Should I Offer Other Services Besides Ketamine Infusions? (2022 Update)
Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published on 02-08-2021 and has been updated on 07-31-2022 to reflect the latest research, insights, and best practices in ketamine therapy.
Should I Offer More Than Ketamine?
A question we often get asked by aspiring ketamine specialists and clinic owners is, “Should I offer other services or infusions in addition to ketamine?” If this is a question you didn’t think to ask or weren’t aware that you could provide other services, here is a list of what some ketamine clinics also offer:
Vitamin infusions
IV hydration
NAD+
Hangover cocktails
B12 Shots
By offering more than just ketamine infusions, you can cross-sell your other services to the patients who already trust you.
Why You Would Consider Offering More Than Ketamine
The logic behind offering one of the above services in addition to ketamine infusion is to keep busy by having patients in your clinic. You already have the medical supplies to deliver IV hydration or vitamin infusions, so why not? There is also the possibility that if the patient doesn't have any contraindications for ketamine therapy, they could be up-sold or become a ketamine patient as well. They are already familiar with you, so why not also get ketamine infusions with you! Or the reverse could be offered. You have a ketamine patient who likes you and your staff, so perhaps they could be convinced to also get NAD+ or B12 shots with you!
When it comes to restaurants, those that stand out and are highly sought-after are those that specialize in one thing rather than trying to offer a lot.
Another Perspective - The Best Restaurant In Town
To put things into perspective, visualize one of your favorite restaurants. Would you want to go to a place that specializes only in making the best Italian food or would you prefer to go to a restaurant that attempts to make Italian, Vietnamese, Mediterranean, & Mexican food all at one restaurant?
Yeah, it’s obvious right?
You’d go for the restaurant that is known for that one particular pasta dish, with handmade pasta lovingly made by Italian grandmas with truffles foraged by a truffle pig named Fabrizio. You’d go for the artisanal, unique, and singular experience. There is incredible power in picking one thing and doing it really well, especially when you are first starting out.
Sure, you’d have plenty of options with the second restaurant, but there’s no guarantee that all the different types of cuisines would be even good. It’s difficult to master various crafts when you’re trying to dip your toes in everything.
The Power of Focus - Time & Energy
In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown shares this:
From the cartoon above, you can see the power of either diffusing your energy in multiple directions or concentrating your energy to focus on ONE thing.
You have a finite amount of time and energy. This is true for life and this is true for starting your ketamine clinic. You will be busy enough with taking care of patients, not to mention all the background administrative tasks like running payroll and managing your staff. Adding another service, like Botox, means one other thing to juggle. And in reality, it really isn’t just one thing because when you add multiple services, you will not only have to obtain supplies and equipment for those services, but you will also have to spend time marketing these other services.
Offering more services means catering to different markets. And when this happens, it’ll be difficult to have a clear message for your marketing efforts.
More Services, More Marketing Headaches
If you are the first ketamine clinic in town and/or the only clinic that provides one of these additional services, what we are going to say wouldn’t necessarily apply to you. Every service you provide puts you into competition with a clinic that also provides that same service. When we first opened our clinic in Palm Springs, there were already several IV hydration businesses, and several naturopathic clinics providing NAD+ and other therapies. Had we also provided any of these services, we would be in direct competition with them.
Now competition isn’t bad in itself (competition is simply a reality of business), but the key to starting a business is to start it and keep it running! Make it easy for yourself and just compete at the ketamine level. Another thing to consider is that the ideal patient or customer for these different services can be very different. The people wanting IV hydration may be quite different from those wanting treatment for their depression symptoms. Your clinics’s messaging and marketing efforts should be tailored to the patients you want to serve, and if you have different targets, your messaging can be muddled and unclear. Accordingly, you’ll want to spend your marketing efforts (i.e. money) carefully and most importantly, focused.
Is marketing your ketamine clinic on social media a good idea? Explore both ways by reading our blogs on Why You Should Market Your Ketamine Clinic On Social Media and Why You Shouldn't Market Your Ketamine Clinic On Social Media!
“What you stay focused on will grow. ”
Most successful companies known around the globe today started off by providing just one product or service.
How Do Successful Companies Start?
When I think about some outstanding companies, they all started with a specific focus.
Amazon first started by selling books and only books online.
Google started with a simple homepage and had only one function.
Netflix first started out simply by mailing DVDs, before becoming the king of online streaming and content production.
Nike first started making running shoes before expanding into all the other sports, apparel, and gear.
Of course, once they initially stabilized in their first market, the companies would later advance into other positions.
Similarly, if you really want to add other services, you can always add it later to your clinic, after you have stabilized your first service.
To be able to serve your patients well, you need to become an expert, which takes a lot of time and practice.
Becoming a Ketamine Infusion Expert
Frankly, there is so much ketamine-related knowledge available. We believe that understanding how to properly provide ketamine infusions may even be a medical fellowship one day. Using ketamine as a transformational medicine means to go beyond the simple delivery of intravenous ketamine. The expert ketamine provider will:
consider the mindset of their patients
guide the patients to prepare for their infusion
consciously set up the clinic space to create an optimal healing environment
research the subtle nuances of ketamine delivery
be able to handle any adverse effect from ketamine treatments
Becoming a ketamine expert will take time, practice, and a commitment to lifelong learning.
Another reason why we believe that you should focus on one service first is because you don’t want to shortchange yourself or your patients by spreading yourself too thin, especially when you are first starting.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
This post was originally published February 2021 and has been updated for accuracy and thoroughness.
When starting a new ketamine clinic, you may not have many patients. So should you expand what you offer to get more patients? We recommend against it! Check out WHY at our blog!
Discover 5 actionable strategies to grow your ketamine therapy clinic, build trust with patients, improve marketing, and overcome slow business periods.