How To Grow Your Acupuncture Practice In Half The Time

Did you know that Albert Einstein said that compound interest is "the greatest mathematical discovery of all time?"

I know you're asking yourself... What on earth does acupuncture marketing have to do with compound interest? Just stick with me for a moment and I'll tell you why this is important.

What is compounding?

Compounding is the reinvestment of the interest you receive from the money you set aside. For example, if you invest $1,000 and earn 10% interest on your principal, at the end of each year you'll get in $100 in interest. If you reinvest that interest, the second year you would start with $1,100, and thus would earn $110 interest.

If you stay with it, you'd more than double your money every eight years.

What does acupuncture marketing have to do with compound interest?

A lot...

Last week I told you that in acupuncture school they tell you it takes about 5 years to build an acupuncture practice, and although that is not entirely false it is way off the mark.

Why? .... because with the right marketing program you can make it happen within 1 ½ to 2 years.

Today I'm going to show you why acupuncture marketing is like compound interest and why the 5 year rule is a myth.

Susan graduates and receives her TCM degree, and a couple of months later, which seemed like an eternity to her, she gets her license and is now ready to make it as an acupuncturist in the real world.

Rather than printing brochures and business cards, and pounding the streets looking for attorneys and chiropractors for referrals, Susan decides to invest what little money she has in a proven acupuncture marketing system.

Her turn-key marketing system starts generating 3 new patients every week without Susan having to step outside her office.

Now let's do the math-- after the first month, Susan's 3 new weekly patients represent 12 new patients per month. At the end of 12 months she will have 144 new patients. In my compounding example, let's call these totals the "principal."

Now let's say that out every 5 patients, one will refer a friend or loved one. This will represent another 2.4 patient referrals per month, or 28.8 referrals per year. In my compounding example, let's call this number the "interest."

At the end of twelve months Susan will have a total of 28.8 referred patients, plus an additional 5.8 patients referred by those original 28.8 referrals. That's a total of 34.6 referrals in year one.

Result for year #1 = 34.6 new patients generated JUST from the referrals.

Now keep in mind that in this example, we're not taking into account the regular 144 patients (the principal) generated by the marketing system, we're ONLY looking at the referrals for now (your interest.)

Now here's where the magic of compounding comes into play...

In the second year, Susan will generate another 34.6 referrals as expected, but guess what... her original 34.6 from the previous year have now generated another 7 referrals.

Result for year #2 = 41.6 new patients generated JUST from the referrals (that's 20% more than year #1.)

Result for year #3 = 49.8 new patients generated JUST from the referrals (that's 20% more than year #2, but actually 44% more than year 1.)

Result for year #4 = 59.8 new patients generated JUST from the referrals (that's another 20% more than year #3 and a dramatic 73% more than year #1.)

Result for year #5 = 71.8 new patients generated JUST from the referrals (that's 20% more than year #4 and a whopping 108% more
than year #1.)

OK... now that we've got through the boring stuff lets get to the fun stuff.

12 new patients per month = 144 new patients per year 2.4 referrals per month = 28.8 referrals per year 0.48 referrals from referrals per month = 5.8 additional referrals per year.

Total yearly "new" patients = 178.6 in year #1

Each patient will require 4 treatments at $75 each = $300 per
patient per year.

$300 per patient x 178.6 patients = $53,580 in gross revenue for
your practice the first year.

But wait... Would you say that about 4 out 10 patients will come back to get treatments for other ailments that same year? I think so. That would be about 40% of them. But let's be more conservative in our example and say that just 30% (3 out of 10) come back for an additional 4 treatments that same year.

30% of 178.6 patients = 54 patients coming back for additional treatments the same year.

54 patients x $300 = $16,200 in additional gross revenue.

TOTAL = $53,580 + $16,200 = $69,780

Is $69,780 of gross revenue for your first year in business good or bad? While your pondering the question let me point out the most important factor in this scenario.

178.6 patients + 54 patients coming back the same year for additional treatments = 233 visits.

233 visits / (divided) into 52 weeks is only 5.5 patients a week. In other words, in this example you're only seeing 5.5 or 6 patients per week.

With a strategic acupuncture marketing system you can grow your practice to 40 patients a week in about 18 to 24 months.

40 patients per week = 480 patients per year 480 patients per year x $300 per patient = $144,000 in gross revenue in your second year.

Is $144,000 in gross revenue good or bad after 2 years running your acupuncture practice?

I'll let you answer that question on your own.

The point here is that the 5 year rule about growing an acupuncture practice is just a myth.

Although every practice is different, it's not uncommon to get results similar to these if you've got good marketing working for you. The kind of marketing that works on auto-pilot, that you don't have to create, monitor or maintain, so you can focus on healing patients and running your practice.