I was reading Tim Ferriss’ book called Tools of Titans and thought there was some great wisdom in there. One item came to mind for Direct Primary Care. It was from Seth Godin, a guru in that world. The advice is what he thinks is his greatest blog post. It is short so I will put the whole thing here but you can find the link here.

First, Ten

This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing.

Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you…

Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.

If they don’t love it, you need a new product. Start over.

Your idea spreads. Your business grows. Not as fast as you want, but faster than you could ever imagine.

This approach changes the posture and timing of everything you do.

You can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They’re not anonymous and they’re not masses. You can only market to people who are willing participants. Like this group of ten.

The timing means that the idea of a ‘launch’ and press releases and the big unveiling is nuts. Instead, plan on the gradual build that turns into a tidal wave. Organize for it and spend money appropriately. The fact is, the curve of money spent (big hump, then it tails off) is precisely backwards to what you actually need.

Three years from now, this advice will be so common as to be boring. Today, it’s almost certainly the opposite of what you’re doing.

So, how does that relate to you? Well, your first ten patients need to LOVE what you offer and the experience they had. I have talked about this over and over again. Those docs who wing it with a part-time telemedicine attempt at DPC usually struggle. I have written about getting your stuff down as far as the quality of your office/product (see my chapter on You Can’t Put Whipped Cream on Dog Shit).

Keep doing great work. DPC is artisanal care. Be a master of your craft and you will be successful in DPC. Maybe not as fast as you want but it will come. It will be a “gradual build that turns into a tidal” and not the other way around.