Using Checklists To Build Your Practice

Many years ago, I subscribed to three trade periodicals for the direct marketing industry. One of those was "Target Marketing," edited by Denny Hatch. Denny is one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever spoken to on the subject of direct marketing. I subscribe to his newsletter, and if you want your practice building to break you out of the pack of ordinary local practitioners, you should also.

I normally keep quiet about resources like this, because I’m not a very sharing and caring person. When you get to be an old curmudgeon like me, you start to get selfish with your resources. Notice that I didn’t give you the names of the other two resources I subscribed to? Now, breaking this habit is hard, and the only reason I am writing about this secret resource because this week he wrote in his newsletter about something near and dear to this old accountants heart … checklists.

In his newsletter, which you can find at this weeks Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense, Denny gives a checklist he created for Direct Marketers, and which he has updated for today’s electronic world, as well as “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right” by Dr. Atul Gawande. The book is available in hardcover or audio.

Getting a handle on all the things you have to do to market your practice can be as simple as building a checklist and following it.

With a checklist, you’ll have the ability to delegate mundane and repetitive tasks, and check your progress as you go along. Even knowing where you are and what comes next will reduce your stress and increase your skills by relegating even the most complicated tasks to an orderly process.

Checklists were first introduced by the U.S. Air Force, and have enabled pilots to fly even the most complicated aircraft. Today, every pilot has a checklist to go through before they even fire up their engines. Checklists are even being adopted in hospitals to help doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches.

In his book, Gawande explains how checklists can be used to achieve striking and immediate improvements in every process. The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to build and run a successful practice.