Why Have a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Your Medical Practice?
You need to have a ribbon cutting ceremony for your Direct Primary Care practice because it’s a great opportunity to showcase your growth. It’s an important event, a momentous occasion, a major accomplishment for you and your medical practice, your patients, and your community. People will want to be a part of this event, from your patients, to your family, to your small business community, to your local elected officials, and your local media.
As a Direct Primary Care doctor and as a medical practice owner, you want to get the attention of the media. More media attention begets more media stories, which increases awareness of your practice in your community and drives new members to enroll in your Direct Primary Care practice. In media parlance, a ribbon cutting ceremony is a peg, or a newsworthy event! A peg is also known as a hook, or the reason for the story, and a peg is the single most important reason why a reporter or a news producer should publish your story. There’s a sense of urgency associated with the peg, and the peg makes the story timely and defines the story as news.
When you host your ribbon-cutting ceremony, be sure to invite the Media to your event so that they can tell your story to a broader audience.
Media parlance aside, you need to have a ribbon cutting to generate buzz and excitement around your practice, to inform a broader audience of your existence, and to mark a turning point in your practice. A ribbon cutting ceremony implies that you’re bigger, you’re better, and you’re ready to serve more customers.
Who Should Host a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony?
You should have a ribbon cutting ceremony at your Direct Primary Care practice if you’ve recently opened, renovated, or expanded your business. If you build a new office for your practice, you need to have a ribbon cutting. If you’ve renovated an old, dingy office into a clean and sparkling space for your patients, you need to have a ribbon cutting. If you’ve been practicing in a new or retrofitted office for a few months or even a few years, consider having a ribbon cutting if you’ve never had one.
In our case, we moved from a roughly 360 square foot office in Southwest Detroit to a 1,700 square foot office in Corktown. This was a new build, a new construction project, and a brand new office in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. You can see the full story about our Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at Plum Health DPC, here.
As a part of our growth process, we leveraged some grant money from the Motor City Match and Quicken Loans Demo Day programs to allow us to build out this new space. So, we invited many of the community partners that we work with to our ribbon cutting event.
How to Host an Epic Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for your Direct Primary Care Practice
First, you should identify a high-level person to mark the occasion with you. For example, it could be the Mayor of your town or city, or the County Executive, or another elected official. Perhaps a City Council person, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Representative, or Congressperson. If you know a high-profile physician, artist, musician, or professional athlete, they could fill this role as well.
It will make the most sense to invite an elected official because health care is such a hot topic in our country right now. By addressing the high cost of medications and lab work, and by addressing the access issues around primary care, your event can be appealing for an elected official.
Having a high-level person at your office, saying a few words about why your practice is important, and cutting the ribbon with you build buzz and generates excitement for your practice. It gives patients, people in the community, and news media a reason to care about your practice and the ribbon cutting.
Imagine that you’re a customer at a business that’s going to open and you receive a text message from them. It reads, “Please join us for our grand opening on December 12th!” You check your calendar and see if you can make it, weighing the time, energy, and effort it would take to get out there. Now imagine that the text message reads, “Please join us for our grand opening on December 12th with Mayor _______!” It just gives people another reason to come out for the event. It also signals to the news media that this will be a worthwhile use of their time, as an elected official will be there.
Having The Mayor of your community at the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony will help to bring attention and awareness to your practice. When we hosted our ribbon cutting in December 2019, we were able to host the Mayor of Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan.
Second, you need to set a date for your Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. Once your high-level person agrees to join you in the ribbon cutting, you typically offer them a range of dates. Let’s say you have completed your buildout of a new space or a renovation of a new space this week. Consider offering a date range four to six weeks from now as a target date for the ribbon cutting.
For us, we completed the build out of our new space in mid to late October, and we scheduled our ribbon cutting for the first two weeks of December. We reached out to the Mayor’s office and recommended that two-week period. We heard back from them and a date was set for December 12th.
Third, once you have a date set for your grand opening, invite everybody to be there and show their support for your practice. You want your Direct Primary Care office to be packed to the gills with people, you want your building to be overflowing with people and support for your practice. This demonstrates to the elected official and to the news media that this is an important part of the community. The elected official and news media have an opportunity to talk with your patients that you’ve helped and meet with the supporters of your practice.
At our event, we had a tremendous showing - our office was standing-room only. The camera crews on hand interviewed me, my patients, and community stakeholders who have helped our business.
Next, consider hiring an event photographer to get high-resolution photos of the event. We worked with Shawn Lee of Shawn Lee Studios to get some epic pics.
Of note, sometimes there’s an organization in your community, like the Mayor’s Office, a Business Association, an Economic Club, or a Rotary Club that frequently conducts ribbon cutting ceremonies. They may have all of the tools that you need to get this done - the ribbon, the scissors, a press release template, a schedule of events, a photographer, media contacts, etc… If you know of a business that recently had a successful ribbon cutting, reach out to them and ask how they got it done. That local business may direct you to a person or an organization that facilitated the event.
Make sure the logistics are worked ahead of time. We worked with the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC), which did a lot of the leg work for us. They started writing the press release, and we sent edits to make sure it aligned with our messaging. They sent the press release to their media contacts, and we sent the press release to our media contacts. The DEGC also provided the ribbon and the scissors. They had their own event photographer and contact points with the Mayor’s Office. This is why it’s important to work with a strategic partner if available.
After the event, post the pictures on your social media accounts and update your patients and email list of the event. You can also forward the press release to the media outlets in your community and give them another bite at the apple. If they couldn’t send a crew to cover the event, perhaps they’d be willing to publish the news in their outlet. It’s worth taking the time and sending it out.
The impact of a well-executed Ribbon Cutting
We’re only two days out from the ribbon cutting ceremony, but we’ve already had twelve people enroll in our service.
I think it’s worth taking a deep dive into the Ribbon Cutting ceremony because it’s a confluence of so many topics that are important for running a successful small business and a successful Direct Primary Care practice. You’re working with your patients, the broader community, elected officials, and the media. You’re managing and enhancing your brand, you’re shaping perceptions of your business, and creating a memorable or wow experience for your customers and the community.
This ribbon cutting ceremony is a dynamic event, and if well-executed, can create immediate and long-lasting returns for you, your brand, and your business.
If you enjoyed this content and you want more, check out our course on HOW TO BUILD OUT THE DIRECT PRIMARY CARE PRACTICE OF YOUR DREAMS. You can find it here.
Thanks for reading, and have a great day,
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Startup DPC