The right partners can propel your business forward

Hi Brendan,

What a great question! It sounds like you are coming to a little bit of a crossroads in your business and you are really about to make a breakthrough to the next level, so here are some suggestions that have worked for me.

Develop your own personal Board of Directors:I have three niche markets that I’ve built over the years and I actually have identified a “Board of Directors” of complimentary professionals in these areas. What do I mean by this? For example, I do a lot of work with foreign companies setting up their first US enterprise, so on this Board I have the following: Immigration Attorney, International Tax Expert, Foreign Business Manager, CPA and Business Attorney. We all are used to working with one another and know we “speak the language” of working with these companies and are well-versed in their needs. We actually do a lot of joint work together and come in as a team on many cases. By putting together something like this it will also help you become more known in your target market as a go-to resource.

Start a physicians’ networking group:  So, this is really cool. I was actually asked to become a member of one of these about six months ago and it has been great. Since it sounds like you have several clients in your target market, identify four or five of them and tell them you have this idea about putting together a group for them. Ask them if they would like to belong to a “unique” or “special” group (this is crucial, since you are dealing with Millennials; these are big buzz words for them) that gets together every couple of months and connects them to other physicians and dentists that are all looking to build their practices “just like them.” (Millennials like to connect with peers.) You want to help them build their businesses, so you want to connect them with business professionals that can help advise them on their practice and any “unique” issues that they face in their professional lives. Remember, you said Millennials, so you need to ask for their opinion on the topics and people they want to hear from and include them in the process so you can get buy-in. Whatever you do, you can’t forget about the “fun” aspect!  Millennials want to know they can have a beer with you, so make sure you have beer! You also need to identify one of them that is going to be a standout leader and help you get their peers to join the group. Then you ask the medical professionals the types of people they want to meet — but, keeping the Millennial traits in mind, you may want to feed them a list of questions to make them think and get them talking. From there, you can pull people from your network.