In all walks of life, we relish the chance to let our creative powers flow. Whether we're in school or in business, our work becomes more fun when we can add our own spin and ideas to how things work. Now that you have your own animal hospital and veterinarian website, you may have the urge to market yourself in ways that have never been done before.

The concept I want to discuss today is the pitfalls of being a "trailblazer." This is when a veterinarian, or any business owner, goes in a new direction completely different from how other business owners have marketed themselves. While the most famous entrepreneurs in history were admittedly trailblazers, the majority of people who go off the path are never heard of, because their businesses fail.

The way to create a predictable high income in your business is to follow what's already been proven to work, and then add your own personal twist to it. This is more of a trail-widening than an all out blazing. Even the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, made his billions of a venture very similar to previous social networks like MySpace.

Yesterday we discussed how you can build links for yourself in forums for your veterinarian website. Today I want to talk about "anchor text," which is the word or phrase that someone clicks to go from your site to another.

If you've researched the keywords that are best for your niche, you may have specific key phrases you want to focus on, such as "Chicago animal hospital." While you will want to have a number of links with that anchor text, you will also want some significant variety. Google rewards websites which have a natural-looking variety of phrases for anchor text. Try different combinations, such as "animal hospitals in Chicago," "veterinarians in Chicago bay," and even simply "my animal hospital." You'll also want your full URL as an anchor text as well.

The key to keep in mind is that the distribution should appear as if you didn't put in effort to rank for specific phrases and this all happened on its own.

When promoting your veterinarian website, it's easy to fall into the temptation of posting your URL in every possible location. One might assume forums are the easiest place to do this, but you do need to put some thought into how you post.

Remember that any forum with a decent amount of visitors will be moderated by people who want to keep spammers out. This may be a surprise to you, but if you're trying to drum up business by posting links to your veterinarian website in inappropriate places, you have just become a spammer. Because moderators want to preserve their forum quality, you'll be quickly banned if you act over promotional.

Some forums will let you have a "signature" part on the bottom of each post. In your signature, you can post a link to your veterinarian website, and it's not considered spam. There are forums that will require a minimum post count before you can post links, and this isn't a bad thing. You'll just have to make sure the forum is a place worth investing your time in.

As for what you put in the body of your posts, you will want to be a source of good information, as well as a pleasant conversationalist. Err on the side of being too relaxed vs. being too pushy in selling your vet services. The more you post, the more you can organically bring up your clinic as a subject of conversation. This requires some patience, but it is worth it. 

Today we're going to talk more about using email to follow up with new contacts and direct them to your veterinary website. This applies to a number of potential contacts, such as a publication owner who needs a veterinary columnist or a local website owner who wants to interview a veterinarian for his community blog.

How you create an email for a new contact depends on how often you're reaching out to new people you meet. If you just occasionally add someone to your network, then you can simply write a full email from scratch each time. However, if you're at a conference and have a couple dozen business cards in your pocket, then you'll have to partially customize your communications.

The way I like to do this is to make a three paragraph email and customize just a couple parts. Let's say you are writing to people you met at a conference.

Paragraph 1 is a simple salutation with some reminders about the general environment. You can say things like "I really liked the Westin hotel and The Daily Grill is such a nice place to eat."

Paragraph 2 is completely personalized to the person you're writing to. Talk about things happening that only you and that person would remember, such as a funny joke someone near you told. Also mention things you found interesting about the other persons' business.

Paragraph 3 is where you talk a little bit about your veterinary website. You can include a link and be nonchalant about it, saying "Here's my site if you'd like to take a look."

Of course if you're writing to someone you met in line somewhere, you're better off just constructing an email from scratch and mentioning some unique details, such as the Jamba Juice drink you got, etc. The more you do this, the easier it gets.

In the last five posts, we've gone over setting up your business cards and making the initial contacts. This has all set the stage to lead your new acquaintance to your veterinary website.

However, all of this is for nothing if you don't know how to follow up.

Most veterinarians make one of two crucial mistakes when contacting someone they've just met. They either don't make a second contact soon enough or they come off pushy or over-salesy when they do reach out.

When you meet someone you'd like to direct to your veterinary website, always assume that this person will lose your card and forget meeting you five minutes later. Sometimes you'll be lucky and this person will in fact make contact with you again, but the responsibility always falls on you to act on the new connection, no matter how excited or motivated the person seemed in person.

The people you trade contact information will be one of two types.

1)    People who have explicitly said they may want to pay for your services
2)    People who haven't.

In the first category, it may be better to pick up the phone and call them. Even over email, it is fair game to talk about how your veterinary services can help them

For the second category, you'll need to be more subtle. We'll go over this more in a later post.

Some people were curious about why in Networking Tip #3, we said to ask "What do you do for work?" before talking about your animal hospital or clinic. Let's take this subject a little deeper.

The main reason to ask this question is because a good 90% of the time, the person will return the question back at you.

It's such a habit to reciprocate "small talk" questions that it takes significantly more effort to NOT ask what you do and risk some awkwardness.

Once they have asked, you simply state what you do and either they need your professional expertise or they don't. When you talk about your business in this situation, you are not being salesy, because it was their idea to ask your profession.

The only two things you need to do are to share a pleasant energy and explain what you do. You can't convince someone they need to consult a veterinarian if it's not on their mind already. You can only be the veterinarian who serendipitously appears in their life when they need one. Once they've expressed interest in your services, it's now fair game to take your business card out and direct them to your veterinary website. It's as simple as that.

There will be times when fate smiles your way and your veterinarian website gets some unexpected attention.

Last week, I was at a conference where the seminar speaker pointed out someone in the audience and said, "This man is an amazing veterinarian and animal health expert. All of you in related fields should be consulting him." He then gave the lucky guy a chance to say his veterinarian website URL for everyone to write down.

I ran into him the next day and said, "Wow, you must be bombarded with people wanting to talk to you, huh?"

He said, "Oh, I wish that were the case, but it's really not that easy."

I asked him to elaborate.

"Most people are too shy to come up and introduce themselves even if they really need to consult a veterinary health expert. There are some people I said hello to, who immediately said 'I'm so happy you came up, I desperately need to consult with you.' These people have seen me walking around for days and clearly never would have come up if I hadn't said something first. Other people didn't get a clear view of me when I spoke, so if I hadn't introduced myself later, they never would have found me. And some didn't hear it when I said my veterinary website URL and I needed to give it to them again."

The lesson here is that during your lucky moments of "stardom," you still have to take the same outgoing action you were going to do before your endorsement. A moment of attention should be used to accelerate your networking efforts, not replace them. As long as you still want your business to grow, you should never hang back when it gets easier, but instead keep plowing forward.

The land is filled with opportunity to market your animal hospital and veterinary website to the world.  There are people walking right by you who have just moved into town with a new pet.  There are also magazine editors who would love a qualified veterinarian's opinion for a column.  

These people will continue to walk right under your nose if you don't talk to them.  Even if you're shy by nature, you have to become someone who is comfortable starting conversations with new people.

The best way to put this into reality is to get in the habit of introducing yourself to people near you and asking what they do for work.  Sprinkle in additional small talk, at first to make this look more natural.

Want an example?  Imagine you're at Jamba Juice and the line is taking a while to move.  You start chatting with the person in front of you.

You: "You know, I read that a smoothie here has as much sugar as a Frappucino."
Person:  "Yeah, but it's natural sugar, and as long as you avoid the sherbet smoothies, it's a lot healthier than you might think."
You: "Wow, good to know.  I'm <your name>" (hold out hand)
Person: "I'm Nicky. Nice to meet you."
You: "What do you do for work, Nicky?"
Person: "I'm a physical therapist, you?"
You: "I'm a veterinarian."
Person: "Man, I can't believe the timing.  My favorite veterinarian just moved to San Diego to work at the zoo and I need a new one pronto.  Do you have a card?"
(Transition to giving your card to Nicky and pointing out that you have a veterinary website to check out.)  

It won't always be this easy, of course.  In fact, you will have a number of awkward conversations, especially in the beginning.  However, the more you do this, the more comfortable you'll be, and you'll find that you don't even need to make that small talk about the smoothies in the beginning.  You just say hi, and it goes from there.  Make this a habit, and you'll expand your network and more people will be visiting your veterinarian website and going to your clinic.  

Do we really need a second post in this networking series on how your business card should look?  

I wish we could move on, but so many veterinarians make key mistakes in their cards that keep new contacts from ever reaching their veterinary websites.

Veterinarians often get lost in the design elements, such as having cute animal illustrations, or dazzling graphics, and lose sight of the basic purpose, to make sure your new contact can easily contact you.

So the "obvious" methodology to this is to make sure your name, phone number, email, and veterinary website are listed clearly on the front of your card.  I say "front," because a number of professionals try to be more stylish by randomly putting some of these items on the back.  This will confuse a lot of people don't even consider flipping the card over.

As a bonus, you can put on your card the URL's for your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles.  A lot of professionals now prefer to connect over social media before email and phone.  It's very possible after a few tweets, they'll end up checking out your veterinary website and get to know your clinic better.

Today we begin a series on how you can expand and improve your professional network.  You may have a great veterinarian website and marketing strategy, but everything in your business becomes a ton easier if you have an expansive network of colleagues ready to help you.  To get started, let's look at your business card strategy.

Contrary to what print shops would like you to think, the best business cards aren't super flashy and odd shaped.  One veterinarian I met had a business card so jagged it would paper-cut you if you didn't hold it carefully enough.  The best business cards can often be very simple.

You must not forget that a business card cannot help you recover from a bad first impression, nor can it make up for any lack of charisma or confidence on your part.  It really can't do anything on its own.  All it can do is give you an opportunity to continue the great impression you set already.  

What is the worst thing that can happen after a card exchange?  It's not being remembered as a jerk or a boring guy.  It's being COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN.  You need to stay implanted in the mind of who you spoke to.

The first essential step is to put your picture on your business card.  You can get away with leaving this out when you're the only veterinarian at the cocktail party or you're at a marketing convention where you're a novelty.  However, if you're at a conference for your industry, you need to make it easier for a new contact to separate you from the stack of cards from other veterinarians.  People forget names within seconds, but a face can stay in their mind for weeks or months after if they have a reminder.  

Next step is to make sure you can easily write on your card.  If someone finds you to be an asset to keep in mind for the future, he or she is likely to write a note on your card to follow up. It might even be a simple checkmark for "This is someone I need to talk to."  If your card has an all black background or is so glossy that ink doesn't stick, then you've made it significantly harder for your new contact to follow up with you.  Check your cards right now and make sure they're "scribbleable."

These tips should get you started, and we have more on the way.  

Before you set up your clinic and veterinarian website, you went through intense training, mentorship, and testing to wear the title of a veterinarian.  You not only prevent health problems for pets, but when necessary, perform surgeries and save lives.  For the unique work you do, it's only fair that you get paid appropriately.

However, you may have some cash strapped clients who feel they cannot afford top-notch veterinary care.  You also may have clients who protest at your fees and say they're too much.

While you can present benefits of having a healthy, happy pet, there is no stronger motivator than tipping the scales in the other direction and showing how investing in their pet now will help them financially in the future.  Talk to them about how the implications of not treating their pet with you will be more expensive than your fees.

Examples of this include:

• Missed work to take pet in for treatment.
• Possibilities of needing long-term prescriptions for pets
• Expensive surgeries from untreated conditions
• Pet insurance being more expensive from pre-existing conditions.

When you have clearly established that it is a financial mistake to not invest in your services right away, you have enough leverage that your client will go ahead with your pet healthcare plan.    Present the financial implications with the same concern and compassion you do when talking about the pet's health, and your client will trust you have his or her best interests in mind. 

Now that you have a veterinarian website, you may be regularly sending your clients emails and putting up blog posts.  It's very important to not only engage your readers, but to get them to click on your emails and blog posts in the first place.  A lot of this is affected by what titles you write.  

It can help to be "edgier" in your email subjects and blog titles.

Examples of this include:

"How to Make Your Neighbor's Dog Jealous of Yours."
"Is Your Cat Smarter Than You?"

You're going to feel a little nervous with titles like these, and that's normal.  You can also easily go overboard and offend clients, so you need to keep good judgment and moderation.  You also need to tailor this to your clientele. One of the reasons why this is such an effective marketing tactic is that it takes some courage and there is some risk involved.  It will also stand out beyond what your competitors are willing to do.  

When you're about to send something out, see if you can turn the heat up a little bit and see what happens.

As a veterinarian with a website, you can never forget you're an entrepreneur, and not just an animal physician.  You have not only expenses for your clinic, but business goals you want to reach.  Your goals can be hard to reach, and that is why having a "mastermind group" is very helpful.

A mastermind group is a small club of entrepreneurs (usually three to six people) that get together to work on their goals.  I suggest you choose a group of non-veterinarians, so you won't have any competition worries. How it usually works is that the group goes around and each person gets twenty minutes to talk about their current projects, and the other members can ask questions and give suggestions.

An example would be that you want to add a new section to your veterinarian website that deals with reptile pets.

Your group would help you set a schedule right there in front of them, with everything you need to do to get this project done.

One person might say "How long will it take you to write the content for your page?"  You might say "Two hours."

Then another person might ask "When can you do this?"

"Wednesday."

"What time?"

"2PM."

So then you have the confidence that by 4PM on that Wednesday you'll have the content written for your page.  All other tasks you need will be scheduled for that week as well.  

This really helps you because you not only have the organization, but the accountability as well to make sure things get done.

I suggest you make a mastermind group of non-veterinarians, so you won't have any competition worries.

On your veterinarian website, you have a number of goals for your incoming traffic.  You want potential clients to schedule an appointment, subscribe to your email list, and refer friends and colleagues.

What most veterinarians do is put their phone number and email subscription form somewhere on the site and expect the visitor to take the initiative and look for it.

This is absurdly overestimating both the dedication and web-savvyness of your community.

No matter how rich or well-educated you think your clientele is, you are always better off setting things up that someone with half their IQ would easily find out how to contact you.

Make your phone number big and easy to see on every page.  Also, put your email subscription form in the top half of your veterinarian website so they don't have to scroll down to see it.

No one will ever think you're insulting their intelligence by making it too easy to find something and you'll get a lot more good leads.  

The obvious goal for your veterinarian clinic is to have it bring in many clients and high profits.   If you're curious how successful you'll be, there's a special question you can ask to determine whether you'll reach your goals with your clinic and veterinarian website.

"Do I love wealth more than I hate poverty?"

Or "Do I love having a clinic full of clients more than I hate an empty waiting room?"

Or "Do I love having a high traffic veterinary website more than I hate having no traffic?"

What you answer for these questions will indicate whether your thinking is based on a success polarity or failure polarity.

In all aspects of life, the successful people play to win, and the unsuccessful people play not to lose.  If you're not focused on your end goal, and instead playing defense so your don't go bankrupt, you'll never reach the top.  It's similar to how when you're climbing a mountain, your instructor will tell you not to look down.  

You may be thinking "This all sounds great, but how can I do this when I'm two months from losing my clinic?"  The solution is to make your "success picture" more clear than your "failure picture."

If you ask a rich veterinarian what his goals are for his office, you'll hear a detailed account of what his plan is, even if he's not sure of how he's going to get there.  If you ask what will happen if he fails, you'll get a confused look, and he'll say "I... haven't really thought of that.  I guess I'd figure it out if that happened."  This is because his success picture is crystal clear, and his failure picture is fuzzy beyond recognition.

For people struggling with marketing their clinic and veterinarian website, the success picture is very muddled, but the failure picture is what's clear and defined.   IF this is you, you need to reverse this.  Write down a detailed description of exactly what your thriving clinic looks like.  Do this in the present tense and begin with "I am so happy and grateful that..." and describe how your clinic looks, including your number of patients, monthly revenue, and how your dream clinic is physically set up.  Write this for as many pages as necessary.

Ideally you'd visualize this for about thirty minutes a day, but even reading this description to yourself once or twice a day will make a ton of difference.  Your success picture will crystallize eventually to the point where you feel a magnetic pull to courageously taking the right actions toward success.