Ep #193: How to Dominate Your Market

Hi docs, welcome to The EntreMD Podcast, where it’s all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I’m your host, Dr. Una.

Greetings, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of The EntreMD Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being a part of the EntreMD movement and sharing the podcast. And if you’re like, “Wait a minute, Dr. Una, I haven’t shared it, I don’t really share it.” Well, this is a good day to start. Okay? Share, share the love.

Okay, today we’re going to be talking about something that I love to talk about. And that is how to dominate your market. How to dominate your market. So you started a business, maybe it’s a private practice, or you’re a coach, or you launched a product. Or you are more of a content creator, so you’re a podcaster, or YouTuber, or Blogger and you want to get the message out there.

The thing about physicians is almost every physician is somebody who has something really valuable to offer, who has a heart to serve people. And really, what is a business? A business is an entity that serves people and gets revenue in return. And that revenue is simply a thank you note, right?

And so we’re going to talk about now that you have this great, amazing service, maybe you have a business that’s already doing well, but you want to dominate the market. You want to be the one, right? You own a private practice and you want to be the one. There’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, you do a good service, so why not, right?

So I want to show you how to do that. This is so simple, but let me tell you, the most profound things are simple. And if you’re here and you’re also wondering, well I launched this, how do I get it off the ground? I want to scale or whatever, this is the answer for all of that. Okay?

Now, the first thing to know is that domination doesn’t start from just dominating. It’s all about who’s going to serve. Who’s going to serve the people, serve the most people, serve them the best and stuff like that. It all has to do with people. It doesn’t mean fanciest program, fanciest practice. And, of course, you know I’m not saying that you should do a mediocre service. But that alone does not guarantee domination.

Domination has to do with reaching the people, serving the people, helping the people. So when you think about how to dominate your market, the real question you’re asking is how can I find the people that I’m going to serve with this amazing service, or this amazing product that I have? That is what it is.

I know, I may sound like a broken record, but it’s people, people, people, people, people. Business is all about people. And so if you’re like, I don’t really want to do people, or you’re like, I don’t want to be bothered with more people. I don’t want to be bothered with a team. I don’t want to be bothered by all of that, then you’re saying I don’t want to dominate the market. Okay?

All right, so in dominating the market, it starts with how do I reach people? How do I find a lot of people? How do I get my message out there? And I’m going to show you five places where you can find so many of your ideal patients and ideal clients right now. Now, some of them you’re going to go like, “Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” or, “I don’t really think that.”

I want you to listen to this with an open mind, knowing that the things that I’m going to talk about today are the things that the ultra, ultra successful people have done. Okay? And so success leaves clues. They’ve done it, we can do it too. Okay?

All right, so I’m going to show you five places where you can find them, so you can get your message across to them so you can dominate your market. Okay? And this applies whether you’re a coach, whether you’re running a private practice, whether you own your own job. Because remember in the EntreMD world you’re an intrapreneur. And if you master this stuff, you can literally write your own ticket. This is so phenomenal. So I want you to lean in, lean in like 100%,

Okay, so the first place where you’ll find your ideal patients and clients will be your circle. Your circle. And this is one of the things that gets despised or people just want to skip over it, don’t want to talk about it. Your circle, your family, your friends. You might be like, “My family members are not going to be my clients.” You don’t know that. And maybe they may not be and maybe you may not want them to be. But the bottom line is this, they need to know what you do.

Think about it, a lot of times I do this exercise, I’m like, pull up your phone. How many contacts do you have there? Some people have 500. Some people have 850. Some people have 2,000. Some people have 3,000. And a lot of times when they start a business they want to skip over all of that. Like I don’t want any of them to know what I do.

But the thing is this, you want them to know what you do, right? You want to put the word out there. Why? Because they will put the word out there, right? It may not be all of them, but remember, business is a math game and you’re stacking the odds in your favor.

So let people know what you do. Don’t worry about whether they end up working with you or not, let them know what you do. That’s the first place where you find them. So you’re opening a private practice, let everybody know. You want to scale your private practice, let everybody know. Hey, I’m celebrating five years in private practice, and all this stuff and spread the word.

You will be surprised the number of people who tell you, one, I didn’t know you had a practice. Two, I didn’t know you were still accepting new patients. Three, I had no clue because people have been asking me, right? And so tell them what you do. You already know them, they’re already in your contacts. Let them know what you’re up to. Okay?

So that’s like your primary circle, and then your secondary circle. Now your secondary circle is phenomenal because guess what? All the people we just talked about, so let’s use the lowest, lowest number. Let’s say you had 500 people in your contacts that you guys talk and they know you exist and all that stuff. Well, what if those people all know 500 people, right?

Think about that. Think about 500 times 500, right? Think about that number. These are all the people that you have access to. And so eliminating all of those people, probably not the smartest thing ever. Okay, so that’s 250,000 people that you have access to. And we picked the lower number, okay?

So what that means is, let’s make up stuff now. Okay, so let’s say, oh, hey, just went let you know this is what is going on. I’ll appreciate any referrals. You can blast that and 250,000 people can get that. You may say that you want to host something. So let’s say you’re a private practice, I’m going back to a private practice and you wanted to host an open house. You’re like, guys, this is what is going on and you can bring your people here.

Let’s say you’re a coach and you’re doing a Zoom thing for life coaching or wherever, or money coaching, right? And you send it like, hey, these kinds of people, you can invite them, they can come. Right? You can do that. You might go, “That sounds weird.” I know, but it’s 250,000 people, right? So that’s organic.

They may not all be your ideal people, but in that 250,000 there are enough people to keep you busy in that world. Let them know what you do. Stop hiding what you do. Let them know what you do. You guys have me singing it now.

Okay, number three. Number three, where else can you find your ideal clients? It is in their circles. So listen to me, if in your business you’re like, “If I had 100 people to work with for this year in my program, I will be golden.” In your private practice if you’re like, “If we can serve 20,000 patients this year, I will be golden.” Guess what? Those people are not going to magically appear. They already exist somewhere and they already exist in a circle.

Please hear this, they already exist. Which means you have to leverage, you have to find and leverage those circles. So for instance, I’m a pediatrician, all my patients well they’re being born. But the decision maker, which is the parent, already exists and is already in a circle. It could be their OBGYN. It could be a new moms group, right? They’re already there. They already exist.

Let’s say that I help physicians manage their personal finance. Well, there are so many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of physician groups. They already exist in community. They already exist in circles.

Let’s say that you are a run coach because I have a client who’s a run coach, shout out to Dr. Michelle Quirk of Mindful Marathon. And she’s a run coach, well there are already audiences of people who are maybe doing plant-based diets or they’re doing intermittent fasting, those are the kinds of people who are going to want to run. They are already in community. They already exist in community. Right?

And so if you think about it that way, I have another client who helps female physicians get published, like academic publications. Isn’t that so phenomenal? I was like, oh my goodness, I would have needed you, right?

And these female physicians who are in academic settings, there are already communities for them. They already exist. They may not be doing papers, but they may be fighting for pay equity and other things. And the audience already exists.

So you’re going to look, and even if you’ve done this exercise before, we never hit all of them. We just don’t, right? You want to do the exercise again and go like, “Okay, my ideal clients, where are they already congregating? Where are they already in community?”

Now, let me say this, I’m not talking about if you’re a weight loss doc going to somebody else’s weight loss community and trying to get clients from there. I am talking about communities where your people already exist and the person that is leading that community is not providing the service you provide. So it’s something that will be congruent.

So I talked about the OB/GYNs and the pediatrician. The OB/GYN does not want the babies. They don’t want the babies for anything. The person who has a plant-based group is not teaching people to run marathons, they don’t want to do that. Right? Do you see what I’m saying?

So this is congruent, but your people, more of them than you can ever take care of, they already exist in community. So you find the community and you serve in that community. Right? You find that community and you collaborate with the leader of that community. Okay? So find them, find them. So that’s the third place.

So the first is your circle, your primary circle. The second is your secondary circle. The third is their circles. And the fourth is behind paywalls, it’s behind paywalls. And so what does that mean? Well, that means you pay for ads, you can find them, right? And so Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, and the rest of them.

Now, let me put this out here, someone may hear this and go like, “I’d rather pay for all this. I am not talking to any circles, I’m not doing any of that stuff.” The most successful businesses are doing organic and paid growth, they are not doing one. Because your paid growth can mess you up any day.

You are at somebody else’s mercy, they can decide I no longer want this business. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg can decide I don’t want this, right? Or they can decide let’s just change the algorithm. Or they can decide let’s just block your account. And so your sole way of getting clients cannot be paid.

Now, am I saying paid is bad? No, it’s number four. They’re behind a paywall, pay already. But you do both, you do your organic and your paid. So if anything happens to your paid, you just turbocharge your organic, okay?

So don’t say, “Oh, thank goodness. I am so grateful she said that because that’s the only one I’m going to do.” You need to do both, okay? And the truth of the matter is sometimes your paid works so much better when you have your organic on point. Okay? All right.

So behind paywalls, behind paywalls, behind paywalls. So that’s number four. And you can find an ads person or you can learn how to do it yourself and get the ads going. And you can create massive growth, massive growth. Okay, so that’s number four.

Number five. All right, this is going to sound funny, but the fifth group, they’re kind of roaming. They’re not in a group, they’re not in your primary circle, not in your secondary circle, they just roaming, right? And now so the thing about the people who are roaming, they’re just kind of checking things out, they’re just scrolling on social media. They’re just, you know, let me just go for this event, it’s a retreat by the water, I’ll just go for the water, right?

So the thing is you need to create an ecosystem, kind of like the spider creates the web so that when you go in the web you don’t leave. Now, I’m not talking about holding people hostage, please don’t think of it that way. But what it is, is you have enough out there in your ecosystem that when someone encounters you once, you have all these other places where they can bounce on and so that if both of you are a good fit, you empower them to say yes.

Because these are people you’re not going to be having conversations with, they’re not in a community you can go back to again and again. They’re not on your email list. They’re literally roaming. Okay, so what do I mean by that? What ecosystem? What am I talking about?

So think about it this way, let’s say somebody was just scrolling, whatever. And they came on my social media, they saw a picture. They’re like, “Oh.” So they stopped because of the picture and then they read the post. And maybe it was a post, like I did a post about learnitis, which is learning and learning and learning with no intention of doing and so it creates frustration and all that. And they’re like, “Yeah, I have learnitis. I definitely have learnitis.” Right? And they’re reading that.

Well, if I’ve built a web, then what they should do is they should look and say, “Oh, she has a podcast. Let me check that out.” And then they check out the podcast and find out that I have this eBook that is the top business lessons from 45 physician entrepreneurs. And they put their email in to get the eBook. So now they’re in my email list, right?

And while they’re doing that, they discover that I have a workshop coming up called the visibility formula. And I’m like, you know how you can go from best kept secret to household name. And they’re like, “Man, I’ve had this business for two years and nobody knows about it. And I tried to start a podcast, but I can’t get more than 100 downloads per episode. Man, I need to go for the visibility formula workshop.”

Do you see how there’s a web so they can just go from one thing to the other and everything they touch gives them a win? Everything they touch gives them a breakthrough. And so it’s easier for them to say, “Oh, I want to be in her circle. Oh, she has a Facebook group too? Let me go join the Facebook group.” Right?

And then so when it’s time it we’re a good fit, she’s like, “Man, I just need to do the business school. If I’m getting all these amazing wins just from these free things that are out here, what am I going to get if I’m in the business school with a community of other doctors who are doing the same thing?” And then I have the book that’s coming out, the EntreMD Method, and all of that.

So it’s a web. And you might say, “Well, I don’t have all the things.” Well, you can have all the things, but you don’t have to have all the things now. But you should be publishing, whether that’s a YouTube channel, podcast, blog, you should be publishing. And show up on social media so when people find you it’s a binge economy. When they find you they can binge. When they roam and stumble on something, they can continue to binge.

Or say you were a guest on a podcast and someone listens to it and is like, “Wow, he’s fascinating, she’s fascinating.” And they try to track you down. Can they track you down? Can they track you down in a way that if they’re your ideal people, they fall in love with you? So that’s what I mean by people who are roaming.

So what do you do for the roamers? I made that word up, okay? I don’t know if there’s a word like roamers. But what do you do for them? You create an ecosystem so that when they come in, they stay in. Okay?

So I want you to think about it. Think about your business, private practice, coach, intrapreneur. Maybe you’re an intrapreneur but you have a podcast or you have a YouTube channel. And your family knows what you do, okay? And you’re like, “You don’t understand, I have this crazy cousin called Joe.” Fine, don’t tell Joe, okay? But your family knows.

And so let me say, you know, big shout out to Dr. Jessica Daigle, and she helps moms in the fourth trimester, which I’m like, I am the mom – It was hard for me, okay? Let’s just put it that way. And I wish that she was in my life. But she helps moms in the fourth trimester, so let’s use her as an example.

And so her family knows that she does this, right? Her family’s connections know that she does this, right? And so people are referring. If she decides to do an event for the new mommies and all that stuff so that they can just come, she can give them some tips, and they can get some self-care and all of that stuff. All these people are inviting people who will invite people who will invite people to come into that, right?

And then there are other people who are OB/GYNs or they’re pediatricians, right? So they pediatricians, they’re taking care of the babies but they’re concerned about the mommies, right? And so they would send people. There are new moms groups and she’s in there contributing, so they would send people to her and stuff like that. And then she’s doing all this speaking and stuff on different podcasts where these moms are already listening. And so those ones come into her world.

And then when she does her events, she does some ads so more people come into her world. And maybe she has a YouTube channel. When somebody roams, they find her YouTube channel, they find a freebie, they find the events. And eventually they’re just like, “I just want to work with you.” Right?

So it may look like a lot, it truthfully isn’t. But the thing is this, if you engage all five, you will be surprised. You’ll be surprised what happens. It’s an explosion. It’s like domination. Then you start hearing things like everywhere I go, there you are.

You’re everywhere, right? And when people think fourth trimester, they think you. Or when they think pediatrician, they think you. Or when they think I have a client who works in private practice and she’s pain management. When anybody thinks about chronic pain, they think about you. If you want to be that person top of mind, then this is the strategy to get that done. Okay?

All right. So that’s what I have for you. Now, I don’t want you to walk away and say that is so fascinating and I’m sure it will work, right? You know, in the EntreMD world we are all about helping you get results. So I want you to write out these four areas, your primary circle, your secondary circle, their circles, behind paywalls, and roaming. And I want you to think, okay, what three action steps am I going to take because of this so I can leverage a part of an audience that I’m not touching yet?

Okay, what can I do to leverage that? And I will say this, a lot of times the thing that you don’t want to do, just check it because it might be the thing that would be the most rewarding. It might be the one that you probably could start with. So take a look at that.

And I really want you to do it from the standpoint of I am category of one, I am dominating the market space. I am and you can. And the amazing service that you already do, people can take advantage of it. Okay?

So that’s what I have for you, three things that you’re just going to do, just do that. And who knows that? Not who knows, if you do this you can look back 90 days from now you can go like, “Oh my goodness, Dr. Una, you will not believe what happened.” And I will tell you, “I can, but tell me.” Okay?

All right, so go do this. Remember to share the episode, remember to be the example of what is possible for physicians. And I will see you on the next episode of The EntreMD Podcast.

Hey, if you love listening to The EntreMD Podcast, I want to invite you to join EntreMD On Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entremd.com/ondemand and I’d love to have you join us. See you on the inside.