Marketing: The Brand Called You

The Brand Called You

Written by Steven Van Yoder

Every company has a reputation. Everyone you meet will form an opinion about your company, even if they have not done business with you yet. The challenge is to manage your reputation so that repparttar

opinion that people have of you is positive. This is what creates a brand. Brands have a number of strategic functions, enabling you to: - Differentiate yourself from your competition - Position your focused message in repparttar 120667

hearts and minds of your target customers - Persist and be consistent in your marketing efforts - Customize your services to reflect your personal brand - Deliver your message clearly and quickly - Project credibility - Strike an emotional chord - Create strong user loyalty For small businesses, branding is not about slick advertisements. Small-business branding is about getting your target market to see you as repparttar 120668

preferred choice. Building a slightly famous brand is not just about what you do; it's about what you do differently from everyone else. Building Your Brand A brand is a promise of repparttar 120669

value your clients will receive. In an amazingly complex and competing world--where itís increasingly hard to know whatís real and whatís not--having your customers not only acknowledge but support repparttar 120670

promise of your brand is repparttar 120671

key to building a thriving business. To become a brand, you've got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value. Do you deliver your work on time, every time? Do you anticipate and solve problems before they become crises? Do your clients save money and headaches just by having you on repparttar 120672

team? Do you complete projects within repparttar 120673

allotted budget? Branding integrates customer service, sales promotion, public relations, direct mail, newsletters, discounts, event sponsorship, word of mouth and other communications tactics to present a unified message about repparttar 120674

company, its products or services. Your brand will integrate all your marketing around a core idea and vision. As a result, you will find it easier to sell yourself, because your message will be uniform and powerful. Every business needs to evaluate its brand identity against repparttar 120675

following criteria:

Perception...What Are Your Patients REALLY Hearing

Written by Livvie Matthews

Perception…What Are Your Patients REALLY Hearing? Copyright © 2003 Livvie Matthews

Never underestimate repparttar power of perception! Perception plays a major part in what is actually said -vs- how it is heard. And to patients...perception is reality!

For example, lets look at broken appointments, one of repparttar 120666 biggest problems in your practice. Last minute changes and no show appointments account for thousands of dollars a month in lost revenue for repparttar 120667 practice!

Are you sending signals to your patients that it's all right to break appointments?

When repparttar 120668 patient calls and says they "Forgot" or "Have a meeting." or "Just want to reschedule." Is your response "That's OK.", "Sure, that's no problem." or simply..."How soon do you want to come back?" And then schedule them right back at repparttar 120669 1st available opening?

A well established practice with a scheduling coordinator who knows repparttar 120670 patients well has a sense of "offending" repparttar 120671 patient if they remind them of repparttar 120672 dilemma this last minute change will make.

Nothing could be further from repparttar 120673 truth or more harmful to repparttar 120674 practice!

An unusually high number of broken appointments generally translates into a lack of respect concerning your practice and appointments time and "time is money."

Generally patients simply are not aware of repparttar 120675 problems associated with last minute changes because they have been "trained" (they hear) it's so easy to change repparttar 120676 appointment.

Often before we can "train" repparttar 120677 patient, repparttar 120678 front office must first "re-train" their response to these last minute calls.

For example, when repparttar 120679 specific date or time a new patient or existing patient wants is not available, if our reply is: "We get cancellations every day" or even worse, "We get cancellations all repparttar 120680 time and can get you right in", what have we taught this patient?

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