In the final installment of our series “Building a Profitable Private Practice,” Dr. Anne Truong shares her expertise on creating recurring income through membership programs. She discusses how to set up a membership, create valuable content, and attract members to generate revenue from both current and prospective patients. Tune in to learn how a membership program can help you build a thriving cash-based practice, whether you’re a specialist or a general practitioner looking to support your patients’ ongoing health journey.
GO CASH – Join Us in the Upcoming Medical Practice Profits Challenge – Starts April 30!
Transform your medical practice by saying goodbye to declining insurance reimbursements!
For more details:
http://practiceprofitschallenge.com/
Transcipt:
Dr. Mike: [00:00:00] Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of Bootstrap MD, the podcast for physician and healthcare entrepreneurs. If you’ve been following along, we’ve had our good friend and practice expert, Dr. Anne Truong, she has a very successful eight figure sexual medicine practice in Virginia.
And in the last few weeks, she’s been sharing us great information about finding your niche for your cash based medical practice. We talked about how to attract new patients or recurring patients or older patients using social media as [00:01:00] she does it and how she does that tremendously well, and today we’re going to be talking about my favorite subject is recurring income using memberships. It’s great having a patient come in for a one time payment. How about them coming in where you get paid every single month?
And even then it doesn’t really have to be your own patients. She might, she’ll be talking about how she uses and attracts prospective patients who are paying her income and they’re not even her patients. You can talk about how she does that on today’s podcast. And if you like the information, we’ve got a challenge that’s coming up rather very quickly.
It’s called our medical practice profit challenge. Three days with us on how to transform your practice into a cash practice machine. But I want to introduce to the program. Dr. Anne Truong, Anne how are you doing today?
Dr. Anne Truong: I’m doing great. I’m glad to be here and to talk about membership and how to make money while you sleep. Now [00:02:00] that is I think a phrase that Warren Buffett used to say, right?
And as physician, we’re like I don’t make money unless I see a patient. We’re gonna break that boundary right now and say, yes, you can. And we figure it out for you. So you want me to dive in and talk about that?
Dr. Mike: Let’s dive right in. Let’s talk about memberships today.
Dr. Anne Truong: Right?
But I wanna review a little bit and the first we talked about last week, we talked about niching down, meaning narrow down the customer and the service you do. And then we talk about how to attract them because they have to know what you do to know and trust you to buy from you. But now. That they haven’t, maybe they haven’t bought from you yet.
And we talked about being on YouTube and producing the content that they are looking for. And they now start to see, Oh, Dr. Mike. Oh, so he does knee pain and remember whatever it is in the customer mind, what’s in it for me. Why should I listen to you? What’s in it for me? And you want to say if you’re producing the [00:03:00] content, what you want to do, you want to get that customer information.
You want to get their email. So you say, okay, I have a free ebook or free guide to help you with the knee pain. So if you go on the link, and my profile or in the description, you’ll get it. So they go to that link. They’ve give you their email and then you get their email and you give them a free book and then you start talking to them.
You write email to them to tell them about what you do, and tell and to also deliver value as well. Now, where I’m heading with this is that let’s say Dr. Mike do knee pain. What do people with knee pain have? They have problem walking. Maybe they’re overweight.
They have arthritis. They can’t play pickleball right, so, what so you think about that you go, yeah, I’ve had a coach in 2018 and said when you solve a problem you create [00:04:00] another problem. It’s so interesting because, when you solve a problem, another problem occurs.
Let’s say you have somebody with their knee pain. Now , they’re gonna want to lose weight. They want to get stronger. They want to play pickleball. What other thing can you give them to solve the next problem? And that’s what I think about membership. Because when you create a membership, you can do one, you can make money one to many instead of one to one.
When you see a patient in the office, it’s one to one. It’s dependent upon how many hours in a day can you work. And that’s it. It’s you, unless you have other providers, right? But it’s one to one. How about if Mike and I can show you how to make money for one to many, and I’m talking about one to a hundred thousand, one to a million, one to 1000. That’s what I did. I created a membership where they don’t even have to be my patient where somebody watches a YouTube [00:05:00] video of mine and I tell them about a membership that I created to help them with sexual dysfunction. They joined that membership. And once they join that membership, they pay me a monthly fee of $97 a month and then I, in that membership, I create a material that five module that they can listen to with some actionable item because you gotta give them, you gotta give them something actionable that they have that they can get value from, that they can see result.
You don’t deliver result, they’re not going to stay with you. So I give them actionable item they can do to see result. And then I go in there live to coach them on on how to execute and how to implement. And you can put other bonuses in there as well too. So the key is to create a source of income that you can go from one to many and that’s membership.
And that membership could be a safe, for me is where I coach men on how [00:06:00] to restore functioning again through diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction. That’s really it. But you can also use the same thing for someone with knee pain. You can create a membership with someone with knee pain. How do you do that?
Stretching. that you need to do for knee pain. Exercise you can do at home when you have knee pain. What type of brace, right? What type of equipment? Maybe you need to do functional electrical stimulation. Maybe you do a massager with that and then sleeping position and diet, right? What type of diet should you be eating if you have arthritis?
And what type of exercises should you avoid if you have knee pain? What type of exercise can you do? All that information can be lumped into your membership when you deliver that value. And then you go live twice a month or maybe weekly to coach them to answer their question so that way they can implement it [00:07:00] to get result, right?
Think membership like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Why are we so addicted to Amazon Prime? I’m addicted to Amazon Prime, right? Because it’s so easy. I pay I don’t even know what the annual due is. It’s $99 now a year. I pay a due, but I I don’t have to pay for shipping. And I can order it tonight and get it, even tomorrow within two days, right?
And it deliver a value for me and i’m all i’ve been an amazon prime member for at least a decade as long as they have it. It’s sticky, but that’s what you want to do with your membership. It deliver value And that way they pay you monthly. So I just created a membership for somebody that treat knee pain. Because you know what you do that because you’re always updating information people want to be in a membership because they want to learn, and they have a problem and they want a community.
They want a community where they can bounce [00:08:00] ideas off. They want a community that they can access the expert. So that way you can answer their question and guide them to a success path. So think of a membership and it doesn’t even have to be your patient. It could be from somebody online that goes straight to your membership, but you can even have a patient that you just treated the knee pain on and they can join that membership so they can continue their improvement over time so that means that you can have an in office practice treatment that would, you know and then you can have a membership with people that are not your patient yet with your customer and then also your patient, but that membership lives in forever because you are because you’re always going to be adding people into that and there’s reoccurring income. Reoccurring income mean that, I have right now about 500 people in my membership at [00:09:00] $97, about 48, 000 that I get every month. That’s it. If I keep the same amount of members, but if I add in 50 members a month, that increases and to another 10, 000.
And if I add 50 members every month, that increases as well. Not bad good amount of money that you know doesn’t require a lot of time from you and you can do one too many. In my membership, I have members all the way from New Zealand, Nigeria and United Kingdom and in Vietnam as well too. So I love the international community, but I love the aspect of one too many because when as physician when we figure out how we make money for one too many, then you know when you will never have to worry about your bank account, again because once you figure that out and [00:10:00] figure out what your customer want and that the sky is the limit . This is the part that I’m most excited about my business is to create the membership and helping doctors create the membership too, because oftentimes that’s definitely thinking out of the box, right?
We’re always trained during med school, residency, fellowship training, one to one treatment like this. But when we start thinking about one to many, we’re like, Oh, how do I do that? It’s teaching is what we do. We teach our patient, right? You do a treatment. When they come back for follow up, you teach them what to avoid, what they need to be doing, right?
It’s the same thing. You’re teaching your customers. Some of them are, they’re not your patient as well, but you can have a wide impact. Imagine if you’re if you’re endocrinologian, you teach somebody how to live with thyroid. And you teach somebody how to manage their diabetes better. Oh my god.
Doctors, are you listening to this? Whether [00:11:00] you’re an endocrinologist, whether you’re a GI doc. Imagine GI doc teaching patient how to live with IBS or live with Crohn’s. Oh my God. I would sign up in a minute. If I have IBS and I have a GI doctor that’s teaching me how to live with IBS, I would sign up in 30 seconds.
What? Because patients are dying for information from credible, a doctor, but right now we’re not out there. So they’re following somebody that, right now you see people that oh, I have this condition, I figure it out myself, and I’m going to teach you how to do it.
They’re not even doctors, they’re not even in the medical field, right? So I feel that as physician, you have a moral obligation to teach people at the right way on how to live with the chronic diseases, like IBS, thyroid, diabetes, arthritis, or even [00:12:00] aging skin. I have a dermatologist friend that I’m coaching her right now on how to go on social media and create a membership for younger skin after 50.
How’s that? Like the baby boomers is by it’s right now 58 it’ll be by 2050, we’ll have 68 million baby boomers. And it’s a 47 percent increase from 2020 to 2050. Baby boomers are people that are over 60, but they’re living longer and longer just think whatever specialty you are, you can create a membership and what the impact that you make it will be so powerful because you are helping people live better live, and you are the best source for that.
Or else somebody online that. Just figure it out themselves are making money and having the reach that you should be having that you could do as well too. And all you need is a roadmap, and a [00:13:00] mentor and a coach that can guide you there. And Mike and I can help you build that membership in, and it’s consistent with your niche. Consistent with your service and consistent make it so that you can attract customers online as well, because I just talking about IBS. I’m excited about it because I hope that there’s a GI doctor listening to this, that you can build a community and build a financial stability.
We’re just creating a membership, for IBS. I was talking to an OBGYN doctor the other day, and I was coaching him and he’s gonna do a membership on bladder issues in the continent as well, bladder incontinence. How big of an issue is that? Everybody, I know every woman gets that after the age of 50 because of menopause.
You can even create a membership for a menopause lady, how to live better when during menopause. And so my membership is for men with erectile [00:14:00] dysfunction or even just sexual dysfunction on how to regain right. A performance against without medication without surgery. And I just launched it like less than a year ago.
And I’m going to that is going to be my retirement. My membership is going to be something that I’m going to nurture and probably do it to the day I die. Because my medical knowledge is with me to the day I die. And why should I stop? So it really makes my heart ache to think of doctors totally leaving the medical field, doing something unrelated because, think of four years of college, four years of medical school and, the residency training and all the sacrifice that you do.
And now you’re just leaving medicine because of burnout, because of how the healthcare system is. Our healthcare system is not the best right now for doctors, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to live with it [00:15:00] or deal with it. There are ways that you can create a steady revenue income that is online and creating membership that is consistent with your in office practice.
AI: As a doctor, I wasn’t used to asking for help, especially when it came to subjects outside of medicine. But then, I found PhysicianCoaches.com. In an instant, I found hundreds of experts to help me in all aspects of life. On areas I was afraid to ask. Dealing with burnout, starting a side gig, money management, even help with my marriage.
And the best part? Nearly all experts are physicians themselves. After reading their profile in a quick chat, I knew I found the right mentor for me. At physiciancoaches.com, help from professional colleagues is just a click away.[00:16:00]
Want to stay up to date with physician experts and entrepreneurs?
Join The Lounge to stay informed with physician insights and stories.
The latest physician, investor, and entrepreneur info emailed directly to you. Join The Lounge at bootstrapmd.com/thelounge.
Dr. Mike: Amazing stuff. And again, if you miss it is like what I’m saying is it’s revenue. Even after she starts, wanting to see patients right now, she’s seeing lots of patients, but she’s also bringing in revenue from people who probably will never be your patients.
You mentioned, from Africa and from California and Florida and things like that. Some do become patients, but she’s able to get recurring revenue with that. Is it [00:17:00] difficult to start one of these things up? What are the kinds of things that you’re giving?
I know you’ve got information, but you’ve also got products, et cetera.
Dr. Anne Truong: No, it’s actually not difficult at all because there are now software that it’s essentially when you have a membership, you just gotta figure out what software you’re going to use to store the information in. And that could be kajabi that could be searchy that could even you know we even have the software the doctor boss and you can even put the doctor bosses are marketing software, but you can even put a membership in there as well, too.
You just want something that you can store the modules where they can go in and consume the material. And you can put a calendar in there to see when the live training is. But that’s pretty much it. And it’s up to you what it is. It could be a worksheet in there. It could also be a material that you want them to read.
It’s essential. Think of it like a storage place [00:18:00] that they go into to get that. And then you go live and zoom like this and a zoom account, like 20 bucks a month you can go live in zoom to talk with your members, find out what they need. And now you have AI that you can get the Zoom meeting transcribed.
I use fathom F-A-T-H-O-M. I know you use something else, right? And it, yeah, you can get the Zoom recorded and transcribed, and then when it’s transcribed, you can make it into PDF. And you email that to your members or you can store that in the platform that you have your membership at. And the platform, that doesn’t cost that much, probably less than a hundred bucks a month.
And you have the zoom account. And so you want to figure out the material that you want your members to have by mapping out a success path. And so in my membership, I have a success path, that I have recorded. So what you do you record the video, and I record five videos and they’re [00:19:00] like 20 minutes each and what I tell them to do, first you do this, and then the next one I tell them, okay, what progress that you have, this all recorded and then in there, I also have a diet plan that they need to follow exercise plan and a list of supplement.
What’s so good about membership is that you can insert in the supplement that you recommend. And they either buy from you, from your office directly and you ship to them, or , go on Amazon and get an associate mem link. So you don’t have to be a big influence.
Anybody can have an Amazon associate link by setting up an account with Amazon. And what that means is that let’s say if you are recommending a supplement that your members take, you can get a range of from 2 percent to 10%. And if you have a bigger following, I’m now qualified to be an Amazon influencer store.
So I have [00:20:00] a store on Amazon and I get between 15 to 20 percent of whatever the price is, so more so the larger following you have, the more money you make as an affiliate, so you can set up an Amazon associate account. And then if you recommend, hey, take this natural toxide here.
They go to Amazon with that link and you make a little bit of money from that. So you can curate it in your membership to what you want the members to do to have success. And figure out what you want to do monthly. And then what a membership you got the thing that you got to get people in, and how do you get people in? What I said about doing niching down and getting leads in with the content creation from our last episode. So it doesn’t take that much work. It doesn’t take that much software. It’s just zoom. And then, a platform to store it in where patients can where members can go in and consume the material, that the main thing is [00:21:00] take action. Do not overcomplicate thing. Do not think of the detail. Just take action and learn from that and correct it as you go.
Dr. Mike: This has been tremendous. Again, thank you so much. This episode is going to conclude our series on transforming to a cash based medical practice but if you like this, we’ve got something that’s closing real quickly. And that’s our medical practice profits challenge three days of how to run a successful cash based medical practice that’s coming out very quickly, and you want to talk a little bit about it I know we’re about to close the doors to this, this might be one of the last times you can get in.
Just talk about the medical practice profits challenge, please,
Dr. Anne Truong: Right! So i’m excited about this challenge. It is a challenge, a three day challenge where we’re Mike and I are going to show you the road map on how to decide how to niche down what customer? And then on day [00:22:00] two we’re going to talk about how to create a content that is to attract your customer. Day three, we’re going to deep dive into how to create a membership and create an offer that is irresistible, and that challenge start on April the 30th, and at 8:30 PM eastern standard time or 5:30 PM pacific time, and it’s three days in a row.
So April 30th, and then May 1st, same time, and then Thursday, May 2nd, at the same time. And on the third day, Mike and I will also take Q& A, and we’ll perhaps do a hot seat as well. Because what we want to do is to have you take action. And to have you take some valuable information that we’re going to teach you that you can insert right away into your practice that will hopefully, make more money for you, or help you have more clarity [00:23:00] on what you need to do, because Mike and I, when we first started our cash based practice and with me with my online digital marketing experience, I had to figure it out myself.
I had to reach out to different coaches to learn about online marketing, but they weren’t in the medical field. They were, selling, they were selling people how to market it with talent, telling showing people how to coach. No one was in the medical field. I had to figure it out. How do I take this information and insert it in a medical practice for doctors?
And I made a lot of mistakes, and spend a lot of money on those mistakes, but we finally figured out we finally have the blueprint now to really fast track. Yeah, to get your result and to help you avoid all the pitfalls as well. And so that’s what we want to do in this 3 day challenge to help you start [00:24:00] thinking about a cash based practice and how you can leverage your expertise and credibility as a medical doctor to attract your best customer and create a reoccurring income, such as a membership.
Dr. Mike: Awesome. Okay, guys, it’s probably one of the last times you’re at, you’re going to be able to access to it. Doors are closed. They’re closed.
So you need to go to this website practice profits challenge, that’s profits with an s practiceprofitschallenge.com all the details in there again starting at april 30th. We hope to see you there. And we’re super excited to bring you this information. We look forward to adding more cash based services because as we said in the past you can’t rely on insurance as Anne said, referrals through other doctors is dying or I’m even dead.
It’s up to us. It’s up to us physicians supporting other physicians to build it. We have been blessed to have successful practices, and we hope to see the same for [00:25:00] you. And any last minute thoughts before you end the call today?
Dr. Anne Truong: Yes, so if you’re a doctor that feel like you’re burnt out, you’re not enjoying what you do, you feel like you’re on the hamster wheel, there is a solution. Even if you just come and listen we want to input some ideas into you and start you having you think outside the box, and you as a doctor, you have the expertise and the credibility and there are many things that you can do outside of the medical practice as in online to impact and still help many people. There are millions, hundreds of millions of people out there dying to learn from your knowledge and dying for you to help them.
You just have to get in front of them to tell them what you do. It is that easy, but they need to know who you are. They need to know what you do, and they need to know what message you are delivering [00:26:00] to them and we can help you get there. Attend this challenge and once you do that you will learn the road and the blueprint to really financial independence and freedom because at the end of the day, we all want our freedom and we want our financial stability and our health as well.
Dr. Mike: All right in and out starts. Now it’s a practice profits challenge go to practiceprofitschallenge.com . We look forward to seeing you there and sharing our details and knowledge with you. And as always guys, thank you for listening to the bootstrap MD podcast. You’re going to ups and downs in your business, do everything a little each day to keep you close to your goals and keep moving you forward.
