Yeah. . . I’ll Have One Online Community. . . but Hold the Cheese.

My friend Michael Max, L.Ac, and I continue dialog on success in professional practice. My interest is more than theoretical because I serve business clients. My work operates very much like professional practice.

Michael’s attraction to this theme is all about how he does Chinese Medicine consciously. He’s shared his aspirations with me. It’s clear he seeks business success as he helps patients with their health.

To my way of thinking, a prosperous doctor is good, because he’s helping lots of people with a basic human need. This makes the world a better place.

Michael and I talk about starting an online community for Acupuncturists. He comments, in a recent email --

“Your idea of an online community that explores, supports and advances clinical practice from the business side, is a great idea. Especially if we can avoid the "cheese" factor. There is already plenty of that out there. If I hear one more "acu-preneur" talk about the ‘Qi of my business. . .’ [He quips, in exasperation.]

Yes, yes, there are people that want to think of it that way. But, I would like to see a service that supports people engaging and businesses with solid principles, and everyday language.

I suspect the only thing worse than mystifying our practices, is to mystify ourselves.”

I couldn’t agree more, on several counts.

It’s better to demystify work so it becomes easy for clients. Especially if it seems strange and foreign, like acupuncture does to mainstream America. Or copywriting, which many people misunderstand, if they’ve heard of it at all. Michael works with needles and herbs. I work with words and emotions. We both work with people, who need to understand easily. So we need simple explanations.

Simple is good.

In the last post I boiled down a psychological process to yield positive customer experience. Let’s rub that idea up against the issue of “patient education.” Or in my case, client education. Same thing.

First I’ll bring it home. Client education, for me, is about understanding what they want to know. Then fulfilling that need to the extent of their interest, and stopping right there. Before their eyes glaze over and they start yawning.

As long as I attract, but don’t pursue, I’m on track. When it becomes pursuit, I’ve gone too far.

There’s a challenge here -- to resist using the educational opportunity to advance my own cause and sell to them. Or as a chance to prove how cool I am by flaunting what I know.

Clients are smart. I said that in my Customer Manifesto, where I promised I’d respect their boundaries and be happy they think for themselves. The Manifesto, in the end, is a self-enforcing rule, because if I ‘cheese it up’ and sell rather than educate, their radar catches me every time. Then I’m worse off than if I had just said “I don’t know.”

If I serve myself when I pretend to serve them, even subtly, trust is undermined, and I haven’t created their best customer experience.

Acupuncturists educate patients so they walk the same fence I walk. Doctors who create the best customer experience avoid mystification like a disease. They sense the patient’s agenda and work with it, not insisting the patient validate them by listening to a full-blown lecture on acupuncture theory.

Patients don’t really care much about acupuncture and that’s their choice. They just want relief. Respecting that is good business.

You may think, “Don’t we have to ‘educate’ a lot about Qi? After all, if it’s what you believe in, shouldn’t you be ‘honest’ about it?”

No. You shouldn’t. Not until they're ready to hear it.

And here’s why. You’re in America, mostly treating people who are soaked in a world view that can’t even dream of Qi. Typical Americans have a mechanistic and materialistic understanding of the body. Allopathic medicine sees the body like a biomechanical system. That’s where mainstream people are coming from, because it’s all they’ve ever known.

You can treat them without converting them. And that’s far more practical. Evangelism will not help business in new professional practices that want to go mainstream.

Qi belongs in a different world view, one that sees the body as a complex energy field. Qi is a Chinese word. (Who ever heard of a ‘q’ that’s not followed by a ‘u,’ anyway?)

If you want to be understood in mainstream America, don’t speak Chinese to the locals. Be satisfied with winning patients over one treatment at a time. And answer each question as it comes up, simply. Stop when the answer is complete.

Maybe eventually you’ll get around to some Qi talk, but first demonstrate ability to produce the relief they come for, so they’ll trust you enough to come back. And eventually send their friends.

Successful professional practice is about service, not about cheesy stuff -- like self-validation, or exploiting the client, or evangelism.