About Edward Petty

Consultant with Petty, Michel & Associates, Author of Marketing Manager System, the Goal Driven Business www.GoalDriven.com. Father and grandfather, husband, student, active in athletics, and in health and environmental causes.

..we’re sneaking away to do some planning…

Like elves going to our workshop, we are off to our New Year’s planning meeting…somewhere up in the Far North (Wisconsin)…looking at what new “presents” we have in store for all of our great fans and wonderful clients for 2011…reviewing what’s working and what is new that will deliver the most benefit to the chiropractic teams we serve…and what trends we see for the new year.

Be the first to hear about what we have planned at our teleseminar on Tuesday, December 28, 12:30 C.T. Contact us for the phone number if you want to attend.

Dr. Munson Named Wisconsin Chiropractor of the Year – 2010

Dr. Wendy Varish and Dr. Cindy Munson

We are proud to announce that Dr. Cindy Munson has been selected Chiropractor of the Year for the State of Wisconsin!

Each year the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association (W.C.A.) reviews candidates who have contributed the most to their communities, to their profession, and to their patients.

Dr. Wendy Varish, president of the W.C.A., stated that “Dr. Munson was selected from other candidates as she excelled in all areas of clinical practice, patient care, and community leadership. She has run an extremely successful wellness practice in Plymouth for the past 16 years.”

Dr. Munson works actively on community projects and also has a leadership role in many local activities including professional organizations, her church and local charities.  She has inspired and assisted several young people in pursuing a career as a chiropractor.  One is Dr. Kristi Wick who is currently practicing in West Bend.  Dr. Wick said “Her commitment to the Chiropractic profession is unparalleled. She is an ambassador for health, wellness, and fitness in every aspect of her life. Her commitment to educating patients is evident if you spend even one minute in her office. She is on a mission to help one person at a time by ensuring that they understand the potential they have for overall health.”

When asked about her feelings about receiving the prestigious award, Munson stated, “It is such an honor to be chosen among all the fantastic Chiropractors in the state. It is a true privilege to come to work each day to serve my patients. I am blessed to have a fabulous staff and wonderful family supporting me. Together we will continue to strive to make Plymouth a healthier place!”

Dr. Cindy and her staff

Part of her secret is that she has brought together and created a truly outstanding team of dedicated professional staff that work as “irresistible force” for chiropractic care in their community.

We really couldn’t be prouder.

Congratulations Team Munson and Chiropractic.

Ed

Dr. Munson’s web site: Link

Office Facebook Fan Page: Link (Become a fan!)

Patient Compliance in a Chiropractic Office

The success of your chiropractic practice is directly related to the level of patient control you and your staff have with your patients.

No matter if you are the best healer this side 1895, or if your office is perfectly modern and your team is the friendliest in town, you will fail in business if you are weak on control.

Once your patients agree to their treatment plan, can you get them to comply? If you can’t, they won’t really get or stay healthy and neither will your practice.

You have to be friendly and have good communication, of course. But you also have to be a coach. A good coach, if you have had one, is just a bit and demanding. They are this way because they care. They care about winning and they care about their players.

If you care about your patients “winning” back their health, and staying healthy, then you have to be willing to be assertive about them sticking to their schedule of care.

And if you aren’t being insistent with your patients, we know that the pharmaceutical companies certainly are with their constant commercials and medical prescribers.

Who do you want to win that contest with your patient?

Health Never Takes A Holiday!

Holidays

Holidays are a time when chiropractic patients can find many reasons not to keep to their schedules. To help you and them stick to their health program, you can pre-schedule them for the entire month of December.

We have made a couple of posters centered around:

Health Never Takes a Holiday

You can find links to these below.

When talking to your patients about their schedules, be understanding and empathetic. Hear their story. Then, be bold about your interest and concern that they maintain their care schedule through the holidays – and get them scheduled until next year.

And it is OK to use bribes.. Spicy warm apple cider gives off a very cozy smell and tastes great.. and is healthy, and free screenings/exams for patient’s holiday guests.

Links to posters:

Poster for Nov/Dec
Poster for any holiday

Edmund Fitzgerald

November 11, 2010
Whitefish Bay, WI

35 years ago, this morning, the news was coming over the radio that the night before the ship called the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, taking all 29 crewmen with her.

It had departed from Superior, Wisconsin and got caught in a violent storm.  She sank in Lake Superior, just 17 miles from the safety of Whitefish Bay, Michigan.

A few months later Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song in commemorating the sinking.

“…When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it’s too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it’s been good to know ya.

“The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  (Gordon Lightfoot)

It is a fine song that gives tribute to the death of 29 men: sons, husbands and fathers.  Kind of a sad song, really, and a little ghostly.

But living here in the Midwest around these Great Lakes, I think there is a positive meaning we can take from this anniversary.

Sailors are tough people. The saying once was: “Men of iron, ships of wood.” They are courageous and self reliant. They risk the security of the land and take their lives in their own hands on a floating platform that moves over an unpredictable surface which can kill them at any time.   They only have themselves to count on whether they arrive at their destination or even stay alive.  They confront the elements face to face and there is no tolerance for excuses or mistakes.  The result of negligence is not an angry boss but the cold rocky grave of the water below.

While many stay sheltered in their shops along a harbor, sailors seek opportunities and set sail. They have goals and rely on their skill and initiative to arrive at their destinations.

Sometimes they may configure the ship incorrectly, plot a bad course, or out of nowhere, get hit by rogue waves.  And they may die. But at least they died seeking their goals.

This is a lesson of the Edmund Fitzgerald, at least for me.  Those 29 men knew the risks they were taking but were braving the storms and the security of the harbor to arrive at distant ports.

This week I visited a veteran doctor at his office whose numbers over the last few years have been crashing. He had recently gone through a bankruptcy and was now moping around his office feeling depressed and complaining about insurance cut backs, joblessness, and other woes.

We all have been in comparable situations of one type or another before. Maybe we made a wrong turn somewhere and tripped and fell and then held ourselves back out of fear. But the solution is not to restrain ourselves but to get back out and risk it all again.

As entrepreneurs and those of us in the chiropractic profession, I suggest we honor those sailors who have perished on this anniversary, and do so by getting out of whatever harbor we may find ourselves in and set sail.

A New Year is coming.  Where are YOU going to sail in this New Year? We suggest that you set some high and distant goals and start plotting your course now.

Consider this quote from Mark Twain:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.  (Mark Twain)

Safe travels and best regards.

Nice video with the song by Gordon Lightfoot: “Edmund Fitzgerald”LINK

Internet Marketing for Chiropractic Offices

What a great teleseminar we just completed about Internet Marketing.

I wanted to provide a short summary and a few follow ups for those who joined us as well as for those who weren’t able to.

Face To Face Networking – now more valued than ever. As we live increasingly in a virtual world of “friends” and emails and ordering products and services from our computers, meeting and connecting in person with real live people is rarer and therefore more valued. Get out of the box and meet people!

Virtual Networking – We discussed Facebook and creating a fan page. Here is a link provided by Dr. Jamie Phillips on how to do this. (link) There are many ways to add content, or information, to your Facebook page including automatic feeds.  Dr. Phillips gives one example, using Google Alerts,  listed below.  But automated content or ads about upcoming events do not take the place of “newsy” and interesting articles about you and your office. A fast note about a patient success, something new about the office, a favorite recipe of one of your patients,  a notice from Sister Hilda (a patient) who is inviting one and all to the fish fry at Saint Paul’s this Friday – these are topics your patients are interested in.  Keep it local.

The Internet Is About Search. It replaces the phone book, the dictionary, and the encyclopedia. There are many people who are in pain and sick of drugs and corporate medicine and surgery. They are looking for you. Dr. Phillips went over how to best get these people to find you with local search.

Web Site. We also discussed some simple ideas for your web site and what to do if you already have one.

Other Topics Included: The importance of Social Proof, Reputation Management, use of the new bar code on you printed materials and signs, and the coming necessity of mobile web sites were other subjects we spent some time on.

Chiropractic Internet Marketing Assistant. You need one of these!   Delegate a team member to put 2 hours in per week, or more, dedicated to working on your internet presence.

We did record this teleseminar and it will be available at no charge for our active clients on our Members site in about a week. Non members who listened to the talk will receive a CD within the next several weeks.  The CD can be purchased for $65 – all proceeds will be donated to Oklahaven Children’s Chiropractic Center.

Internet Marketing CD Order Form

Links.
The links below are to PDF documents. For customizable WORD docs, active clients can find these on our Members Site (www.pmamembers.com) under Advertising.

Videos

More info on Jamie Phillips internet marketing. Link

Always Room For One More

This is a great motto to instill in your front desk.

It can help counteract any feelings that the book is too full or that there isn’t enough time to process another new patient or patient visit.

The “we are packed” mentality, or “too busy”, or “tomorrow would be better” are concepts that can subtly slip into the mind of well meaning staff and doctors.

Other considerations include: “too much paperwork to do”, “have to get home for my kid’s soccer game”, “we are already behind”, etc.

Even if these ideas are based upon valid situations, they can gradually train the mind to think in terms of exclusion. The front desk can go from a “Green Light” to “Yellow Light”, or “Slow Down.”  Caution!

This is more common than you may think. It affects the quantity of your visits and the quality of your service. Patients can tell if you are eager to see them, or not.

You want your front desk to be a green light, sending out the message that everyone should come in and that no one is excluded.

So, use the motto: “There is always room for one more.”

Speaking of, even though our seminar is just a few days away, there is always room for one more.

If you are not registered yet, we still have room for you. Give us a call or send an email… we can still get you in.

Hope to see you here!
Ed, Dave, Phyllis and the PM&A Team

Celebrate Your Successes

We are off to another Boston Seminar….

Preparing for these seminars takes work. But it is rewarding in so many ways, one of which is that we get to review how you all have been doing and what has been working.

Like you, I am sure, we can get so caught up in the day to day that we don’t often take the time to step back and look at our handiwork.

I know this happens to most doctors and staff. So busy with patients and office work that it becomes too easy to overlook the tremendous successes you help bring about through chiropractic care.

Chiropractic produces unappreciated miracles by the thousands daily.  Some big ones, but many small ones that add up to big ones.

In our own way, I think all of us who are part of the PM&A Team feel we help produce a few of these miracles too.

Getting ready for these seminars gives us a chance to reflect on the great work you are doing. And there is no question: you all are doing amazing.   Some offices are being “remodeled” with new staff or systems and some are trying to keep up with their growth.  But in each case, we see hard working professionals who love their patients and work under stress with a smile to give the best care possible.

If you can’t make it to our Boston seminar, try our meet-up in Chicago on Saturday, October 16th. You won’t find more passion, or practical nuts and bolts content for growing your practice. And, as always, all of our stuff is from the field. We don’t cook it up in our offices on the stage. This is your material really.  It’s what is working and we get the chance to simply remind you, often by putting it into a different context.

Chiropractic works.  And it truly is amazing when you can step back and see it. Review your testimonials and collect more of them. The stories are there.

Sound management and effective marketing procedures also work when they are diligently applied.   We have many doctors that, even after years of being in practice, have been recently hitting their Best Evers. (Yea!)

So keep the faith. We are all students in this school of life and Chiropractic. Keep learning and loving and helping — what could be a better calling?

Fall Marketing Ideas

Fall is in the air….. and it’s time to get that fall marketing calendar filled with activities.  To get the ball rolling, we have put together a few topics and suggestions to make your events fun and effective.

For our PMA members, we have more information about each topic, including ready made posters, handouts, and descriptions. For more information, please go to our PM&A Members site here , log in, and go the section called New Stuff on the top navigation bar.  You will find the article called Fall Marketing Ideas.

September:

  • National Backpack Awareness Day – Sept 19
  • Woman’s Health Week – Last week of September
  • Neuropathy (or Headache,etc. ) Awareness Week  (Pick a week to promote a free screeing exam for a specific condition.)
  • Crazee Dayz (For example, Thirsty Thursdays — offer a different type of drink each Thursday. Have patients make suggestions: organ apple juice in Sept, Egg nog in December, etc.)

October:

  • National Spinal Health Month (now called National Chiropractic Month).  Make a banner and use this as a motivation to have patients bring in their family for a free spinal fitness screening.
  • National Chiropractic Month. Use this as a reason to sponsor: Chiropractic Opportunity Week:  The doctor is having a “COW”
  • Hair Dresser/Beauty Salons/Spas – provide massages, screenings, and lectures.
  • Local Health Fairs at businesses.
  • Kid’s Halloween Party

November:

  • Thanksgiving Turkey Drawing Poster
  • Donation Drives
  • Deer Widows Week
  • Girl’s Night Out

December:

  • Holiday Coupons – Gift Certificates
  • Poinsettia Give Away
  • Saturday with Santa
  • Appreciation to External Referral Sources

Internet Marketing That Works

A web site is nice, but can it really generate new patients for you?

The answer is yes! And over the years, depending on the doctor’s internet marketing efforts, we have seen more new patients calling the office because of something they read on the Internet.

You probably have a web site. It could be a templated one you subscribe to or your own customized site.

But having a site is the easy part – it’s what you do with it that counts.  It is not like a phone book ad that you redesign every 12 months and then get conned into buying a larger ad by the phone book rep.

We have been studying internet marketing for many years now. It is a science and an art unto itself, with new approaches and technologies evolving monthly.  But there is also an awful lot of hype. Every company has a different pitch about how their web site is better. There are new gurus being born every week. Then, at a family barbeque, your 14 year old geeky nephew says he can throw up a web site for you over his lunch as part of a school project.  So, what do you do?

Because of all these things, your web site may just sit there.  Maybe it catches something now and then like a fishing lure, but more likely, it is mostly ignored and has floated to the river’s edge doing nothing.

We have a solution to this.

We will be sending more info about this soon. But the short version is that someone in your office should be able to work on your Internet marketing every week. Like any marketing, it only works if it is done.

We will be introducing the Chiropractic Internet Marketing Assistant Checklist and Support Program soon. Believe me – the Basic Level will be so easy even a Caveman, or Cavewoman, can do it.  (No offense intended!)

The internet is becoming more of a marketing medium for your office – and can be effectively used for generating new patients and keeping the ones you have.

The bottom line? 1-3 new patients for a few hours spent each month working on Internet marketing. Not a bad return.

Make sure you listen to our guest on this Tuesdays’ live teleclass this Tuesday, June 29th, at 12:30 Central time.

Dr. Jamie Phillips, having just given a presentation to the California Chiropractic Association, will be talking about practical steps you and your staff can immediately implement to get more new patients from the Internet.

We have known Dr. Jamie for many years and are impressed with her knowledge, savvy, service, and results. She loves marketing and chiropractic, and is effectively applying these passions to the internet.
More info on Dr. Jamie. LINK
As usual, there is no charge to our clients. The access number and phone number will be posted on your Members site and we will also send you a special reminder email.  If you are not an active client, you can register here: LINK.

Looking forward to many more new patients .. and returning active patients.

5 New Marketing Projects

We have been working on some new marketing projects and are now ready to tell you about them.

They are hot, effective, and don’t cost an arm and a leg. You can do them and if you do, you will see more new patients.

They are not totally a secret, so I am going to tell you what they are. But first, I want you to know why we are doing so.

We’ve often been asked why we do what we do: Why do we consult and coach chiropractors. Why not dentists or MDs, or why consult at all? Why this line of work? Particularly since we are not chiropractors.

Well, first of all, we have consulted dentists, MDs, podiatrists, even attorneys and are not averse to doing so. We have done well with them, in fact.

Not being chiropractors gives us a distinct advantage. We are not biased to a particular technique, or so in love with our own procedures and with what worked with our patients that we can’t help another doctor work out what is uniquely best for her or him.

But the thing is, we really share the philosophy and mission of chiropractic – and the Attitude as well.

Chiropractors help people get well without the use of drugs. They promote a healthy lifestyle. Now, it should be no news to you reading this that this has always gone against Big Money.  The Big Money is in disease care.

We truly feel that chiropractors are the Health Rangers and Health Champions in a world dominated by gold digging corporations that manipulate public opinion to eat badly – and buy more and more drugs.

Chiropractic, by its very nature, opposes this and has for over a 100 years.

But reviling disease care peddlers can only provide you with a short term self righteous ego boost.  The real solution is not to loudly ridicule drug companies and the MD monopolies, or their bed partner, the health insurer. (But it may make you feel better, so go ahead! In fact, give ’em hell.)

The real solution is to tell your story.

Communicate loudly and continuously the benefits of chiropractic as the FIRST solution people should seek for their HEALTH.

We have seen and know the benefits of chiropractic and the chiropractic lifestyle and have seen the alternatives: sick, brainwashed people fed drugs and receiving “procedures” at great expense to our economy.

So that’s why we do this. It is a personal thing.

Now, to help you tell your story this summer, we have a number of super cool – and effective – programs which we will be presenting over the next few weeks.

1.    Internet Marketing. Having a web site is no longer enough. It is what you DO with it that counts. We have put together action steps that a chiropractic assistant can follow to help get you more new patients from the Internet.  (Special teleclass program with Dr. Jamie Phillips on Tuesday, June 29th. More info soon.)

2.    Community Services. Since the 1980’s, screenings have always been around. We have organized our successful experiences with screenings, and other external events, to show you how to greatly increase your new patients from these events.  This is a fun program.

3.    Energizing Your Marketing and Your Practice. Without giving away the whole program, we have new slant on an old approach to practice marketing that has proven to generate more new patients just with your current programs. The best part: it doesn’t cost a dime!

4.    Innate Marketing Secrets: How To Generate More New Patients Invisibly. This is based on study we have been doing for a while now. It is almost spooky in how it works.  But it does.  Stay tuned.

5.    Practice Management. We will show you a powerful management tool – that the whole staff can use – that increases production and improves performance.  And it is nothing new. You have it already, but for the most part, most offices just don’t use it.

It’s summer time and we want to help you get more people healthier.

Watch for more information on these programs soon.

Chiropractic and Earth Day

It was 40 years ago when Senator Nelson, from Wisconsin, helped start Earth Day.  (It started in March, 1970 with teach-ins at the University of Calif. Davis and San Francisco. I was there!)   Since then, there has been a battle between natural health, and chemicals and toxins.

Chemicals in Our Environment

  • 1972:  DDT, an organochlorine pesticide, was banned
  • 1976:  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA)

62,000 chemicals were grandfathered in as being safe.  Two chemicals have been banned since 1976.

  1. 1978 Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB)
  2. 1989 Asbestos

There has been no attempt to ban a toxic chemical since 1989.
The amount of chemicals produced or imported by the United States in one day would fill up 623,000 tanker trucks with a capacity of 8,000 gallons each. (Taken from Dr. Dan Murphy who quotes: The Body Toxic How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being. By Nena Baker 2008)

Not counting the chemicals Americans take in from hormones, pesticides, herbicides, and other poisons in our fast food, super-sized nation, we pound prescription drugs in to our bodies.

American Prescription Drug Use

  • The average number of prescriptions [drugs] per person, annually, in 1993 was seven.
  • The average number of prescriptions [drugs] per person, annually, in 2000 was eleven.
  • [The average number of prescriptions drugs per person], annually, in 2004 was twelve.

The total number of annual prescriptions [drugs] in the United States now stands at about 3 billion. The cost per year is about $180 billion, headed to and estimated $414 billion by 2011.  (taken from Dr. Dan Murphy who quotes:How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser 2005)

This is actually old data and the average number by 2010 is probably much higher. I have seen patients walk in with pages of 20 “’scripts”, and heard of even as many as 50. I am sure you have too.

In Our Drinking Water
A vast array of pharmaceutical including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.  in the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas _ from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.   (USAToday)

Our Babies Swim Now In A Soup Of Chemicals.
287 human-made chemicals – most of them hazardous – in the blood of infants

According to a study released by the Environmental Working Group, a policy research and activist organization, tests measuring the so-called “body burden” of industrial chemicals, conducted on ten random samples of umbilical cord blood, detected 287 chemicals.

The samples, supplied by the American Red Cross, registered 180 chemicals known to cause cancer in adults, 217 that are linked to brain and nervous system damage, and 208 that have been shown to affect fetal or child development in animal tests. For 209 of the contaminants, this was the first time researchers had identified the chemicals in newborn blood.                                (Environmental Working Group)

What Should Be Done?
What do the so called health care leaders say about the poisons we feed to our planet, our people, and eventually our unborned children?  Where are the medical doctors or health insurers or pharmaceutical CEO’s speaking out against this. Or, our elected officials?

No one is talking, or if so, their voices are not heard.

And you know why?  Simple: because for the most part, they are not HEALTH Leaders.

And who are the health leaders?

You are! The chiropractor and the chiropractic professional. A healthy populace needs more than just “providers.” Your community needs leadership. The members of your town are bombarded with ads for drugs, for fast food, for industrial corporate food, for the easy “no effort way” to what they want. Add in natural human laziness, and you will find that your patients are getting sicker.

Health is a word which has been hijacked by the drug and insurance companies. But the chiropractor is the true health leader.

Earth Day gives you an easy avenue to extend your reach as a health leader into your community as well.  Well educated patients and community will seek to have a healthy town and a healthy body without the use of chemicals.

Ed

Sample posters. Link

Come celebrate with us on Earth Day by attending our seminar in Minneapolis.

Printable version of this article to give to patients. Chiropractic and Earth Day-for patients

In Your Chiropractic Office, Do You Have a Golden Goose in Your Hands?

(an article by Phyllis Frase)

Do you remember the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? One of the characters named Veruca in the story wanted the goose that laid the Chocolate Golden Eggs. She demanded that her dad get her the goose that laid those eggs. She was a spoiled brat. Keep in mind she didn’t want to care, nurture and train that goose to lay those golden eggs. She just wanted the end product which was the chocolate golden eggs. She disobeyed Willy Wonka. Veruca and her dad are rejected as “bad eggs” and sent plummeting down a garbage chute in the golden egg sorting room. If Veruca had just stayed the course, in the end, she would have had all the golden eggs she could have wanted or needed.

What does this have to do with your practice?
Every day you have geese (patients) that want to lay golden eggs in your practice .  We just don’t look at their signals to help those eggs to be laid.  If you haven’t figured out what the “golden” eggs are, it is your internal referrals from your existing patients. We believe that if we have patients that they should automatically refer their friends and family to us. We are a little like Veruca that just wants the end product which in our case would be lots of new patients. Some patients do refer and most do not. It’s not that they don’t want too; it’s just that they are not cared, nurtured or trained to refer their friends and family to you.

Let’s look at your average new patient. Typically, the average chiropractor is blessed to receive 8-10 new patients a month, without really doing anything out of the ordinary such as  yellow pages, internal referrals and other marketing efforts. If we really care, nurture and train those 8 to 10 geese to lay their golden eggs in your practice (which would be their friends and family), you typically could double your new patients or golden eggs without a lot of effort.  These eggs are warm and ready to produce beautiful geese that will produce over and over given the right environment.

So how do you get production or referrals from your existing patients? You have to feed them every day. Set the referral seeds within your practice. Within the first 30 days of a patient starting care is when they are most enthusiastic about their chiropractic care. Set procedures to create the referral to happen.
In the first visit.  Invite the spouse to the report of findings. Make sure the staff follows through with this as well by giving a spouse pass to the report of findings. Will all of them come no, will a lot of them come, yes if you ask and it happens every time. If the patient doesn’t bring a significant other to the report of findings make sure it is noted in the report of findings and tell them they have another opportunity to learn about your care at our foundations, WOW or new patient orientation workshop.  Yes, patients do come to those workshops and that is another article all by itself.

These procedures seem old and worn out and most of the time we forget to ask the patients for these things because we have gotten beaten up or is not worth the effort anymore.  They do become worn out if the practices are not doing the procedures each and every time with each patient and having the staff follow through when the doctors have forgotten to review this on the first and second visit. Calling the new patients after the first adjustment is a referral stimulator. Those few things we all know and we tend to let them slide by as the opportunities for our golden eggs slip through our hands.

Here are a few referral opportunities that you can start right away in your practice and get good results from practicing them every day. Will you get the golden egg every time as the goose lays an egg, not all the time but if we care, nurture and train that goose, we will get more golden eggs than bad eggs.

Non promotional and promotional referral opportunities
Have the referral talk with specific people.
Can I talk to you a moment?
Sit next to the patient.
Have you been getting good results with your chiropractic care? Great
Do you enjoy coming here? Great
Can I ask you a question?
Why haven’t you given me the opportunity to check/scan your family?

PAUSE LET THEM TALK FIRST

It is my mission to check as many spines as possible so that people can be a healthy as possible.
I want to give you this coupon.  Bring in cans of food and I will waive the $25.00. (Let the patient see you mark through the price or whatever monetary cost you have associated to the coupon) Let me check their spines.  There is no obligation for them to start care.
Sports- Are your kids playing sports?  Really?  Did you know that chiropractic increases reaction time and reduces injuries?  The athletes that are under care usually perform better.

  • Remember to review your new patients at each staff meeting.  Determine who has family members that have not been checked and make an effort to put a coupon on their travel card, promotional flier or a stop manager/reminder on electronic notes so it will remind you to talk to them. Create a friends and family coupon to give to the patient.  Change the color or the wording every 2 to 3 months so it looks different each time. Print coupon on card stock. You can create these in word or publisher or go to our member’s site and find several customizeable samples. Always list the retail value of any services you are offering that are complimentary or at your expense.
  • Target specific people every day to have “the Talk” with and make a goal to hand out the friends and family coupon to a specific number of patients each week. This should be decided on as a team. Have a contest to see how many people get signed up. Dinner, lunch, time off, make your goal to get people checked regardless if they start care or not.
  • If the patients come to the counter with the coupon, that should signal the staff to ask the patient about the coupon.  “Great, Joe the doctor gave you the special coupon. Let me give you some new patient times, that way it will be easier for them to schedule an appointment. Who are you thinking of referring?”
  • Even if the patient doesn’t come up with the coupon and you know they are suppose to have one based on your communication with your doctor, the staff should go through the exercise of the referral talk.
  • Have a referral follow up sheet at the front desk and list the name of the patient, when the coupon was given, expiration date and whom they are going to refer and next date to follow up .
  • If they have not called yet in a week, when the regular patient comes in ask if they gave out the coupon. If yes, “okay we were just checking because he/she has not called yet. That coupon expired in so many days.  We won’t be having another promotion like this for another two months or the doctor only gives out the friends and family coupons four times a year.” Create a sense of urgency around that special. “Would you like to take some additional material with you that will explain chiropractic more?”  Have special brochures that can be handed to the patient. Make sure your name, address and phone number is on any literature that goes out your door.
  • Always have a bulletin board promoting your offers and as the time gets to the end create a banner that is put across the bulletin board- 5 days remaining or 3 new patients’ slots remaining. Or mark through any remaining fliers or material that you have.
  • Decorate your office during promotions. If you think you have decorated enough, it’s not enough.  Create a new experience when your patients come in. You need to stimulate them visually so they will ask questions.  Why all the hearts or the shamrocks? “Well, Joe I am so glad you asked, we are having a new patient opportunity.  Let me tell you how it works.”
  • Print enough fliers to be in your office everywhere.  In the adjusting areas, in your new patient orientation folders, in your bathroom, behind doors.  Anywhere people will see it and can’t miss it.  Enough is never enough.  Print your materials in color don’t be cheap by only using black and white copies. Always review your promotions after they are complete to see what needs to be changed or tweaked.

Chiropractic and Earth Day

A healthy earth has a lot to do with a healthy body. But over the years, we keep pouring chemicals into the atmosphere and earth as well into our bodies.

Chemicals in Our Environment

  • 1972: DDT, an organochlorine pesticide, was banned
  • 1976: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA)
  • 62,000 chemicals were grandfathered in as being safe Two chemicals have been banned.
  1. 1978 Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB)
  2. 1989 Asbestos

“There has been no attempt to ban a toxic chemical since 1989.
“The amount of chemicals produced or imported by the United States in one day would fill up 623,000 tanker trucks with a capacity of 8,000 gallons each.” (taken from Dr. Dan Murphy who quotes: The Body Toxic How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being. By Nena Baker 2008) Not counting the chemicals Americans take in from hormones, pesticides, herbicides, and other poisons in our Fast Food, Super Sized nation, we pound prescription drugs in to our bodies.

American Prescription Drug Use

  • “The average number of prescriptions [drugs] per person, annually, in 1993 was seven.
  • The average number of prescriptions [drugs] per person, annually, in 2000 was eleven.
  • [The average number of prescriptions drugs per person], annually, in 2004 was twelve.

The total number of annual prescriptions [drugs] in the United States now stands at about 3 billion. The cost per year is about $180 billion, headed to and estimated $414 billion by 2011.” (taken from Dr. Dan Murphy who quotes:How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser 2005)

This is actually old data and the average number by 2010 is probably much higher. I have seen patients walk in with pages of 20 “’scripts”, and heard of even as many as 50.

In Our Drinking Water
A vast array of pharmaceutical including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows. in the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm

Our Babies Swim Now In A Soup Of Chemicals.
287 human-made chemicals – most of them hazardous – in the blood of infants .

According to a study released by the Environmental Working Group, a policy research and activist organization, tests measuring the so-called “body burden” of industrial chemicals, conducted on ten random samples of umbilical cord blood, detected 287 chemicals.

The samples, supplied by the American Red Cross, registered 180 chemicals known to cause cancer in adults, 217 that are linked to brain and nervous system damage, and 208 that have been shown to affect fetal or child development in animal tests. For 209 of the contaminants, this was the first time researchers had identified the chemicals in newborn blood. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm

Earth Day is Health Day
Learn more. Read books. Talk to your chiropractor. Eat natural and organic food. Get regular spinal adjusts to support your spine and nervous system. Educate others. You can help your family and friends find relief and better health without the use of toxins by encouraging them to come in for an initial consultation with the doctor to see if chiropractic can help. Chiropractic is 100% organic and always has been. No drugs or toxins. The chiropractic lifestyle supports a healthy spine, nervous system and body.

Chiropractors: Never Work Another Day in Your Life!

Did you know that 73% of chiropractors can make all the money they want without ever working?

This is proven by 83% of studies.

Yes, that’s write. You two can make all the money you want, and even more, without even working.

Honest.  No more talks, letters, or yellow pages or even internets.  You don’t even have to sea patients.

moneyman

With this SECRET system I was able to make lots ‘o bucks.  (Doctre Phulo Vit)

Am I talking to you?  Yes, we are.

I have just discovered 6.3 steps on how to make all the money you want with out hardly working ever and getting all the love you need.   Honest.

Yea. Baby.

So, call us now at 800 APR-FOOL

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Don’t be fooled.   Get the real stuff.   Come to our seminar in Minneapolis and Milwaukee this spring.

See you there.

Happy Easter to you all.

Love,

The PM&A Team

Chiropractor to Chiropractor: Reclaim the Joy of Practice

Being a chiropractor can be a lonely job.

Who knows what it is like to adjust patients late in the afternoon while one patient is going on and on and the next one is dirty from work and smells?  And yet another just called in who has been under care for two weeks and is in pain and wants to be seen right away – who knows what that is like?

Someone who has been there and done that – another doctor.

You aren’t looking for advice, that can wait. You don’t need a lecture.  It would just be good to talk with someone who has been there before and survived, or better, thrived.

Let me introduce Dr. Tom Potisk.  He is not the overbearing charming salesman type of a doctor that you often see in consulting programs.   Actually, not too many doctors are really like that.  In fact, most doctors are very similar to Dr. Tom.

Dr. Tom and Dave, Phyllis and myself have been discussing an additional ingredient to practice success that that we feel doctors need. Simply, another doctor to talk to.  They have us, of course. But we are managers and marketers and practice builders.  That is our specialty.  And we too have been there and done that, since the 1980’s.  But as managers – not as doctors.

We feel doctors need both for practice success: a professional manager to help build a profitable and self sustaining business AND the support and perspective of a professional, experienced chiropractor.

So we are very happy to partner with Dr. Tom Potisk in providing services to our wonderful wonderful clients.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Tom will be giving a number of presentations at our upcoming seminars this year.  One of the classes will be on Doctor to Doctor: Reclaiming the Joy of Practice.  This is his basic theme: how, as a doctor, you can truly enjoy each day doing what you do as a doctor.  His approach is simply – doctor to doctor. Not as a coach, but as a fellow doctor who has been through what you are going through and made it to the other side – very successfully.

Listen to this his first teleclass you – you will find it very motivating and reassuring.

Hope to “see” you there,

Ed

Here is what others have said who have listed to his full presentation:

“Dr. Tom’s program was fantastic! I laughed, I cried, and I went back to my practice with a new, deeper sense of dedication and confidence. All DCs need to hear his message!” – Dr. Donna Stackpool, Lake Geneva WI

“Reclaim the Joy of Practice was an amazing presentation!  Dr. Potisk made the evening fun and enlightening with great tips on how to stay happy and truly enjoy Chiropractic.  I loved the history references with BJ.  It was a great reminder of how generations past fought for Chiropractic and how we need to honor them and the profession AND continue the passion.  Thanks Dr. Potisk for lighting the fire again!” – Tara Gill DC, Delevan WI

“After nearly 40 years of practice, I thought I heard the last of the great, authentic, and sincere chiropractic programs years ago; then along comes Dr. Tom Potisk with his Reclaim the Joy of Practice presentation. He brought me right back to what I remembered as the good-ole-days with an adjustment between my ears. High pi Dr. Tom !”  – Jerry Zelm DC, Oconomowoc WI

And you can read more about Dr. Tom Potisk here.

New Health Care Legislation and Chiropractic

Late last night the House of Representatives passed a major bill affecting health insurance.

According to a press release by the American Chiropractic Association, “This means that the provisions contained in HR 3590 now only await President Obama’s signature to be enacted into law. These provisions include an important provider non-discrimination provision long championed by the American Chiropractic Association (ACA).

Incorporation of this provider non-discrimination provision, also known as the “Harkin Amendment,” was achieved primarily due to the efforts of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), with help from other key players such as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut). Although he did not support the final bill overall, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) also lent his support for the advancement of the non-discrimination provision.”

A key feature of the bill which will benefit chiropractic patients is the subject of ERISA.  According to the ACA press release:

We now have a federal law applicable to ERISA plans that makes it against the law for insurance companies to discriminate against doctors of chiropractic and other providers relative to their participation and coverage in health plans.

Read more here.

More Videos and Photos from PM&A’s Adventure to the Chiropractic California Jam 2010

Dr. Tom Potisk gives a succinct and complete accounting and review of our travels to, and as it turned out, through Southern California. (see earlier post)

Here are some various videos and photos if you want more, though rough and candid, reporting. (Some videos may need the volume turned up.)

Walking to Cal Jam

Opening – Don’t Back Down – Chiropractor

Some photos

Cal Jam 2010 Chiropractic, Petty Michel - Associates

Clips from various talk. May have to turn up volume.

Dr. Brian Porteous – a clip from his talk on the hyperstension study. LINK

Dr. Dan Murphy – talks about recent research on toxic chemicals and how they affect nervous system and adjusting – (9 min) LINK

Dr. Dan Murphy – talks about cervical spine, referencing the hypertension study. LINK (5 min)

Dr. Dan Murphy – refers to book by M.D. references Innate. LINK

Dr. Fabrizio Mancini – applying chiropractic is not complicated. (2 min)   LINK