Even if you don’t like Taylor Swift, stay with me. I promise it’ll be strangely worth it.

So I think it’s time we had a little confession session here. I’m a dork. I have bad taste in music, I love any story line involving magic or made-up worlds, and I eat like an 8-year old who’s been left unsupervised. Let’s have a heart to heart to explain a few themes you’re bound to see repeated in this blog.

Confession Session – Begin:

1. 1. 1. I like words, vocabulary, grammar, and rhyming. (Confession session? Clever, right?)
      2. I love fantasy novels. Harry Potter was my first obsession. I managed one of the first Harry Potter websites at 14 (don’t ask me what happened to it) and I wrote 50 pages of fan fiction one summer, inserting myself into the Harry Potter novels. No, I won’t share them with you.
      3. I obsessively photograph my cat, Tinker.
      4. I love all the foods, but especially SUGAR. Breakfast is the reason I get up in the morning, but desserts make my world go round. Gooey chocolate brownies, anything with luscious layers of chocolate and caramel… Frosting. Cookies. PIES.

         

      5. I love Romantic Comedies. Set in Britain. The cheesier and less realistic, the better. BRING ME ALL THE IMPOSSIBLY HANDSOME, FLAWED, BUT INHERENTLY LOVABLE MALE LEAD CHARACTERS!  (Jude Law. I’m looking at you.)
      6. I have questionable taste in music. I like most of the stuff they play over and over on the radio. (All those songs you’re sick of.) I like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift and … (hold your breath) … Nicki Minaj. There. You instinctively trust my judgment less now. But bear with me, because it brings me full circle to today’s topic:

What Taylor Swift’s New Music Video Can Teach Us About Acupuncture Marketing and Practice Management:

You’re welcome. I hope that made you smile a little. Come on, it’s funny!

So I was watching this video for the third time yesterday (yeah) and it dawned on me that this song has a really great message. There are life lessons in this song (oh yeah, I’m in that deep), and all of them apply to acupuncture.

Here’s what Taylor Swift has to teach us about acupuncture marketing and practice management:

1) Be True to Yourself. If something’s not working and you gave it a fair try, move on. Taylor is prancing all around trying out all these different kinds of dance and every time, she realizes they’re not for her. In the end, she embraces her own wacky style of dance and does what she loves.

You’ve already taken a huge step in doing what you love, in pursuing acupuncture. Now practice the way you want to practice. As long as you remain ethical and keep the patient’s welfare at the forefront of all you do, you have the right to practice in the way that makes you happy.

That’s the only way this career is sustainable; it’s a labor of love to run any business, especially in the beginning, and you have to do it in a way that makes you look forward to getting up in the morning and going to work.

You can try to run a community-style clinic because you think it will be good for patients financially, but maybe it’s not your favorite style of practice. After giving it a fair try for a few months, you should know that it’s okay to leave it behind if it doesn’t resonate with you.

Successful people follow their passions, instead of trying to force round pegs into square holes. Think like Taylor: give things a fair try, take a deep breath and assess the results objectively, and then, if you want, move on.

2) Don’t be afraid to try new things and make mistakes or fail.  Taylor’s a terrible dancer, in every frame. How liberating, though, that she tries, over and over, without self-consciousness. And she’s never afraid to fail.

Don’t be afraid to try new things in your practice or in your marketing. If they don’t work out, it’s okay. You have not failed. Your practice will (most likely) not be sunk. Don’t get frustrated. Don’t be too hard on yourself. As long as you haven’t spent a ton of money in the endeavor, it’s probably going to be okay.

Like I said, running a business is hard work. Get right up, learn from your mistakes, and try something new. But don’t let perceived failures drag you down.

3) “Make the moves up as you go,” as Taylor sings. Especially in relation to #2 above, it’s okay to learn as you go, to deal with issues and correct mistakes as they arrive, and to decide how you want to run your office as you gain more experience. No one expects your office to run perfectly from the day you open your doors. Running a business is reflexive. You learn what works for you, in your office, as you go.

4) Don’t be afraid to “step on people’s toes” (gently)* Taylor’s out there getting in everybody’s way while she’s trying to pull off all the different styles of dance, pursuing what makes her happy.

When I first started out in practice, I was afraid to step on the toes of the established acupuncturists in my area. I felt like they had “authority” from being out in practice longer than me, and I worried they would be territorial – about my specializing in something they already specialized in, or about my advertising in areas they had already “claimed” (in my mind).

A wise marketing guru once told me that the only person whose business I’m responsible for is my own. You have an obligation to make your own business succeed (so you can eat) without being concerned with anyone else’s business.* They’ll up the ante if they think it’s necessary. Most likely, they won’t even mind that much.

If you want to advertise right next to another acupuncturist’s ad, so be it. If that person gets annoyed, it’s not your problem. It’s their job to act reflexively and decide if they want to step up their game – to change their ad’s appearance to stand out more, or to chose a different page or even a different publication. That’s business.

*That said, you don’t want to ever be rude or unethical. Obviously I’m not advocating that. I’m saying let other people run their businesses, and focus on what’s best for yours.

5) Find your own group of supportive people. At the end, Taylor is surrounded by goofballs who dance as poorly as she does. Yay for the normal people! All that arm flailing. But the point is that she sought out the specific people who would be supportive of her, who would understand her goals and where she’s coming from.

Cultivate those relationships in your life. Again, running a business is hard. Ask for support where you need it. I recommend creating a support group of local acupuncturists, to discuss things that only acupuncturists can discuss – diagnosis, treatment, difficult patients, etc.

One Thing That Taylor Doesn’t Do That I Recommend:

Ask for help and advice.

She’s in the midst of all those truly talented people and she doesn’t tap anybody on the shoulder and say, “Hey, would you slow down and teach me what’s going on?”

In running your business and making marketing decisions, don’t be afraid to ask people for help. Ask people you trust, and people who have experience (senior acupuncturists, marketing experts, etc.) if they think the ideas you’re about to embark on are sound and make sense for you and your practice specifically. Don’t know any marketing people? Ask around at networking meetings and you’re sure to find a few who would be happy to toss around a few ideas with you.

What do you think? Is Taylor right? Let me know how you feel about Taylor Swift and these ideas!