposition, your unique position on who you are and why you're doing it, you're going to struggle, because then you sound like everybody else, you're offering the same stuff. And so, you know, hopefully we can solve that for you in this video.

Burhaan Pattel  9:42  
So you need to specialize, right? You need to find that unique thing about you. So how do you do that? Well, maybe you focus on a different group of people, right? So instead of just being a weight loss specialist or maybe somebody who's helping with weight loss, and I'm being very broad here right now on purpose. Maybe you focus on weight loss for the age group between 50 and 60. So you work with working with, you know, people who are a little bit older to manage their weight, and what their weight issues comes diabetes with comes in, you know, however, you're solving that weight issue, they're specifically looking for the weight problem looking to solve that weight problem. So maybe you focus in on just that group, or maybe you specialize in just sportsmen.

Burhaan Pattel  9:53  
Maybe you say, Hey, I'm a nutritionist, and I work with only athletes. And maybe you go even further, and you say, I work with only runners, I work with only swimmers. I work with only bodybuilders, like focusing on those on the groups of people who you're interested in. And maybe that's the way to differentiate yourself. Because now if you're unique, in the sense that you're specializing on this specific group of people, as you practice, and as you get experience, and as you start seeing, and helping these people with their problems, their unique problems, gives you the language to differentiate yourself to them, then you become known for, hey, this is the cyclist nutritionist. Okay, and that's a niche on its own.

Burhaan Pattel  11:18  
Maybe you're the bodybuilding nutritionist, maybe you focus on just a sport, you know, maybe you're a nutritionist or a functional medicine doctor, specifically from Formula One teams, or specifically for racing, like these are just different ideas or different aspects that you are golfers, right? And maybe then Tiger Woods is your ideal client. Like, that can happen because golfers speak to each other on the golfing on the golf fridge, right? They're like, hey, look, you know, you've got huge amounts of energy. How do you How did you do that? Oh, no, I have this health coach who or I went to the specific doctor, and he's given me a regimen of food and exercise that helped me get to the point that I'm that I'm at right now. Maybe that's your thing. So these are just a, that's just one way that you can do it. Okay.

Burhaan Pattel  12:10  
Maybe you're specializing on a certain location, maybe a certain income group. Now, income group is a little subjective, because, you know, with Facebook advertising rules and the way things are going away there, you might be able to might not be able to reach those people. But if you locate your business, in a in a high wealth area, and you differentiate yourself by your messaging, then you focus on only a wealth, that wealth group of people. And maybe they also, incidentally, are of a certain age bracket. Or maybe you're speaking to the wealthy in, you know, children who have inheritances, and you know where to find them. Like, if you have that connection, if you through your network, you can reach those people because those, those are the relationship that you've built up over the years. Fine, why not? That might be the way that you could do that.

Burhaan Pattel  13:06  
And so maybe you specialize in a remedy that's approved, that's unique. And you're the only exclusive person in that area, and you do a deal with the supplement company where you're the only one in that area that can sell that specific supplement. So what you do then is you use the marketing of the supplement or you partner with the supplement company to specifically deliver on that product. And then anybody who's looking for that brand, must only come to you, right? So you're the sole distributor for that specific supplement in your area. Now, that may not last forever, because maybe the company decides that they want to give the distribution rights to somebody else. And that's might happen, that may not happen. But then that's a way for you to differentiate yourself using a product or a service. Right. So that's, that's another way.

Burhaan Pattel  14:00  
Maybe you set your pricing, or you set a program up where it's only affordable to a certain group of people. Or maybe it's because, you know, you're because of the combination of these things, demographic and psychographic reasons, you can differentiate and niche yourself down to a point where you're just talking very specifically. So that's ultimately what you want to do is differentiate yourself to a point where you can narrow down, identify these people find them online, and go and have conversations with them. Then there's a whole marketing strategy about how to reach them, and how to actually talk to them. But that's not the focus of this video. Once you have your differentiated position, once you know who you're speaking to your ideal client, your ideal customer, and you'll have years you've probably seen videos around the internet about this ad nauseum, maybe, but have you really done the work to identify who your ideal client is?

Burhaan Pattel  14:58  
You may be working with a bunch of people Where if you look at your practice, and if you look at your income? And if you look at how many testimonials, or you look at sort of, What is the 80-20 in your business in terms of, who are you giving the most success to? Who are the people that are generating the most amount of revenue for your business? Who are the people who are referring you more work than any others, you'll probably find only 10 or 20% of those people are generating the, the 80% of your revenue. And so if that those people might be able to help you identify your niche, or your unique selling proposition? Because if you, if you asked them, hey, why did you come to me specifically, they will feed you that information, they will tell you, if they know if they like you, and if you've helped them, they are going to help you to find that voice. So asking the questions from your customers, or your clients at the moment, your patients at the moment is going to help you a ton as well.

Burhaan Pattel  15:54  
And now I mentioned that, you know, as part of your journey, you're maybe you've just started out you have a practice, and it's just starting out. Or maybe you have a practice and you have referrals already and your your practice is busy. Your ultimate goal is to give yourself time to give yourself that leverage to give yourself to build your practice to where you actually not working every day in your practice. And you want that time freedom. And so if you're interested in that, I've actually, I'm actually building a service around helping you get to be the CEO of your clinic. And if that's something that interests you definitely get ahold of me, comment below this video. And let me know that that's something that you're interested in. Because I have a formula and I have a path that can that the internet and finding clients online can actually help you to build the systems around that, to cater for that that goal that you want to achieve.

Burhaan Pattel  16:48
And actually, the differentiation in your business and your message is going to help you to become the CEO of your business. Because as soon as you have an influx of people, you have more people coming to you than you can handle on your own, that's going to force you based on what your goals are, that's going to force you to build your business to where you can actually help more people. Because if more people want to help, then you have to hire more help, so that you can help them. Right. And that's a good position to be in. And so if you're looking for the systems, if you're looking for the processes, if you're looking for the way to market yourself on the internet, to actually create that surplus in your business, provided you're a good doctor, obviously, then, then I can help you so let me know you know, check out the links in the in the bottom if you want to book a consultation call as well. Or just comment below and let me know if that's something of interest to you.

Burhaan Pattel  17:41  
So with that being said, I hope this video was helpful. How to differentiate yourself as a naturopathic doctor or a health coach, or, or, you know, functional medicine doctor. If you liked the episode, definitely consider following or subscribing wherever you're listening to this podcast. And, and definitely check me out on YouTube. That's where this video was originally posted. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I do appreciate you getting to the end. If you liked the episode, definitely follow along, hit the follow or the subscribe button depending on where you're listening to this episode. And I look forward to speaking to you on the next one. Thank you so much. Bye