I went looking for an acupuncturist. Here's what happened.

This morning I hit “send” on an email to an acupuncturist asking to book my initial appointment.

The decision came after checking out several potential acupuncturists online. (I have an acupuncturist I love seeing in the East Bay, but wanted to find someone closer to home.)

I began the search 100% as a prospective patient or client, but continued (with my communications expert hat on) after selecting a practitioner to see, because of what I noticed among clearly caring, well-trained acupuncturists.

From looking at dozens of private-practice sites, I’ve identified four ways acupuncturists miss out on getting the most from their website. (And your site should be one of your best advocates + employees!)

(Note: While the examples + details I present are highly-specific to the field of acupuncture (where 80% of practitioners fine themselves in private practice), I think you’ll see that the principles apply to any private-practice health practitioner or expert. 

So let’s dive in:
Four ways private-practice acupuncturist sites go astray, and what you can do instead.  
(I’ve divided this piece into 4 posts, so you’re inspired into action, step-by-step. Today’s post examines item #1 at the top of the list, and connects some key dots.)

1. Missing Messaging.
Is your practice (and by extension your site) organized around a single clear message that captures who you are, what you offer, and how you’re different?

Stay with me here. 

I know by asking about a single message (preferably distilled to a single sentence or phrase), I trigger, for many practitioners an angsty wave of resistance. About this, I have more to say later.

For now, I just want to address where messaging comes from.

Messaging is born from how you’ve focused your practice, and what makes it unique or different.

A message is simply the way you distill this focus, so you can communicate it with the world.
It is the pole that supports the tent under which folks can gather. 

So let’s get clear on your focus, as it’s the foundation to your creating a message that resonates.

I agree with Keith Rhys’s framework of 3 ways to focus or niche as a health expert. 

You can create cohesive focus around:

—a specific body part, system, topic, or condition (ex: a hip specialist, or as an expert dedicated to treating hormone imbalances, digestion, infertility, postpartum issues, anxiety, or even something as specific as Hashimoto’s.) 

—a specific treatment approach or protocol (ex: working in intensives with your patients/clients, or always blending nutrition and lifestyle changes with acupuncture and herbs)

—a specific perspective or point of view (ex: a commitment to ancestral health made modern, stimulating the body’s intrinsic healing resources, a blood-sugar solution, sensation over shape, or helping people "learn their way out of pain." The more specific, and unique your perspective within your field the better. 

To these three, I’d add a fourth. You can create cohesive focus around:

—a specific person or group of people (ex: new moms, women in tech, older yoga teachers, gay men, seniors, CEOs, physicians,  elite athletes + performers). 

Sometimes simply focusing on a specific condition (such as postpartum issues) will naturally lead you to a specific type of client who shares it (ex: new moms). Other times, you have to make the choice more intentionally. 

No matter which of the four options you choose, you will have to address which people are most receptive to (or better yet, looking for) your unique perspective and get it in front of them. 

The most important thing I can impress upon you is that all of this is a choice—your choice—hopefully made at some point in your professional path with intention. (That’s why having a simple framework to think through this kind of choice is so helpful.)

Note: One of the four choices above is not automatically better than the others (please believe me on this). And, any one of them is better than a “non-choice” where you relinquish your own agency to to choose what you want to create in the world. Making a choice is where you find your self-expression.

You can make such a choice from the get-go in your professional life because you’re drawn to a specific something OR more likely retrospectively when you realize after some experimentation that you enjoy working with a certain kind of problem, approach, perspective, or type of client. Either way, it’s a statement about what you want to be known for. And yes, it can and will evolve over time. 

In fact, in due time, you can pair these choices together in a multiplying effect, as each of them is a potential point of difference.

Problem  X  Protocol  XPerspective X People
(Ex: Postpartum issues  X Intensives  X  Your Unique Perspective/Point of Difference  X  Expatriates living abroad)

Yet, even here, you’ll still lead with ONE uniqueness, or point of focus.

Thus, for now, simply start where you are (that’s the only place you can start), and choose one option. Find one or create one point of difference. Either way pick one.

The benefit of choosing?
On the inside of your practice….you develop your clinical expertise more quickly because your seeing more variations on a smaller set of problems.

On the outside of your practice…you cut through the noise in the market, because you are more easily noticed, memorable, and easily shared—thanks to our brain’s love of contrast. (For those worried about repetition, it's unlikely that all your patients will be Hashimoto’s patients, even if it’s your specialty—but they will be incredibly strong evangelists.) And this over time will allow you to increase your rates. 

So what about that angsty resistance to making a choice that I mentioned earlier?

I’ve given the phenomenon a name TGMC, short for “the generalizable modality conflict.” Here acupuncturists are in good company, as I’ve seen it first-hand in the practices of primary care doctors and Feldenkrais practitioners. 

Indeed, the conflict (hence, dilemma) can be ingrained for any health professional who has trained rigorously for years in a generalizable skill, and whose discipline is able to treat many body systems + kinds of conditions (physical, energetic, emotional, and mental).

There is real humanity and elegant healing power in a holistic, integrative perspective. (It’s what draws me to work with this type of practitioner.)

And there is risk as well—specifically the risk of a “me-too” practice indistinct from countless other generalist practitioners in your field. (I can assure you that fairly early in my search, one acupuncture site began to blur into another.)

I know that abandoning a pure generalist approach demands a profound mindset shift—one that can feel seismic before you embrace it. (I’ve been there myself, and appreciate the challenge.)

So ask yourself, “Am I uncomfortable niche-ing by body part or system (feeling it betrays the whole-body approach of my training)?" 

Then option 2 or 3 (Protocol or Perspective in the framework above) may be a great choice, as it offers a way to balance an integrated, whole-body approach that sustains you and your clients with market realities that favor focus and specialization.

Your Turn: Get clear on your focus, and commit to a message. 
Here I suggest keeping a notebook or Evernote, so you have a place to collect your thoughts and ideas as you have them. This is a conversation with yourself that deepens as a you go.

If you’re looking for 1:1 support to help you define (or refine) your vision or message for your work, my concise The Compass Kit process can be powerful here. Especially, if the breadth of what your modality can treat makes the kind of practice you could create feel open-ended.

In this way you are like an artist with a well-earned MFA graduate-level degree. Your training, like theirs, has taught you to explore and see deeply, always questioning. And you too, like them once training is complete, are left with the responsibility (and joy) of finding the focus and keywords that will animate your practice or body of work from the inside out.

To begin:
Reflect on your personal and professional strengths. 
What do you stand for (and against)? 
What riles you about your discipline? 
What is a message you want to share with the world, and around which you can organize your practice and body of work? 
Then audit your website to see if that message is present, or could be made more prominent or accessible.

That's a wrap for today! 
Congrats on being committed to get your foundation right.

[Preview: In my next post, we’ll take a clear-eyed look at the visuals of your website, specifically the photography. Images of cherry blossoms, bamboo, or stones? You’re not alone.]