This "bad day" video made me laugh aloud -- it so captured the feelings I had on really bad days in my practice. And if you can't relate to them yourself, perhaps you'll have deepened empathy for the stress so many of your patients are under! Or perhaps it will explain why your office manager is ready to quit.

May it bring a smile to your face.

BTW - this is what is called a "viral video". Something people are entertained by and want to pass around. The secret to it being effective as a marketing tool is if your message is linked in some way to your solution and prompts people to want to learn more about your business. I, for one, immediately checked out glumbert.com!

And just in case you are considering opting for a more humane lifestyle as a physician, you are in good company, according to this Wall Street Journal online article!

The April issue of The Entrepreneurial MD Newsletter finally made it out the door today - somehow the first Tuesday of the month got away from me.

In this month's article, "The four tasks successful physician businesses should outsource … and the three you should always hold onto", I offer you those tasks every savvy physician entrepreneur should consider outsourcing or delegating (if the tasks can't be eliminated!) in order to maximize your use of revenue-generating and business-building time.

These four tasks are:

1. Housekeeping

2. Bookkeeping

3. Administrative support

4. Managing technology (the details are in the full article)

While you'd benefit from letting go of these activities, there are at least three others that only you, as the physician business owner, can be responsible for, at least until you are grossing $5 million or more a year!

These are your "babies" to nurture:

1. Strategy development and business planning

2. Marketing
 
3. Content creation or program development.

So, if you are tempted to handle all your calls or dust your bookshelves, remind yourself - "I am my business's Most Expensive Employee"!

By the way, if you are new to the blog, you may want to scan or read prior newsletter articles devoted to physician business and practice development in the Library.

I have times when it is hard to keep my energy level up for my business. Maybe it has to do with the sporadic lulls in business that crop up, or with a bursting-at-the-seams schedule, or perhaps it is just my own cyclical waxing and waning of stamina.

Maintaining momentum can be a challenge for a business owner, even with the best of intentions! While we'd like to think we merely have to sprint to the finish line, in fact, we need to prepare for a marathon.

Here are three ways I have learned to manage my energy, to stay in shape for my marathon and to stay somewhat sane on the job!

1. Hide the Big Task List. My weekly activities are guided by a "master" action list that I'll refresh every so many weeks. However, one of the biggest causes of an energy-drop for me is looking at that same helpful list! The only solution is to put it away for a week or so, and get very "micro" about my activities -- focus in on the absolute essentials, and forget the aspirations for a while.
   
2. Focus on where the money lies. As crass as this may sound, when I am overwhelmed, the one question I ask myself is "what actions should I focus on that will increase revenues in the next 30/60/90 days?". I am able immediately to prioritize on the obvious next steps and stay away from the unmotivating "I should be doing these things to build my business to the next level" stuff.
   
3. Leave it all behind for a week. No, you do not have to pack up and go away on a vacation., In fact, you can still continue to deliver all your usual services.
   
   However, instead of assigning "business development" hours or days to your calendar, how about reading a book you've been wanting to get to for a while, or hanging out at a coffee shop and emptying your Inbox (mainly by deleting most of the stuff you've been meaning to handle for the last three months, and that is now no longer important), or even heading off to an afternoon movie by rescheduling some of your patients or clients?

My favorite escape is to splurge on a massage. What's yours?

What is Procrastination costing you?

I hear from physicians frequently about their ideas for a new business or desires to make changes to their practices, and I can almost touch their excitement and fever as they share their thoughts. And yet very few make it to the starting line.

Why is that?

A pet theory of mine is that, as physicians going through training and then entering the real world of practice, we are "bred" to be perfect ... infallible. 

So our active Inner Critics forge iron-clad alliances with the external perceived threats of malpractice lawsuits, patients who demand "to be fixed", and the friends and family that generally hold us in high regard, and we fall prey to the idea that everything we do must be perfect. No room for risking failure.

So when it comes time to start a new venture, or make significant changes in our practices, we freeze ... transfixed by the idea that our knowledge and execution may not be perfect! And that would be catastrophic. Or so we believe.

This month's Entrepreneurial MD Newsletter article takes issue with Perfection, by challenging the old notion of "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well" (I clearly recall my parents and teachers instilling this into me) .

Instead, I vote for "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly ... at first!"

What's your vote?

If you are in the mood for a digestive-provoking challenge to any conventional in-the-box thinking you might be indulging in, then Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae: Is your Marketing Out of Sync? might just be the gastronomic metaphor to burp you out of your apathy.

I've enjoyed Seth's prolific writing on contemporary business and marketing to date (his books include Purple Cow, The Dip, Small is The New Big, Permission Marketing and All Marketers are Liars) -- his titles say it all. He is a pesky gnat, buzzing around the eyes of lofty business folks and nipping at the soft skin of smug corporate marketing departments.

Meatball Sundae is his latest provocation, challenging the tendency businesses have of latching onto the latest marketing fads and throwing them into the "marketing mix", without a sound understanding of this "new marketing" is all about.

It seems that the latest trends of blogging or online social networking strategies (all the so-called Web 2.0 marketing strategies that constitute his idea of the sundae's whipped cream, sprinkles and cherry topping) are being layered onto a very traditional business structure (the meatball "scoops"). The result -- not at all appetising, and quite illogical.

Seth identifies 14 trends that he deems highly significant for business and marketers to be watching and responding to. Here is a short summary of the 14 trends in "Meatball Sundae" written by Lori Deschene of bnet:

"1. Direct Communication with your target market - there is a trend towards an increase in direct communication between producers and consumers. More feedback mechanisms are appearing.

2. Amplifying the Voice of Individuals - power to the people. Everyone has become a critic. This can be a good thing. Viral is all the rage.

3. The Idea of having an Authentic Story - Seth mentioned the fact that there are scraps of material out there and the need for having an authentic story to tell.

4. Lack of Attention Span - have we trained people to have shorter attention spans? Seth reminisced about the fact that in the 40’s commercials used to be 30 minutes long. Is the 30 second spot still an efficient way to educate potential prospects and consumers about your product and services? Just how successful are those Super Bowl commercials anyway? So long as the ads generate revenue, does it matter?

5. All About the Long-Tail - we’ve discussed the long-tail of Search Engine Optimization on numerous occasions. There is a definite trend towards long-tail and providing a choice for people.

6. Outsourcing - there is a definite trend towards outsourcing. Seth pointed out that “… it can be easier to change the manual than to change the people…”

7. Google and the Other Search Engines are “atomizing” the World - Seth also touched on the fact that bundling (all of your services) may not and does not always work.

8. Infinite Channels of Information - a.k.a. creating noise. I like to call this “touch points” or interception points. This creates the elimination of a bottleneck as you should build and create your own channels (and no I’m not talking about Yahoo Pipes).

9. Consumers Can Talk Directly to other Consumers - power to the people being able to communicate directly with each others.

10. Shift in Scarcity and Abundance - stuff that used to be abundant is now scarce and vice versa.

11. Big Idea can reach a large number of people - a big idea is something that changes the world or the big idea’s direct environment forever.

12. Shift of How Many to Who? - This is huge as “who” has become much more important than “How Many”. Mass marketing is seeing a transformation.

13. Identification of who is wealthy and who is not - you cannot always predict who is who.

14. New Gatekeepers and No Gate Keepers - you’ll have to read the book for more on this."

It may seem somewhat mystifying reading someone else's brief summary (I had a hard time creating one as I was listening to the book on audio while exercising!), but I'm hoping it will pique your interest enough to make you want to buy the book for whatever stage of business development you are in. If you are going to be in a "meatball" mass market business, don't kid yourself that "new marketing" will be your ticket to fame and fortune.

On the other hand, if you have something special, targeted and desirable to offer, then serving a totally yummy sundae, icecream, toppings and all, might just the right thing for your business!