I’m currently en route to the Deep East Texas Pineywoods for Thanksgiving at the ranch where I grew up.
(Fun fact: we raised miniature donkeys. Yes, I used to show them. But that’s a story for another day…)
But I wanted to send you a quick message re: 2021 planning today.
This is a hot topic right now with practices… and with the media reps who want your money.
OOOOOH the media reps. They slither out of their caves and start creeping into our inboxes, don’t they? “Hey doc! Don’t ya wanna give us a spin in 2021? C’mon…”
(I know plenty of media folks who are good people. Regardless, they must own this. Because they know it’s true.)
Here’s the issue:
Many people look at annual planning like building a roadmap. Which is severely limiting at best, and destructive at worst.
So they might say, “For this year… Here’s what we’re gonna say, and here are the ways we’re gonna market, and here’s the path we’re gonna take to the end goal.”
And that sounds good in theory. You get your media lined up, do all you buys, pre-plan all your campaigns, and you’re ready to rock. Right?
In a perfect world… with no variables and completely predictable human behavior…
Then a roadmap is the perfect tool for your annual planning.
But what happens when like, I dunno… a Global Pandemic hits? And all of a sudden a volcano has erupted and there’s lava all over the highway that your “Road Map” told you to take?
That’s why it’s more useful to look at annual planning more like a playbook than a roadmap.
– You know the goal – to win the game.
– You have an idea of what you need to do to win the game, so you start there.
– But if that plan doesn’t work, you have other plays you can go to.
You need to have a bunch of plays in your playbook – the in-person consultation play, the virtual consultation play, the Co-Management referral play, the 5-star review play, the patient referral play, the webinar-to-consult play, etc.
Think about it like a football game. “Their secondary is all over our receivers, and we can’t get our pass plays to work. So we’re going to try running the ball with some rushing plays.”
Sounds a lot like you back in April… “Our ‘in-person evaluation’ play isn’t working right now because the government shut us down. Time to run the ‘virtual consultation’ play.”
Or on the flip side – “This play is working well. We have an advantage with this play. How do we run more of it?”
Plenty more examples of this concept, but you get the idea. I wanted to put this out there to help you with your thinking as you look to finish the year strong and make 2021 epic.
Enjoy your Tuesday,
Troy “Playmaker” Cole
PS – You can have a great playbook, but it’s worthless unless you have excellent players to execute the plays.
Don’t get distracted by the glitz and glam of a Super Bowl ring… and overlook the team that’s taking you to the championship.
Executing plays, gaining yards, scoring and ultimately winning – require preparation.
For example – when was the last time your phone team had a legit, honest-to-goodness lesson on how to identify and convert leads into consults? For most practices, the answer is “never.”
That’s like Ezekiel Elliott never practicing, never watching game film, never working with trainers… and then going out on the field and trying to score touchdowns for the Cowboys.
Makes no sense. It’s a set-up for failure. Yet that’s standard for most elective practices.
If you wanna execute the right plays, move the ball down the field and SCORE…
Fix your phone game first. Reply to this email and I’ll tell you exactly how to do it.