Beth King is a massage therapist in rural-ish Missouri. She is also an entertaining massage marketing question-asker. Here’s part of an email she sent recently:

… howdaheck do I phrase a letter — “HiYa Doc, lemme tell you how wonderful I am!” just doesn’t sound like it would get the results I want.  Though laughter is good for you, they say!”

People struggle with phrasing letters. It’s dicey. You want to show your personality yet be clearly professional.

When you write an introductory letter to a member of the medical profession, you are often asking for a favor — for their time, for their support, for their faith in you.

Each letter must be written to fit each specific doctor (or what-have-you) and each specific situation. You need to know what kind of patients the doctor deals with and their approach to healing.

Remember that you are writing a letter from your practice, not from you.

Get a trusted friend to read over your letters. Then get another.

My two primary suggestions are to write a fact based letter and to invoke a third party.

In your letters, doctors want to know you are legitimate and deeply trained. They want to know exactly how your work will benefit their patient (facts! figures!) and that your work will not interfere with their work.

Invoking a third party gives you a better chance of being granted a hearing. The third party would be one of your clients. Rather than choosing a doctor from the Yellow Pages, work on contacting doctors who are already working with your clients. Your shared patient/client will give you common ground. This is even better if you believe your client has the respect of her/his doctor. If your client comments on his/her doctor shrugging or scoffing at the idea of bodywork, nevermind.

A Resource That Will Help with Your Letters (and other marketing)
Our store primarily carries a bunch of resources for marketing your practice. I flipped through all of them. By far the best resource for letter writing was Cherie Sohnen-Moe’s Business Mastery: Supplemental Software.

Why I Like It
I can absolutely see my self — the way I would like to sound — in these sample letters. For me, they carry just the right balance of personality and professionalism.

There are sample letters for twelve general situations, including introductions, follow ups, and contacting primary care office. Then each general topic has sample letters for specific situations like letters to folks in the medical professions, letters to the media, announcements, non-payment issues, and cover letters for resumes.

To be honest, I would barely change the text in most of the letters. But if you have something particular to say or to address you’re in luck. After immersing yourself in Cherie’s solid examples, you will have a clear view of how you can write your correspondence.

What Surprised Me
The text was written in 1995. That was the first thing I noticed when I opened the CD. This did not bode well for me. Things have changed in the last 14 years, right? Well, yes, but the way we respect our clients, contemporaries and our livelihood has not changed. The fact that the text is as applicable today as it was 14 years ago speaks volumes.

What Else
Other items on the supplemental disc include a business plan and sample, exercises to help focus on your marketing and section titled “Forms” which has 12 useful odds-and-ends type sample letters/forms thingies.

Bonus!
The single CD can be used in either Mac’s or PC’s. So even if you have one kind of computer at home and another at work, you will only need one CD.

Up Front-ness
Yes, we do sell Business Mastery Supplemental Software (Cherie does, too, along with a couple other places) and yes, we’d love it if you bought it from us. But, really, it’s simply an excellent resource no matter where you buy it.

Invitation
Anyone out there know of any other good introduction to medical professional letter examples? I’m honestly surprised by the lack. Maybe I’m just not using the correct search terms … ?

All my best,
Eileen

PS: Beth sent an email with a total of three questions: today’s question, a question on how to actually introduce yourself to doctors and get them to refer to you, and a question on how to actually get to see a company’s HR people. Tune in for next time.