4 Steps to Becoming the Preferred Weight Loss Practice in Your Area - Part 1

You inherently know that competition can be a great thing!  It challenges you to do better. 

Healthy competition to do and be your best can be a beautiful thing.  For yourself, you may surpass your personal best running time when challenged by running with a group.  For business, you likely have many competitors in your area.  You keep up with the latest research and strive to continually improve the services and products you offer in your practice.  As a result, the patients you love to help successfully lose weight and improve their overall health tend to have better outcomes. 

Yet – sometimes – you just plain get ‘out marketed’ by another (often non-medical sexy quick fix) weight loss option, or a larger medical or commercial weight loss program with a much larger marketing budget than you – or a celebrity who is now a weight loss expert.  It can be very frustrating to say the least and I have been there myself more times than I care to admit. 

I hear this all of the time and I especially don’t blame physicians for feeling frustrated.  I mean you went through 8+ years of college and medical school in addition to a residency and possibly a fellowship training.  Not only that, you studied like crazy and successfully completed board certification(s) further demonstrating your knowledge, skill and commitment to the patients you serve.  All while probably racking up a lot of debt and/or having to sacrifice in one or more areas of your personal life throughout this journey.

Your initial reaction may be to study what the competition is doing and then offer something similar.  Or, you may decide to turn to your very own quick fix options such as a bright shiny new ad campaign from a well-known advertising company, creating a slick video about your practice, integrating a cool new piece of tracking software, hiring a new ads manager or something similar.  I am not saying that these efforts can’t be helpful, but they will likely be a short term (potentially costly) solution to a longer-term problem.

Coincidentally, this is similar to the journey your patients embark upon – reaching for every ‘shiny sure thing’ so that by the time they reach you, they are skeptical, burnt out and frustrated as well.

Thankfully, there is a better way to separate yourself from your competition and attract the patients you want to help, while worrying less about what everyone else is doing.  Best yet, it is honest, fun and much easier than trying to keep up with what everyone else is doing. Also, when done properly, it actually keeps you ahead of your competition.

So, what is this better way?  What can you do to become the preferred weight loss practice in and around your area?  How can you be seen as the ‘obvious choice’ when it comes to weight loss in your region?  How do you become the ‘chosen one’ amidst everyone and everything else bombarding those you are best equipped to serve?

You must create the TRUST your patients have been looking for all along!

I am totally serious.  I have seen this work over and over again in our practice and with many practices I work with directly.  Why?  Because it isn’t a gimmick, it isn’t salesy, and it isn’t uncomfortable.  It is honest, sincere, and unique.  It draws your patients more naturally to you and makes it easy for them to realize that you are what they have needed all along.

The definition of Trust from Merriam Webster¹ includes: to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of (Believe); dependence on something future or contingent (Hope); and to place confidence (Depend).  Trust will draw them to you which is a wonderful beginning.  However, as you know, belief, hope and dependence on YOU will not bring your patients the long-term weight loss and health they desire.

For their ultimate success, you and your team must help them TRUST themselves through their actions to be successful now and in the future!

Let’s start with developing trust in you, your practice and your team – The Chosen One.  To do this, there are 4 primary steps.  (I will cover the first this week and the remainder next week). These steps will help you move ahead of your competition without blowing your budget and aligns beautifully with your inner integrity.  Thus, eliminating the ‘salesy’ feeling we all tend to dislike. 

TRUST – Clarity

Why are you the best weight loss option in your market?  Have you thought about this recently?  What is it that makes you the best choice for those seeking weight loss services and products in and around your area? 

It may seem trivial or unnecessary, but having clarity around what makes YOU different as well as why YOU are best choice for your ideal patients is critical to establishing trust.  It defines exactly why YOU and builds your authority as the expert that you are. 

In fact, at the risk of sounding overly confident, understanding this becomes the reason as to why you, your team and your services are the superior choice to every – other – choice out there for weight loss.  It becomes your authority statement.

So here are a few examples of why YOU:

• Your years of experience
• Your training (i.e. endocrinologist specializing in diabetes, thyroid and weight loss or board-certified bariatric surgeon and obesity medicine specialist)
• Your certifications
• Your weight loss areas of expertise (i.e. specific comorbidities, menopause, surgery, other complementary procedures)
• Your comprehensive program – one stop shop
• Your facility & team
• Your best-selling books
• Your Podcast
• Your TV Appearances
• Your educational programs
• Your online programs
• Your vitamin/nutraceutical products
• Your specific diagnostic testing & tracking
• Your convenience
• Your location
• Your very own celebrity status
• Your outcome statistics
• Other
• Combination of above

The important thing is to figure out what currently differentiates you from your competition as well as what you want to be known for in the future.  Although marketing is a separate topic and this clarity is not always what you should lead with in an ad campaign, it does play a part.

Reach out to me if you have specific questions or want to discuss this topic at  [email protected]  Also, an easy (no brainer) to work with me directly and access many daily, weekly and monthly resources is through www.BariatricBusinessAccelerator.com  membership.  I can’t wait to learn about what you are up to in your practice as well as your goals.

Get the entire document here

¹ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trust