Duct Tape Marketing

One thing that most post graduate professional education does not prepare you for is starting your own company.    The following are a few basic steps to help you set up and market your new company: 

1.         Build like a business.    It may not be the philosophical ideal they teach in medical school or law school, but the practical reality is that professional practices like law and medicine are businesses, just like sales or auto repair.  To that end, you need to remember that the actual practice of your profession is only half the battle.  The other half is generating business for the company.  This means you have to be ready to spend nearly as much time and effort dealing with things like advertising, employee management and collections as you do dealing with your chosen field.

2.         Look the Part.   Having a uniform look to your company goes a long way towards making your practice look professional.  Create a logo and then use it on your letterhead and envelopes.   Just because you know that you are putting together your company for the first time does not mean that everyone needs to know it.

3.         Establish a website.   The internet has replaced the phone book as the primary place potential patients seek out information on doctors and lawyers.  As a result, building a strong and informative website should be a major priority for any budding practice.  Also, since the average internet user will be looking primarily for information, make sure that the website is not only a sales tool, but contains enough information content to satisfy the reader without giving away so much that the reader no longer needs your services.

4.         Find your niche.    If you go into building your company with the goal of trying to be just like everyone else, even your best case scenario is that you are just like everyone else, except with less experience.  So from the beginning of your practice, you should be looking to form your own niche in the market based on your own unique set of skills and personality

5.         Get Your Name Out.  Having a company with a strong area of specialization is relatively useless if no one knows about it.  You need to get your name out in the community.  Establish a public presence for your company.  Send out targeted advertising to raise awareness of your company and the unique and special services you can offer.  There’s really no point in establishing a strong niche in a certain market if you don’t let people know that you occupy that niche.

6.         Keep working.   The building of a professional company is not something that happens overnight.  You need to work at it and keep working at it.  You need to continue to work on new ways to publicize and improve your company.  Like with most things, the more time and work you put into your company, the more you get out of it.