Birth Center Sales: Bringing More Clients to Midwifery Care
‘Sales’ is a word that makes many midwives uncomfortable when it comes to offering the midwifery model of care to their communities, but it’s a concept that needs to be addressed. In this blog, I’m (Tyler here) going to do my absolute best to show our respected midwives that sales isn’t a dirty word and to help advocate for embracing sales as a pathway for bringing your best suited potential clients into your birth center to receive the highest quality of care.
Whether in the midwifery industry or any other, sales & marketing tend to go hand in hand. You’ll often see them listed together, in fact as sales/marketing. Our general goal in marketing for a birth center or midwifery practice is to take the message of midwifery care, package it into original content, release that content on highly trafficked digital platforms, and then capture new leads for the birth center. There are many more levels of nuance to that approach, but the goal is straightforward: reach and bring in new inquiries or leads.
Where marketing for birth centers or midwifery practices leaves off is right where sales picks the lead up. The sales process involves establishing communication and rapport with that lead and signing them up for their prenatal care. Different birth centers that we work with accomplish that in different ways – some utilize tours on-demand, some use pre-scheduled tour and info session dates, some are completely online, and others even use regular Open House events. If it works for your birth center, there’s no wrong way to do it.
But here’s where I’m going to throw a wrench into things, so trust me on this journey. Sales isn’t a bad word. There, I said it! When it’s done ethically (and that’s the only way we ever want to do it), sales simply means helping to eliminate roadblocks on the pathway to care for someone who is an excellent fit for midwifery care. When a new lead comes in, we need to establish a strong, professional process of communicating with that person, helping them to understand the true nature of midwifery care as well as making sure that they are a great fit for this type of care, both personally and financially. Establishing and following a strong sales process leads to better outcomes and more people served by this excellent care.
On the flip side, a great sales process will also help identify and steer people away who are simply not a good candidate for care! Ethical sales means helping people find exactly what they need. A good salesperson can honestly tell someone if they are not a good fit for care and help them find the right solution for their needs. Wonder how you can avoid bad reviews for your birth center? The answer is a strong sales process.
Putting some of your attention as a birth center owner or a midwifery practice owner into understanding your sales process will make a huge impact in how many people you are able to serve. And at the end of the day, what we want to see at Marketing TEA is more people getting to access the empowering experience of great midwifery care.
Convinced that it’s time to reevaluate your sales process? For a limited time, I’m offering a completely pro bono sales audit/assessment & perhaps even sales training for birth centers who reach out. Time to make sure that you are properly connecting with all the new leads that your marketing is bringing in. Not seeing the leads you want? Maybe it’s time to talk about your marketing with us too. Let’s chat sometime about sales & marketing for your birth center.
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