How many of you have a website to promote your practice or business?

How well is it working for you?

One of the most common problems I uncover when starting to work with a physician who wants to be more entrepreneurial about practice or who has a new business to promote is The Premature Website!

You know, that website that was born too soon -- before the complete gestation of the business. The one that was shoved up so hastily it's full of "Coming soon" pages. The one that is a mish-mash of ideas copied from other bad websites. Or the glorified online brochure you paid $5000+ for, in addition to the couple of thousand for the boxes of pricey glossy brochures gathering dust in a cabinet.

This is a somewhat painful topic for me, as I know the scenario personally. I spent a fair amount of money on an excellent graphic designer and webmaster, only to discover a couple of years later that I hadn't done my homework well. My designer and webmaster did their jobs well. I did not.

I had failed to consider deeply what business I really wanted to be in, whom I most wanted to serve, and how I wanted to connect with them.

So, once I was dazzled by the light of knowing that my target market and niche was working with physicians who wanted to learn how to be successful entrepreneurs, I had to go back to the drawing board and prepare to give birth to my second (current) website.

In many ways, The Entrepreneurial MD was an elephantine pregnancy, gestating far longer than normal, with a few expensive mistakes along the way -- such as a pricey website. But it taught me invaluable lessons:

• Know your target market. Understand the struggles, needs and desires of the people in the niche you have chosen to serve. Do not try to be all things to everyone!
• Know your business model and where a website fits in.  Is your website a revenue-generating tool of the business, an operational interface that allows others to schedule appointments or communicate regularly with you, or merely a marketing communication tool that needs optimization to be "found"?
• Know what your Business Vision and Mission are. Without a clear sense of what you are all about, your communications via your website will be muddled and confusing, and your visitors will not stick around to learn more. As they say, "a confused mind always says No".
• Know how your Services and/or Products address your target market's problems. It takes a lot of thought and insight to position your offerings carefully to match the needs and desires of your target market.
• Only then is it time to put up a website.

As a been-there-done-that-better-the-second-time entrepreneur and teacher, I'm having the pleasure of witnessing the unfolding of a physician client's new medical practice in the order in which it is meant to happen.

My client has been diligent and disciplined about defining his target market (down to the level of his Ideal Patient), completing his written business plan, lining up the resources he needs to get started in business, defining his practice identity with a logo etc., and creating his marketing plan. Only once that was all done did he sit down to create the content for his website.

He has been using a favorite tool of mine, Robert Middleton's Website Toolkit in the Marketing Products/Tools section, to articulate and then shape what he wants to communicate about his new practice. In his words: "I feel like I finally understand my own business and what I am trying to make happen here. I am now able to communicate my marketing message clearly and comfortably."

So I urge you -- don't put up your website as your first stab at going into business.

Instead, do the real work first of fleshing out your idea, your business model and business plan, and coming up with a marketing plan. 

Make your website the final piece of the puzzle. Once you figure out what business you are really building, you'll decide what you want your website to do for your business. This will save you a lot of money and "rework" time. I know this from experience!