The Diamond Method – A Must Attend Workshop For All Private Practitioners

The following is an excerpt of an exclusive interview with Irene Diamond, internationally recognized massage therapist, creator of the Diamond Method, also on the web at http://www.thediamondmethod.com. Register now for Irene’s upcoming workshops, with a special discount code available only to our readers….

Nitin C: Hi everyone this is Nitin Chhoda from nitin360.com and I want to thank Irene for speaking with us because it is bright and early in the morning in Hawaii and Irene is actually on vacation. I am indeed jealous because I am stuck here in New Jersey. Irene is the creator of a unique massage therapy method called Active Myofascial Therapy also known as ‘The Diamond Method’ and her website is thediamondmethod.com, is that right?

Irene: Perfect.

Nitin C: I asked Irene for an interview so we can learn specifically how she went about creating a brand of massage therapy for herself. And how physical therapists can pretty much do the same and stand apart from the competition. Irene is conducting workshops all over the country and she has established a strong presence both locally and nationally as an expert in her technique “Active Myofascial Therapy” and a lot of physical therapists attend her workshops. For a physical therapist in private practice, who has an idea about a method that they want to pioneer and they want to brand, what is the first bit of advice that you would give them if they want to go about creating their own brand of therapy?

Irene: That is a great question. First and foremost, therapists need to be be sure that their idea or method they are developing is something that is unique and different from what everybody is already doing. If they have the same techniques as everyone else, then it is not going to be unique and you could spend a lot of time trying to brand it and it won’t be successful. I think there needs to be a unique story of why they created their method.

For example, in my situation, when I was 16, I was doing acrobatics and I actually fell and ended up with a spinal cord injury and was completely paralyzed and I went to physical therapy. I got a few sessions and was sent me on my way, but was still in chronic pain so I studied everything I could. And then I started going to therapists myself and started directing them on what to do and where to push, how to get better and I started getting better.

The therapists who were working with me started taking my method and using it on their own clients and patients. They were seeing great results with them, so I knew I was on to something and then I went to school and got my degree in recreation therapy with an emphasis on movement therapy.

With my knowledge of exercise, massage therapy and neuromuscular reeducation, I created a system that is backed by science. If a therapist is listening and they have an idea of the method they want to present then of course that has to be proved, that has to be resolved. It has to be reproducible. Read more

How To Use Twitter in your Physical Therapy Marketing

It’s the fastest and easiest way to communicate with net-savvy patients, local businesses and companies in your area.

It’s a network in which the size doubles every 90 days.

It’s expected to have more than 50 million members by Christmas 2009.

President Obama used it while campaigning to connect with his followers.

Ashton Kutcher uses it, and because he is engaging and exciting, has more ‘followers’ than President Obama. It’s used by the world’s largest companies, and has been the newsbreaker for plane crashes and tragedies like the Michael Jackson death, before any other news stations.

What is it, and what can it do for your physical therapy marketing business?

It’s called Twitter.

Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.

For more information, visit:

http://business.twitter.com/twitter101

If you want to follow me on twitter, I am at

http://twitter.com/NitinChhoda

Chicken Soup For The Physical Therapist

Great insight from Mark Victor Hansen, author of “Chicken Soup For The Soul” on “Why and how physical therapists should create information products”. I caught up with Mark at a recent convention and asked him what we can do to connect with patients on a deeper level. Mark talked about the ease of creating information products (the video is, in fact, an example of an information product) and the fact that it raises your value in the eyes of the patient. Cool insight!

Physical Therapy Marketing: Importance of Time Leveraging

It’s raining money for practices with automated marketing systems.

It’s hard to market your clinic and focus on patients at the same time, which is why many clinics have a dedicated marketing representative.  As a clinician, we often stick to what we do best; patient care.

Some therapists spend years knocking on doors with physicians and cold ‘prospecting’ in the hopes that someday, someone might listen. This is the wrong kind of physical therapy marketing.

What if you were to position yourself such that the physician actually wanted to communicate with you? What if you were the one they sought, as opposed to the other way around?

It’s possible, and it all depends on our own self esteem and self positioning. It’s a topic I will cover in great detail in upcoming blog posts, so be sure to check back in the next 2-3 weeks. Read more

Interview With Physical Therapy Marketing Expert

NITIN CHHODA:  Today, I am interviewing an expert in physical therapy marketing, Dr. Kareem Samhouri PT from Global Fitness LLC. Kareem is a physical therapist and fitness professional.  He has integrated amazing systems in his own practice, and was recently featured on NBC Philadelphia. Kareem’s ideas on physical therapy marketing are way ahead of the curve. He is on the cutting edge of the technology, he is a people’s person and a mentor to many people looking to market their physical therapy practice.

KAREEM: It is a pleasure to be here and I am just glad to help out other like-minded physical therapists, improve their network and grow in businesses, at the same time develop a stronger ability to take care of our patients in a greater way in liason with the medical community.

NITIN CHHODA:  How would you advise physical therapists to brand themselves and be remembered with physicians and patients? How does a physical therapist in a private practice set himself/herself apart from larger corporate clinics & stronger competitors?

KAREEM:   I think that is a great question and that definitely deserves the argument, when you brand yourself, you brand a company. If you brand your company then what you are doing is allowing people to request your company, not you. When you are soliciting referrals, what you are saying is my company can achieve this for your patient. And in doing so, not limiting yourself to hiring other practitioners in the future which is the key to being able to leverage your time and not work for your business all the time. You want to control your practice, and it has to be its own entity and stand on its own feet, even without you. I believe you should first develop the brand of the company, with an immediate ability to bring yourself on top of the company. Read more

The 8 Rules Of Corporate Wellness Programs For Physical Therapists

I conducted my physical therapy marketing webinar on www.addnewpatients.com this morning, attended by over 247 therapists  – more than I expected.

The result – an embarrassing technical failure with jammed phone lines and dropped internet connections.

We live and learn – I now know that I need a more robust webinar and teleconference system to better serve therapists attending the FREE webinars.

My technical stupidity aside, one question was overriding in today’s seminar:

“How can physical therapists initiate corporate wellness and worksite ergonomic solutions?”

As a physical therapist in private practice, I have created many successful corporate fitness programs and initiated memberships for my patients, and here’s my answer. (This is a topic I will be going into great detail in the coming weeks.) Read more

Physical Therapy Marketing Revealed By Dr. Larry Benz

Download Interview File

Nitin C: Today, I have the privilege of interviewing Dr. Larry Benz, PT and pioneer in private practice in the United States.  Larry is the founder of physicaltherapist.com, evidenceinmotion.com and I can actually go on and on about his resume, Larry has been on the APTA advisory and on practice and the board of physical therapy specialty. He is the recipient of a number of business and physical therapy awards including the Kentucky physical therapy outstanding physical therapy award and the Ernst and Young entrepreneur of the year award. Larry, I’m so happy you took the time out from your busy schedule to speak with us for a few minutes today, thank you again.

Larry: You’re welcome. Glad to be here.

Nitin C: Our topic for today is what physical therapists in private practice can do to improve their business using the internet. A lot of PTs in private practice are recognizing the importance of a website and what it can do for their practice. What advice would you give to a PT in private practice who is looking to use the internet as a medium to get more patients or offer more relevant information to patients?

Larry: Well it’s a great question because I think the internet is a great way of obtaining new patients but what I think, physical therapists have to gain a greater understanding is the fact that consumers are leading the way. They are skeptical, demanding, they want access, they want twice the transparency, they want unlimited choices and they want high quality. What you have is a little bit of age compression. You have certainly from the middle age of your baby boomers on up, they might not be as savvy as the younger set in terms of building access information on the internet. But they are paying attention, they are listening. The younger set from what I would call a sort of a four year old on down to the generations after that, they have a genuine distrust of healthcare providers right now. They are going into information and finding things about you. Whether that would be in the social networks you travel in, the services you provide and who is recommending you to others. The enabling technologies whether they be everything from ratepts.com to networks such as FaceBook, Twitter and other blogging services, people will find out about you. They will self-diagnose and they will seek out your service.

Everything starts off with your basic website. What is my company and what do we stand for, what are the services we offer, what are the timings or the convenience factors. That’s the basics, and most PTs kind of use their website as how-to or general information and they kind of end it. What they don’t understand is, they can use various mediums within the internet technology to create more memorable experiences for their patients resulting in engaged experience, which further results in patient-loyalty which further results to word of mouth marketing, the best kind of marketing that exists. Read more

Thank you, come again…

My patient burst out laughing at me this morning..

When she was done with therapy, all I did was say to her “Thank you, come again”

And she and I burst out laughing together.

I said to her “I know I like like I work at 7/11 (not that there’s anything wrong with it) but hey, can you blame me for sticking to the stereotype?”

And I did it again, this time, in a nasal, goofy accent

“Thank you, come again”

And we both laughed again.

10 minutes later, I got a phone call from her brother, who needed physical therapy, and his cousin, who was also looking for a therapist. Somehow, the word spread. They were talking about me.

Make your patients laugh. They will appreciate you for it, and refer their friends.

In fact, they will pull out their wallet and give you money.

Think about it.