“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people…
…than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
~Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
For a printable copy of this tent poster visit: Making Friends
I am standing on a beach by the partially ice-covered Lake Michigan, sometimes referred to as part of the “Third Coast.” It is a good day!
Once a year I send out a promotion for the wildest and most unique chiropractic seminar I have seen in 30 years.
“Out-of-the-box” is a cliché that doesn’t really do Cal Jam justice. Like extreme sports, Cal Jam pushes the boundaries of what is customary and conventional.
But isn’t that chiropractic? Isn’t that you?
Chiropractic is unique (and wild) because it has purpose and soul.
Purpose and Soul, plus plenty of… Rock and Roll.
At Cal Jam!
Hope to see you there!
Date: March 18-20, 2016
Link to site: California Jam: www.CaliforniaJam.com
Remember when your child, or a kid you knew, constantly asked you “why?”
“Time to go to bed honey.” “But why, Mommy?” “Dad, why is the grass green? ”
This happens for a few years until the child finally learns that it is just so much trouble to keep asking the “why” question.
This happens to us all. After a while, we all just become inured to the day to day demands and take for granted our eventual roles of working in a world of work that has little other reason than to pay our bills. And we begin to live just for the weekends.
But living for the weekend is not much of a motivation to do good work, to perform our duties with excellence that inspire trust in others, and to be happy with it.
Our jobs should have a reason beyond money or relief from work. What we do for money should have a higher purpose than money. It should satisfy us and motivate us in and of itself.
After many years of research, Stephen Covey determined that those people and companies that were the most effective followed the habit of: “Begin with the End in Mind.” In other words, start with a goal in mind. He emphasized the value of developing and living by a personal mission statement as well as one for your business, and even your family.
Some of the better offices that I have had the privilege of working with would often end their team meetings by reciting their group’s mission statement.
While this helps, it can also become rote so that the real meaning of the mission becomes dull. One way to remedy this is to now and then ask “Why?” Simply ask each team member to describe, in their own words, why this is, or should be, the mission statement.
We are all looking for greater meaning in our lives – or at least have at one time or another. “What does all that I do account for?” “What do I account for?” “What will be my legacy after I am gone?”
This applies in leadership as the CEO of your chiropractic business.
The primary responsibility of a leader in a purpose-based organization is to build, nurture, and sustain the core purpose of the organization. (“It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For.” Roy M. Sence, Jr.)
But leadership is also marketing. You are putting your noble ideas out into the world to give others a clear vision of what is possible and why it is important. You stand out as different – because you are stating WHY you are making a difference.
A few years ago, I posted a T.E.D. talk on our website (www.pmaworks.com) that focused on how “WHY” was so important in leadership. (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.) The key differential between the very successful companies and leaders was not what their company provided, or how they provided it. The key difference was that they communicated why they did what they did. (The link to this talk by Simon Sinek is below.)
Much of corporate medicine has devolved into a goalless and soulless technology and bureaucracy. The relationship between the patient and the MD has become interrupted by critical paths and reimbursement protocols, techs, testing, and terms (codes and abbreviations), and lots of notes. Yet, the stats for America’s health care relative to other industrialized countries worldwide are poor.
Be nice and genuinely interested in patients and talk about WHY you want to help them AND their family, and do so, and you can’t help but win.
Let prospective patients know WHY you are a chiropractor, why you chose their community, and why you do what you do. Let them know why you adjust children, seniors, teen athletes, and “Los Pobres.” Communicate this to your existing patients as well. In fact, any promotion you do will work better if you tie in to WHY you are promoting.
For example, take the donation campaign called “Coats for Kids. “ It has all but lost its meaning over the years with every TV and radio station jumping onto some kind of faux goodwill activity. Promoting what it is about and how it will benefit kids as well as patients will help make it successful. But to make your promotion much more successful, explain that the reason you are participating in this campaign is that you have worked in homeless shelters and seen shivering and poorly clothed kids. This is “why.”
Attached is an article on “Why We Promote.” It is a sample letter you can mail to your patients after their first progress exam, or simply have it as a handout. You can also use its theme to end a new patient class. Feel free to embellish it or change it. (Active clients can get a customizable Word doc here. http://pmamembers.com/?p=874)
Personally, take time to remind yourself about the WHY for what you do. Study resources that support this “why.” What is the mission of your office and why is that the mission? Remind your team about this “why.” Training new staff on this is particularly important. Go over the “why” for the office, as well as the “why” for their particular role.
So the next time your child, or any child asks you “why?” take your time to answer. And as they get older, you can start asking them “why?” (Get even!) But the world unfolds and reduces to its raw and basic truths when you do – and this in turn allows passion and purpose a clearer channel to help you achieve your goals.
Golden Circle a TED talk by Simon Sinek. http://pmaworks.com/observations/2011/02/10/leadership-in-chiropractic-the-golden-circle/
Sample Letter to pts-Why we promote.
[This article is from the upcoming book: “The Third Goal: A New Practice and Business Building Methodology That Is Simpler, Faster, and More Fun than What You Are Doing Now.) by Edward Petty, due to be published in late 2015. © 2015]
Was Darwin wrong? Let’s find out.
BUT FIRST CONSIDER THIS WARNING:
You and your staff may have an uninspected cultural bias that is toxic to you and your office and is negatively affecting your best efforts. This could be happening right now as you read this!
How could this be?
Well, ingrained in our culture is the idea that to survive, we must compete and overcome others. It is a win-lose world: either I win and you lose, or you win and I lose.
This idea had much support with the work of Charles Darwin. Darwin’s perspective of evolution included the concept of survival of the fittest with a sort of “dog eat dog” theme.
However, recent studies suggest this is not entirely the case.
“When biologists look closely at nature they cannot help but notice cooperative partnerships that do not comfortably fit with the competitive struggle that is central to Darwinanin evolution.” (Darwin’s Blind Spot: Evolution Beyond Natural Selection, Frank Ryan)
This theory of cooperation in evolution was actually put forth 50 years before Darwin, by a Frenchman by the name of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarack (1744 – 1829), who established evolution as a scientific fact.
According to Bruce Lipton, “Not only did Lamarck present his theory fifty years before Darwin, he offered a much less harsh theory of the mechanisms of evolution. Lamarck’s theory suggested that evolution was based upon an “instructive,” cooperative interaction among organisms and their environment that enables life forms to survive and evolve in a dynamic world. (Biology of Belief, page 11)
But Lamarck’s ideas, which also included what is now called epigenetics, were cast aside and rejected until recently. So, instead of seeing that organisms in nature evolve symbiotically and cooperatively, Darwin saw that: “living organisms are perpetually embroiled in a struggle for existence. For Darwin, struggle and violence are not only a part of animal (human) nature but the principal “forces” behind evolution advancement. Darwin wrote of an inevitable “struggle for life” and that evolution was driven by “the war of nature, from famine and death.” (Bruce Lipton, PhD, Biology of Belief) [my emphasis]
The idea of “survival of the fittest”, obviously, is not very cooperative. In an office, it can create brooding jealously, competitive back stabbing, fear and defensiveness, and make us objectify our patients as “cases” and statistics. It can create at a division between us and our patients — between each other.
I got to thinking about all of this as another Valentine’s Day approached. As it turns out, Valentine’s Day is observed all around the world and has been around for hundreds of years, even as early as 300 AD. And, it wasn’t always about romantic love. One legend has it that:
“… in order “to remind these men of their vows and God’s love, Saint Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment”, giving them to these soldiers and persecuted Christians, a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on St. Valentine’s Day.” (From Wikipedia)
The Greeks had 4 different types of love:
Valentine’s Day is about love. Romantic love, sure but also about charity, generosity, compassion, caring – all kinds of love. And this takes us back to the notion that love, or a type of love, has been the basis for survival of all species on this planet – including mankind. Survival of life forms requires mutual support on some level – survival is cooperative and caring.
In many offices I have noticed a degree of an adversarial undercurrent. You can almost feel a sub-sub culture of “dog eat dog.” You have experienced this, I am sure. For example, if the mood is wrong, the phones don’t ring. Right? When there is a high degree of compassion and care and good will for each other and for the patients, the phones start ringing.
To some degree , Darwin’s “war of nature” may be embedded in the culture of your office. Darwin was right about many things, but life evolved through cooperation and caring – not through war.
Look: Your patients want to survive better. Just find out what their goals are and help them get there. They will need some education and coaching, sure – you have had thousands of hours of what they are just now hearing. But care for them and do your very best to help them get to their health goals.
Your doctor wants to practice and live better – find out what she wants and help her get there. You may have to ask lots of questions and train and read and struggle at it for a while, but keep at it and you can make a big difference. In turn, this will help your patients do better – and of course, you do better as well.
And doctor, your team members want to do better and also have better lives – find out how you can help them do so – and do so.
As I mature, I truly see that this planet is getting smaller and that we are all in this adventure together, for better or worse. Hopefully, for the better. But there are no guarantees. If we are to get it better, it all comes down to what we can do here and now to help each other MORE than we have been.
The world can be a struggle, but we all have evolved because of cooperation, caring for each other, and love. If we continue to do so, we can continue to evolve in our practice’s and business, and in our lives.
And have no doubt, Petty, Michel and Associates are in the mix as well. We love your patients, team members and you, and want to do all we can to help you survive and thrive.
Here are our best wishes to you that everyday – is Saint Valentine’s Day!
# # #
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (From the New Testament, Corinthians 13:4-8, “love” is elsewhere replaced by the word “charity.”)
[If you think that you could make more money selling pharmaceuticals, injecting patients with vaccines and promoting flu shots in front of your office, these recommendations are not for you. For those matters, you might want to ask Palmer Chiropractic College or the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association for their opinions.]
What strategic moves should you be taking now to make sure that you have a better year in 2015 and in years to come?
After reviewing current literature and statistics, and based upon my observations and experience, I have put together a report which makes a number of recommendations that can be helpful to you. I have also included an extensive list of references for your further study.
The report contains a lot of information and so it is only for the serious practice executive. It will be a useful resource for you to refer to while you implement some of the suggestions I offer. Reading time is about 15 minutes. It offers new views on practice marketing, management, and leadership, with 25 specific recommendations. To go straight to the main course, go here:
Here is a shorter version:
1. Know Your Environment. The Medical-Pharmaceutical industries are spending more to dominate the market place. Their efforts are becoming more pervasive in reach and more covert in manipulation. At the same time, wellness statistics continue to grow. More people are turning to organic foods and are focused on wellness.
2. Marketing Positioning. My recommendation is to embrace the popular movement towards natural health and own it. Be its champion. You are the Healthy Life Doctors. This is your niche.
3. Unique Selling Proposition. Stay committed to your core services, but articulate your Unique Selling Proposition to your specific market niche(s). Not everyone is your patient. Select certain markets that are already reaching for your type of services: people fed up with drugs, baby boomers who want to stay healthy, mothers who want to avoid drugs for their children, athletes, employers who want healthy employees, etc.
4. Get More For Less. Watch your economics but don’t get stuck in a scarcity mindset. Central to economics is a return on investment -ROI. Invest in yourself and especially in making your support team expert professionals. Learn and apply the Pareto Principle (how 80 percent of your results come from just 20% of your efforts).
5. Insurance or Cash? Yes! Take insurance but don’t kowtow to the Insurance Cartel. There are millions of people who want help and can pay for it and are just looking for a solution. You have to let them know that you have their solution.
6. Shift from Personality Driven Practice to Team Driven Business. The successful offices of the future will be team driven and systematized. Each team member has to be an expert as a specialist, as a team member, and as a marketer. And each should try to achieve this as well. The doctor will delegate most marketing and administrative details to others.
7. Shift from Solo Practice to Group Practice. For those of you who are ready, you should join forces with other doctors in a group practice. This has not had a lot of success in the chiropractic profession as it has in other professions, but the time is right now to band together synergistically as brothers and sisters. There are many good reasons to do this now. However, it has to be set up — and maintained — correctly.
8. New Role: CEO and Leader. Why do CEO’s get paid so much? Because they can make such a positive difference in the business. Up to now in your career you have taken on administrative and marketing projects mostly from the role of doctor, or perhaps owner. The CEO role probably has not been emphasized. Shifting to the role of CEO changes everything. Growing a business becomes easier, you have more time available, and you make more money.
9. Seek Out and Integrate Your Greater Purposes with Your Business. The power for your office, and you, comes from those things that mean the most. This would include your family and your spiritual pursuits. But our world is smaller and we live in a networked economy and culture. Your office, in its own right, has to be a leader in your community and environment and contribute in some way beyond its walls. This also includes having a voice in your professional organization. Your greater purposes also include your personal hobbies. Since you are not working on an assembly line, many of these purposes should be integrated into your work.
10. Get an Executive Coach. Why does corporate America spend over a billion dollars on executive coaching? Because the return of investment proves to be at least 7 times, and in some cases, 10-49 times cost. Executive coaching doesn’t cost – it pays.
An executive coach is different from a clinical coach. An executive coach will help you be a better CEO – a better leader, marketer and manager who builds a team driven business which allows you to delegate most non clinical duties. He or she will help you sort out what tasks will produce the greatest positive effects for your business, and help you get those tasks done. He or she will be your partner, counselor, confident, coach, teacher, drill instructor, and friend.
The future has never looked brighter, but the challenges are not slight. This makes your success all the more important – and sweeter.
Ed Petty
Ever see a one of those Swiss Army Knives?
I have one. It shows up now and then in one of my drawers. I always forget how many applications it has and I am always surprised when I keep pulling out more.
Well, there is a particular practice building tool that works like a Swiss Army Knife for your office.
It is inexpensive, almost free, yet this one tool serves many purposes more effectively than most anything else you can do in your office.
You could call it the Swiss Army Knife of Practice Development.
Once you, and your team, and especially your patients watch Bought, you will understand the power of the Swiss Army Knife of Practice Development.
This one tool can be your most effective marketing procedure. It can be your best therapeutic modality or ancillary service. It can also serve as your best tool to boost team productivity.
But like with my Swiss Army Knife, it can easily get taken for granted and NOT USED.
I can guarantee that IF you energetically use the Swiss Army Knife of Practice Development, your patients will stay with you longer, they will get healthier, your team will be more productive, you will generate more patients, and, yes, you’ll see your collections increase.
What is the Swiss Army Knife of Practice Development?
Education.
Education brings about an increase of awareness and results in a motivation to make a change. It does this for your patients in terms of improving their health, in motivating them to get others to use your services, and in helping to make your team even more purposeful.
You know chiropractic and what it does for people. Each day, miracles occur. It gets almost routine. You know how chiropractic works and you know why it works. Your patients do not. And most of your staff only have a general, and perhaps forgotten understanding.
By educating your patients you are fortifying them with knowledge that makes them aware of the power of your services and the importance of continuing care. It counteracts the propaganda they receive in the form of hundreds of ad impressions we all receive each day for drugs and bad food. It increases their awareness and will motivate them to not only continue with their care, but to benefit more from it.
This will, in turn, encourage them to bring in their family and friends to see you. They may even encourage you to speak to their work place or organizations.
Education can motivate your staff. I have seen numbers go up 25% quickly once the rest of the team was educated more on chiropractic and natural health care.
Lastly, education motivates you.
Education is your least expensive modality or ancillary service, it is the most cost effective marketing tool you have, and costs nothing to educate your staff.
Here are some sample actions to take to improve your educational activities.
There are many ways to educate yourself, your team, and your patients. Done right, education turns into enlightenment and this will produce a greater return than many other activities you do.
Like a Swiss Army knife, health education serves many purposes. But also like a Swiss Army knife, it has to be kept out, used, not hidden away in the back of a drawer or on a bookcase.
As we move from the summer months into fall, I thought that it might be helpful to preview some marketing ideas for the rest of the year.
Below is a link to several articles on our web site referencing marketing procedures and programs for the autumn and the early winter months.
Marketing is basically physics: for energy to come in, energy has to go out.
Ideally the energy is well directed and of a high quality, but mainly, it has to get out. Quantity first, then gradually, improve the quality.
But everything is done twice: first in your mind and then in the world. First comes the meta-physics, then comes the physics
This is why the most important and first step starts with you – your faith, confidence, and belief in what you are doing and especially, why you are doing it.
Organizational system failures or personal situations can often get in the way that distract us and cause us to lose sight of our purpose or of the great results we have achieved for others in the past.
And, there will always be the negative few that seem to outweigh the positive many.
Sometimes we focus on the “barking dogs” that come out to chase us for a while rather than concentrating on the fire we are racing towards to put out.
Marketing is about communication. It is an “outflow” that sooner or later, directly or indirectly, generates an “inflow.” It is your creative voice that is either filled with mission and purpose, or is forced and desperate. Stymied by failures or disappointments, our “voice” can recede to a whimper or a mumble.
But the fear that can grip us is mostly an invention because too often, we take things too seriously.
The fact is, as Ben and Rosa Zander point out in their book, The Art of Possibility, most of life is just “invented.” I listened to Ben Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, give an inspirational presentation at the chiropractic seminar called the WAVE in San Francisco in August.
He advised that when we slip and make a mistake, we should just throw out our arms, lean back slightly and exuberantly and say: “Fascinating.” We just can’t take things too seriously and instead we should move on passionately expressing ourselves. Not bad advice from a maestro whose goal is to get musicians to play better.
You could also go out to a field or park and just yell: “I am the greatest and the world loves me and wants to come to my office.”
Don’t be surprised if the universe cooperates.
Marketing your services, like helping people get better, should be enjoyable. It should be fun. You should be smiling and laughing.
And you know, as the song goes:
♪ When you’re smiling, ♫When you’re smiling,♪
♫The whole world smiles with you,♫
♫When you’re laughing, ♫When you’re laughing,♪
♪The sun comes shining through,♫
♫Wishing you plenty of smiles and all the best,♪
Ed
Click Link for more Marketing Articles
Here is a great rendition of the song by Frank Sinatra
Follow these links to some useful articles on what to do this fall to generate more new patients and increase your volume.
Chiropractic Marketing Ideas for Fall Promotions.
General Marketing Procedures and Ideas for Fall Marketing during October, November and December
Chiropractic Never Takes a Holiday.
Health doesn’t take a holiday, your appointment book doesn’t have to either. Pointers on how to keep your patients on their care plan during the hustle and bustle of the fast approaching holiday season
Fall Marketing Ideas.
An outline of more Fall marketing ideas.
Heat up Winter With Chiropractic Health Promotions
Get a jump start on 2015 with putting good Healthy Promotions for the New Year in place early.
Chiropractic Holiday Marketing Tips
This article covers effective marketing procedures, internal marketing, community talks, recurring events.
Fall Chiropractic Marketing
Internal promotions and External Community Events
Spinal Health Awareness Week
October is National Spinal Health Month. This article covers ideas to get the word out.
Sample Poster for Spinal Health Awareness (PDF)
Promoting Kid’s Health
Save your children the hassle of living with the same spinal problems you suffer from. This article provides suggestions to bring about awareness to Kid’s and Chiropractic
Special Event Health Care for Kids
Detailed outline of how to hold a Kid’s Day or Kid’s Week.
Newsletters
The importance of doing an office newsletter and how to get the job done.
I want to pass on some tips and ideas about chiropractic marketing and so the title above may seem a little misleading. It is a taken from a classic movie, a romance actually. I will get to that in a moment.
To start off with, I have pulled out some promotional ideas from our chiropractic Marketing Toolkit on our Petty, Michel and Associates Members Site and in the Chiropractic Marketing Manager System program that you might want to use for this month, November, or December. You can find them here on our web site.
There are many variations of each, and thousands of different promotions, but those listed have worked and at least can help prompt you and your team to come up with your own customized programs.
I wanted to send these out and draw your attention to the importance of marketing because you may have been distracted lately. I know I have. There has been a great deal of noise over the last several months, some of it frantic, about new HIPAA regulations (watch out for the HIPAA Police!), ICD 10, PQRS and other Medicare measures, and now the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). And now we also have the government gridlock and debt and so on and so on.
The environment in which we do business is always changing. And the rate of change is increasing. It is like a sea that sometimes has big waves and sometimes little waves. At times it storms and at other times there is a dead calm. And we are the sailors and we have our ships and come what may, we sail our vessels and deliver our goods.
But the fundamentals of our businesses do not change. And marketing is a basic fundamental of business. In fact, it IS business.
As a doctor, your focus is on patient care, on quality clinical procedures and outcomes. And, as a doctor, it should be.
But your other role is “business person,” and business is all about the market place. Like the summer Farmer’s Market, it is where you put something of value on display that others want.
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management theory, looked at marketing as the entire purpose of an organization. In his book, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (811 pages!), he says:
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two basic functions — marketing and innovation. All the rest are costs. Marketing is the unique distinguishing function of business.
He goes on to say:
Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function (i.e., a separate skill or work) within the business, on par with others such as manufacturing or personnel. Marketing requires separate work, and a distinct group of activities. But it is, first, a central dimension of the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must, therefore, permeate all areas of the enterprise. (Page 63)
In other words, your entire office is the marketing department.
The top 3 reasons your marketing does not work adequately are:
There are other reasons, of course, but these are the top three and formed the basis of our Marketing Manager System, developed in 2001.
You know all this, but it helps to be reminded now and then.
And I am reminded of the theme song in the movie, “Casablanca.” The movie stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and is a classic romance from 1942. You may wonder what a romantic movie has to do with business and marketing, but who says that business and marketing can’t also be romantic? (I have been accused of being unromantic before, but perhaps I have just been misunderstood!) Shouldn’t you be in love with the work you do in chiropractic? Shouldn’t you love your patients and be passionate about the story your office has to tell?
With apologies to Herman Hupfeld, the composer of “As Time Goes By”:
You must remember this
Promotions must not be missed
On you they do rely
The fundamentals things apply
As time goes by
It’s still the same old story
A fight for market share and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome your loving care
As time goes by.
Here are a few ideas for promoting your chiropractic services during the end of the year. There are many more, of course, but these can get you and your team thinking of what you might like to do over the next several months. (For a PDF version of this article. REVISED AND UPDATED- 9/2014)
Schedule the special promotions first – the big events. Get these on a large Marketing Calendar and plan them out. Promote them before the event. Ideally, you should promote the event four weeks before it occurs, but people often forget and make spur of the moment decisions. Therefore, promoting even a week before the event has worked.
You can find customizable posters and detailed information on how to do many of these projects on your chiropractic Marketing Manager System Toolkit and on your PM&A Member’s site. Depending on the level of your program, we can also put together simple posters to help promote your particular project.
Then, look at the more basic marketing procedures, those that are recurring. These should be on a list which you review every few months.
You can also sprinkle in some minor but fun promotions, such as having a Crazee Dayz.
General Marketing
Crazee Dayz
Select a day and make it special for your patients. Only one day a week is necessary otherwise it’s not special. It can be once per month or every week. Serve extra treats. You can have the staff dress out of uniform coordinated to the day. These can add some extra fun to the office and help with retention and long term referrals.
OCTOBER
October is National Spinal Health Month (Now called National Chiropractic Health Month) This can give a you a reason to do many different promotions. (Read about it at the American Chiropractic Association web site here.)
Chiropractic Opportunity Week (“The doctor is having a COW.”) (patient referrals and advertising new patients)
Hair Dresser/Beauty Salons/Spas (new patients and business referrals)
Local Health Fairs (new patients and business referrals)
Kids and Halloween Party (patient retention and referrals)
With Casper as inspiration, a kid’s Halloween party with a friendly ghost theme has the right mix of tricks and treats. Invite the young ghouls to come dressed up, but you can also have them make ghastly masks as part of the fun. Other ideas include spooky decorations, scary snacks and a friendly ghost hunt. Free spinal and scoliosis checks for all guests.
NOVEMBER
Thanksgiving Turkey Drawing Poster(patient referrals)
Donation Drives (patient referrals, advertising new patients)
Holiday time always brings an increased demand for helping those less fortunate. Within your office set up a collection area for any of the following programs and promote it in your newsletter.
$25 in exchange for first day services.
Deer Widows Week (patient referrals)
During hunting season or first week of December offer complimentary massage for your patients who refer in a new patient.
Girl’s Night Out (screenings)
Christmas shopping/gift exchange
Enlist the help of massage therapist, local spas and direct marketing consultants, Tupperware distributors, etc. Everyone has to bring at least 3 guests. Buy presents from each other rather than at the mall. In November or first week of December.
Or
Movie & Margarita (bring a guest for a movie screening and a spinal screening)
Sample movies: The Love Letter, Steel Magnolias, Little Women. Fried Green Tomatoes When Harry Met Sally, anything with Brad Pitt.
DECEMBER
Holiday Coupons – Gifts Certificates(patient referrals)
Poinsettia Give Away (patient retention)
Give away free poinsettias, one per family. Include in the cards a gift certificate for family members or friends. (see Member’s site for gift card)
Saturday with Santa(patient referrals)
Set up Santa in your reception room cornerAppreciation to External Referral Sources.
Deliver a fruit basket or other present personally during December with a card of thanks and mention how you are looking forward to another year working together. This would go to any location where you had an external community services type of event, such as a screening or workshop. Include: “Looking forward to working with you next year.”
As a marketing tip, be creative.
More than ever, genuine creativity stands out and is necessary as your community gets more and more bombarded with ever increasing amounts of data, connections and general “noise.”
But the fact is, aside from marketing, no matter what role you may have in your office, you are an artist. You are not working on an assembly line.
Each day you create many things that were not there before.
Although you follow routine procedures as a chiropractor or team member, you are not a robot. You add your special ingredients to each outcome you help bring about.
Each day — today in fact — you will create many useful outcomes for people. Depending on your role in the office, it could be adjusted patients, collected receivables, or scheduled patients.
Think of the outcomes you bring about as works of art. They are your creations. They are unique.
Two Outcomes
There are two basic outcomes that you create. Your first outcome is obvious — it is defined by your role in the office: adjusted patients, collected receivables, scheduled patients that keep their appointments.
The other outcome that you may not spend much time on — none of us do — is working ON ourselves and ON our office. The second outcome is producing that which is producing your outcomes.
A farmer can’t have apples without an orchard. A football team can’t win unless it has the right players in the right positions. A runner can’t win races unless she works on her form and trains.
It’s the oldest story in the book: the goose that laid the golden eggs. You need a golden goose to get your golden eggs. If you “cook your goose,” or at least don’t take care of it, you won’t have golden eggs.
Taking care of your goose that lays the golden eggs is your second outcome you need to work on each week.
Takes Time and Continuous Improvement
If the road to your goals seems too long or the travel too tough, keep in mind that it takes time to grow an orchard or to build a winning team. (This is also covered in #6 of Stephenson’s 33 Principles of Chiropractic.)
And it takes a continuous process of improvement working ON your job skills and ON the development of your team and team functions. If you are a professional musician, you spend time playing music in the orchestra. But you also spend time improving your own music and helping to improve the music of the orchestra.
All artists make mistakes. That is how you and your team learn. It is part of the improvement process.
But it is art. You are creating something that wasn’t there before.
There is a thrill to be had at the end of each day if you demonstrated the best of your craft – and your team did as well.
In our networked economy, authenticity is more valuable than ever before and is what distinguishes you from all the rest.
Just keep in mind that you have two outcomes, it takes time and requires a process of continuous improvement. Then, enjoy creatively making each day your new work of art
THE PROMOTIONAL RIVER
I sometimes receive emails and calls from chiropractors requesting a quick fix for their lack of new patients. I often wonder if they ever got the idea of symptomatic care versus corrective and wellness care.
Effective marketing requires more than just a killer advertisement or long copy reactivation letter or a spinal screening. It has been said that good marketing doesn’t depend on one promotion to get 50 new patients, but rather 50 promotions each generating one new patient.
Generating a high volume of new patients in your chiropractic office requires multiple channels of communication. Consider how a river grows – through lots of tributaries. The Mississippi starts out like a creek, but then other creeks run into it and it grows and grows.
We call this the promotional mix – the blend of different approaches you use to communicate the benefits of your services.
On the following page, we have listed just a few important categories of effective promotions for your office. Of course, there are others, but we have found that these work well and can act as a good foundation.
FOUNDATIONS OF PROMOTION
Effective promotion starts with individual and team motivation. It then should be entwined with all of your basic routines each day, from the way the phone is answered to the consultation and patient examination.
Beyond this, you can schedule specific health topics months in advance and offer them as workshops or “Awareness Weeks” where you provide a free screening exam and info.
Occasional special promotions should be scheduled, such as “Kid’s Day”, and community services should also be scheduled, such as screenings, relationship building with external referrals sources, and workshops.
Your presence on the Internet has to be constantly added to.
These are some of the main categories of your promotions, though advertising and public relations events can also occur now and then.
(larger image) KEY PROMOTIONS
1. Motivation. You and your team’s desire to promote the benefits of your services create the energy to make your marketing work. Constantly nurture this. Start with WHY?
2. Basic Service and Chiropractic Care Procedures. This is your foundation. Marketing is embedded in the heart of all the basic duties you do every day. You should constantly review and try to improve on the marketing aspect of your procedures. Be ever more cheerful, more genuine, more caring, and giving of extra-ordinary care and service. Have “Present Time Consciousness.” It is helpful to have a checklist of these procedures to review. Little things can slip aside and go unnoticed and a checklist helps flush everything out for inspection. Work on a procedure or two every month so that you are constantly improving.
3. Special Promotions. These are promotional events that can be internal, external, or both. For example, flowers to women on Mother’s Day, a Kid’s Day, Community Appreciation Day, Anniversary Day, etc. They can be tied in with holidays, community days, parades, donation drives, etc. Most have an offer for a free service, but not all. These are IN ADDITION to the monthly education themes. Schedule these every other month or so. Promote these on the Internet and in newsletters.
4. Community Education Program (Monthly Health Themes) We have found that this program gradually builds momentum and if managed well, brings in more patient referrals, external new patients, and returning patients directly and indirectly. Here are some steps to make it successful.
a. Select monthly themes around a condition or healthful topic. Can include headaches, kid’s health, motherhood, nutrition, cooking class, exercise, golf clinic, etc.
b. Schedule a workshop time or “Awareness Week” (free screening exam last week of the month) at the end of each month.
c. Customize a poster. Samples on our Members site or make up your own.
d. Do a YouTube video on the subject the month before. Post on Facebook, web site, YouTube channel and embed in your email
e. Send out an email notice promoting the event, with a link to the video Health Tip, testimonial, etc.
f. Send a hard copy newsletter with testimonials mailed to some of your patient files now and then (3 months) and all files every 6 months.
g. Posters distributed locally and as statement stuffers.
h. Press releases can be sent to local papers/electronic calendars.
i. Ads are an option.
5. Community Services. These are scheduled each month and include screenings, workshops and external referrals source development (MDs, businesses, DDS, auto body shops, etc.)
6. Keep The Conversation Going: Internet And Newsletter. Update your Internet presence and post new info regularly. Set a goal of how many hours it gets worked on each month, eg. 1 hr a week. You could also use a checklist (we have one on our PM&A Members site). This would include Facebook postings, YouTube, directory sites (Yelp, Healthgrades.com. etc.), and search engines (Google, Bing, etc.). And, of course, your website/blog. Add patient testimonials, photos, and health tips. Keep posting – but keep most of the info local and “newsy,” just short of gossipy. Also, send out electronic and hard copy newsletters with similar newsy content and notices for upcoming promotions, talks.
7. Public Relations and Advertising. Radio ads and print ads promoting specials events can be helpful now and then. Public relations such as press releases and donation drives can add long term good will and should be done a few times a year
3 Month Marketing Planner [Link]
At the beginning of each month you want to see that your team sets new TEAM GOALS. You can also set individual goals privately at a different time, but TEAM goals are most immediate and important.
Each goal setting session always begins with a REVIEW of the past month. This gives the opportunity for the group (or individual in individual goal setting) to explain how they did and how they did it. And it gives you the opportunity to listen and then give some feedback. The feedback could be praise, or otherwise.
After the review, set the goals. Group goals should be simple, usually just Office Visits and New Patients, though Collections can also be included. IMPORTANT: Let the group set the goals. You should negotiate the goals, but it has to be theirs. Once these goals are set, ask the group (or individual) how they/we plan to achieve these goals? Get at least 3 action steps.
The last goal should include a “greater purpose” goal or two. This could be a party at your house next Thursday night, Betty, the Front Desk Coordinator will give a book report on one of the books in the Lending Library at next month’s Team Goal Setting meeting, and a check to see who is going to volunteer for working at the food bank next Saturday evening.
Why? You should also spend some time discussing why you have these goals. This takes you back to your MISSION. Numbers for numbers sake is a soulless and goalless pursuit.
In sum:
For more information on how this procedure is done, refer to the webinar called the Fast Flow CEO.
This is a list of our practice development recorded webinars.
Each is a recording of a slide show driven lecture, each filled with an abundance of practice information derived from in the field work – and plenty of slides!
Currently, you have to be active on a PM&A program. By this summer, these will be available on and individual basis for a small fee.
Creating your Dream Team Summary and VideoA virtual “live” interview with the doctor and staff of a true chiropractic dream team. Find out what they do to achieve high numbers, profit, and fun.
The Fast Flow Practice CEO -55 minutes webinar video and summary.
One of the biggest challenges in running and growing your business is the time it takes you away from seeing patients and from your family. We have solved this with what we call the Fast Flow Practice CEO System. A new system derived from old principles.
Management by the Numbers: 44 minutes – Summary and Video
Management is a subject that has techniques to help you go from where you are to where you want to be. Management By the Numbers (MBN) can be faster and more accurate than other forms of management, and help build staff morale and make it more self directed.
Capacity Constraints : 33 minutes – Summary and Video
Do you work hard but you just don’t get as far as you should? The reason may be that you are running into unseen bottlenecks that are choking off your production and suffocating your growth. This is the subject of Capacity Constraints.
How to Be an Effective Practice CEO Video
If you are struggling with the ups and downs of a stressful practice, or have finally “settled” into a comfort zone producing much lower than you know you are capable of, this program is for you.
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Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Roles and Goals Summary, Video and Study Guide
What Are The Key Roles In Your Office? A hidden barrier in many offices has to do with confusing roles and job duties. Clear these up and see how much smoother patients and paper flow, and happier the team becomes. Small office or big health business, clarify these 8 roles and the numbers will go up.
Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Job and Performance Reviews Video
Employee reviews are often neglected, or are dreaded by employee and doctor. This webinar covers the basic steps to make them effective and positive for both doctor and employee. Approx 37 minutes.
Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Motivating Your Staff – Video Ms. Phyllis Frase shares 5 secrets to keeping yourself and your staff motivated.
Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Team Meetings Summary, Video and Study Guide. This is an overview of 8 essential actions to help you improve your meetings and make them faster, more fun, and more effective. Plus, different types of short meetings that your team can grow.
Chiropractic Manager Webinar – The Office Manager Job Description Summary, Video and Study Guide. This class covers 17 essential duties of the office manager. Both the doctor and the office manager should watch and discuss these duties.
Chiropractic Manager Webinar- How to Best to Train Your Staff Summary, Video and Study Guide This webinar covers eight tips to improve the performance of your team. Training plays a big part in team building.
Chiropractic Manager Webinar– How to Hire the Right Team Member Summary, Video and Study Guide.
This webinar covers eight priniciples for hiring the right team member from knowing when to hire, who to hire and how to hire.
Office Manager Webinar – It’s All About the Patient, the Doctor and the MISSION [Summary, Video and Study Guide]
There are procedures to help the patients and procedures that help the doctor help the patient and then there is Everything Else. Tips on how to deal with Everything Else. (30 minutes)
Office Manager Webinar- Part II – Tips and Tricks to make the office more efficient[Summary, Video]
Part II reveals tips and tricks of what an office manager can actually do in the office on a day to day basis to make things run smoother and significantly improve the volume and quality of services. (55 minutes)
Office Manager Webinar- Part I – Fundamentals of Practice Management [Summary, Video]
Part I covers the fundamentals of Practice Management (55 minutes)
Innate Marketing (55 minutes) – Webinar plus Summary.
There are stories that float around every now and then about how some offices can simply “think” “New Patients” and they come in.
Are these stories an urban legend? A myth, or a fact? Can staff or doctors “concept” new patients in the door. Is this true? If so, how can you do this? 10 steps to help you generate more patient visits through “concepting.”
Chiropractic Special Promotions (55 minutes) – Webinar plus Summary.
This webinar covers different promotions by month. You will learn 2-4 different practical promotions for each month of the year. More importantly, you will learn how to organize them so that they are time effective and productive.
Patient Retention – Summary and Video
If you understand the underlying basics of patient retention your appointment book should always be full. Covered in this webinar is: Patient retention should be based on Principles – not gimmicks. Where are we you taking your patients? Why they quit? The cost of not getting them there.
Chiropractic Patient Education – Summary and Video (45 min)
We go over 7 basic strategies that cover the entire horizon of patient education and explain why it is so necessary to educate your patients if you want them to be healthier.
Infomercials. – Summary and Video .
Whatever happened to Infomercials? They’re still around and they still work. And you can do them very inexpensively. You just need to know how. This webinar will give you practical examples and include forms for you to use in producing your own amateur and informational marketing that can help you create more new patients and keep the ones you have.
Internet Marketing and Social Media. – Summary and Video . This webinar covers some fundamentals regarding social media, Facebook, and general Internet marketing. (35 minutes) (not yet posted)
The Art of Spinal Screenings. – Summary and Video . Spinal Screenings – The Queen of External Marketing. Everyone has done at least a few spinal screenings. You have probably had some success with them. But how much better could you do if you knew the fundamentals of this time tested external marketing activity? This is a three part series on spinal screenings. This session we will review the most fundamental principles of screenings. Get these, and all else will follow.(45 minutes)
Scheduling Screenings and other External Events – Summary and Video . How to Schedule External Events And Create External Referral Sources. Types of events, Outcomes, Purpose. How to plan the events and get them scheduled.(30 minutes)
Marketing Tips: Earth Day, Spring Promotions, and other Tips – Summary and Video This webinar covers: Powerful internal marketing script, Report of findings referral procedure, upcoming spring promotions, with special attention to utilizing Earth Day as an opportunity to promote your services.
Short Overview of Chiropractic Marketing Management with Some Marketing Tips – Summary and Video This is a short version of marketing management and some tips for the upcoming months. What are the three levels of marketing? What part does communication have in your marketing? How to engage your patients in your marketing efforts. Upcoming special promotions. (30 minutes)
Marketing Management, Part I and Part II – This is the longer version of how to manage your marketing, and why.
Chiropractic Marketing Management – Session I – Summary and Video The Why, What and How of Marketing. Getting your Marketing off the Ground. (55 minutes)
Chiropractic Marketing Management – Session II – Summary and Video Specific Marketing Manager Duties – Your Job Description. General Overview of the Most Effective Marketing Procedures in Each of the 11 Marketing Categories (55 minutes)
It comes at you fast.
The New Year. Like a fast train, you know it’s coming, and suddenly, it is already whizzing past you.
Actually, each year it comes by faster. You may not have yet fully had a chance to finish all of last year’s work, or set your chiropractic goals for the New Year. But nothing slows down the advance of this New Year – and before you know it, it will be spring.
And come summer and fall, what will you have changed in your practice? Probably not as much you would have hoped for. Why? Because change is coming at you so fast it’s almost too much to keep up.
And it’s not just you that is experiencing change – our whole world is changing. Faster and faster. The political noise and tumult we hear constantly are just the symptoms of the conventions of the old grating up against the realities of the new.
Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions have been mostly correct over the last 20 years or so, predicts that by 2045 we will have computers that will be able to teach themselves so fast that the speed in which they learn will reach infinity. This is a very rough description of the Singularity he describes in his book. (The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology)
“An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential… There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth… The twenty-first century will see almost a thousand times greater technological change than its predecessor…” – Ray Kurzweil
In other words, change is changing exponentially.
This New Year of change is faster than ever before. But if we move way out beyond all the hue and cry of chiropractic philosophy, “evidence based” chiropractic, “injectables”, politics in and out of the profession, the rah-rah and rock and roll, there is a quiet universe waiting of healing and success which we may only get glimpses of.
In my opinion (IMHO) … it is a world which you, the chiropractor, have always been in. It is not a matter of reaching your goal as a healer. You are already there. Science in fact is catching up to what D.D. Palmer talked about as the 19th Century rolled naively into the 20th. Bruce Lipton, a professor in biology who once taught medical students at a medical school here in Wisconsin, after his research and similar epiphany, now teaches chiropractors at a chiropractic college. He gave a wonderful presentation at Life West Presentation in San Francisco in 2012. I was there and heard him. (Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton)
But the truth is, you, as a chiropractor, are already there. You have already ridden the wave and, to some degree, are on the other side of the Singularly. You may not fully realize this, the full power and truth of your profession, and I certainly don’t pretend to. Well, maybe you do since you are reading this, but probably most doc’s don’t fully appreciate what they have with chiropractic. But the Innate power defined and used by chiropractors is there. How else do you think it has been able to survive and persist over these 120 years through the teeth of vested interests and vicious and covert attacks – that still persist? (see Doctored, the Movie.) It is certainly not because of the great skill and effectiveness of your national or state organizations (not to discount the good work they have done here and there.)
And this brings me to the point of this article: you have got to upgrade the architecture and skills of the management of your office. So, while the healing aspect of your profession is, and has been, way ahead of the times, in many cases your management is not. Military control of your staff, robotic scripts, referral gimmicks and other relics from the 60’s and 80’s have no place in the future. Dr. Noope left the building a long time ago. (Who remembers him?)
For you to succeed, your management and marketing has to be way ahead of the curve. The world is changing so fast that if you are not keeping up, patients will look for chiropractic offices that are. It is that simple: lead from the future, or perish as an amalgamation of P.T., massage, and G.N.C.
It is now 2013 and by now you may have, or should have set some chiropractic goals for 2013. The challenge now is getting there. This is also our challenge as Petty Michel & Associates consultants and coaches as well.
This year, our goal is to get you to your goals FASTER.
Faster to the future and faster to your goals. It is a challenge, but we have been developing newer and faster approaches that can help you (and your team) get more done quicker.
We want to help you get to tomorrow’s goals – faster and once there, help you stay there and enjoy the ride. “Get There Faster and Stay There Happier.” Yep, them’s our goals!
As the world speeds up and changes faster each day, we can whine about how we are being left behind, stoically assert our principles and pretend everything is just the same, or embrace the changes and in fact drive them forward ourselves.
AUTHOR NOTE: The links below are now working…. if you have a problem accessing, please contact Linda at 262-749-0221.
This is a busy season, isn’t it?
But, usually a productive one. Although there are the usual complaints, in the big picture I think we all do very well. For the most part, we accomplish many good deeds during this time.
First, there is the Spirit of Christmas – which is always a good thing. Regardless of how devout you are to Christ’s birth, different religions and different cultures recognize this time in their own way. We are all maybe just a bit nicer to each other, or at least called upon to think about having more compassion for each other. Tragedies also remind us of this. In my opinion, the Spirit of Christmas transcends all religions.
Then, there are the reunions. Family and friends get together. Hectic? Usually. Messy? Often. Sometimes agitating? Yes. But still, it is a time for meeting together and talking and eating and sharing. And loving.
Did I say eating? Yes. That is usually yummy good, as long as we do not over indulge in too much or too bad food.
NOW TO A PRACTICAL PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SUGGESTION: Don’t’ forget to politely remind your patients – “This is NOT a time to fall off the Wagon of Health!”
Health Doesn’t Take a Holiday
Embrace this time. Have fellowship, share kindnesses – and have yourselves a Merry Little Christmas. But maintain your health and insist your patients do as well.
Keep them to their appointments and schedule them through January.
The links below direct you to pdf posters for examples. They say: “Health Never Takes a Holiday.” You can place these on your front desk and in your adjusting rooms to remind patients to keep to their schedules and to get scheduled if needed.
Clients may go to their members’ site and pull down the same files as customizable Word posters. There is a link for that below.
If you are not a client and want a Word file, just let us know. We will get you one.
Use them if you want, or make your own.
Also, just for fun there is a link to a poem adapted from “The Night Before Christmas”: “Twas the Day Before Christmas.” Not sure who wrote and would like to know for attribution.
Now, if you think about it, what is the most important element to real health care?
… (thinking)….
Getting adjusted? Eating right? Exercising right? Yes, all these and more.
But even more fundamental is doing them. And to do them, you need to schedule them. This is why I place such an importance on the dynamic nature of the Front Desk. If patients are not scheduled, they don’t come in, and nothing else can happen. Too obvious, but often overlooked or under stressed.
In the real world, the best guarantee for chiropractic health is the SCHEDULE.
From all of us at PM&A
Have yourself a merry little Christmas, and
May your hearts be light …
–Ed
Health Never Takes a Holiday (PDF)
Health Never Takes a Holiday-2(PDF)
Links to the members site for the fully customizable version of Health Never Takes a Holiday. (You will need to enter your user name and password.)
Health Never Takes a Holiday (DOC)
Health Never Takes a Holiday-2 (DOC)
Chiropractic Christmas Poem – “Twas The Day Before Christmas”
In our recent webinar on patient retention, we reviewed basic procedures that can be used to decrease patient drop outs.
More significantly, we looked at a new or model for practice retention that many businesses are now using successfully.
If your visit average is less than 60, then you can benefit from the material we covered.
The old approach to patient retention is focused around patient control procedures designed to “plug up” the “leaky bucket.” These still work and we covered some of the more effective procedures.
But this approach tends to address the symptoms more than the causes. A more effective approach is focuses on teamwork.
Patients, like customers, want two things: results and a “good feeling.” The “good feeling” is a product of how much each doctor and staff member genuinely cares about that patient at the time he or she is interacting with that patient. Patients will even tend to stay with a doctor and a practice if their results are not satisfying IF the service is extraordinary.
An effective method of improving patient retention includes role playing the “moments of truth” each team member has with patients. These include phone and walk-in greetings from the front desk, patient encounters with the doctor, therapist, and with the billing department for financial consultations.
Here are ten strategies you can put into place to keep your chiropractic patients coming back.
__1. Love The Services You Provide. If you don’t love what you do, how can you expect your patients to? People buy based upon confidence – and if don’t have faith, confidence and love for your services, your patients won’t either and they won’t come back. (They won’t refer either.)
__2. Love Your Patients. People can tell if you are being real, or just reading a script. You see it when you go to the chain stores and the checkout clerk says “hello”, or “have a nice day.” They say the words, but it isn’t genuine. They just don’t care. Practice and improve these “moments of truth.”
__3. Their Goals. Be goal oriented with your patients. Get them to set and commit to a goal for improving their health. Keep them recommitting.
__4. Coaching Patients. Once you have their commitment, you now can use your patient control techniques. The webinar included a short presentation on an effective patient recall system used many years by Linda Skiles, former Chiropractic Assistant of the year in WI. The forms discussed in the webinar are located on our PM&A members site.
__5. Education to Make Your Patients Self-Motivated. Would you as a chiropractor, or experienced chiropractic team member, stop getting adjusted? Of course not. And why not? Because you know it how important adjustments are to maintaining your health. You have been educated.
__6. Help With Finances. Third party pay is confusing. Financial concerns can be embarrassing for your patients. Providing friendly and easy access to personal help in working out paying for their services can assist keeping your patients coming back.
__7. Stand for Something. Your mission has to extend beyond relieving pain, just like Apple goes beyond computers or Starbucks beyond coffee. If you honestly embrace a greater purpose, your patients will see why you do what you do, not just how you do it. They will want to support that purpose as well by getting adjusted regularly
__8. Family. People like to belong to communities. We like to have friends. Some offices call their patients “Practice Members”, while others have “wellness clubs”, and advisory committees. However you do it, your patients should feel like they are part of your inside circle.
__9. Measure, review, improve. Constantly work on improving your service. That which you don’t improve upon eventually atrophies.
__10. Take care of each other. We spent a lot of time on this one, but need to spend more. One of our webinars later this year will zero in on how this action helps create a winning team.
As it turns out, the way you treat each other is the way you will treat your patients.
The webinar is located on our PM&A members site now. PM&A Members: Marketing Training/ Patient Retention
[Download version of this file for your staff meetings and reference: 10 Strategies for Patient Retention. ]
Where Are All Your Chiropractic Patients?
What would your daily volume of visits be like if ½ of all the NPs you have ever seen still came in to see you once every month? Or even every other month.
Let’s take a look: say you have been in business for 10 years. Each month during these years you averaged just 10 new patients per month. (Pretty low, I know.) That would total 10 x 12 months = 120 new patients per year and in ten years that would be 1,200 new patients. If half of them saw you every two months, that would be 600 patient visits every two months, or 300 visits per month.
How would that be? Pretty nice, right? And do you think they would refer more family and friends if they saw you more regularly?
Aside from whether you recommend wellness care or not, it would make sense to retain your patients on some kind of schedule simply as a sound marketing strategy. From an economical point of view, both in terms of time and expense, it is much more cost effective to take care of existing patients than to promote for and process new patients.
Some Chiropractic offices we work with have a visit average, or a retention rate of 20. (This is calculated by dividing office visits by actual new patients.) And for some, the Patient Visit average is 50 – or more. This means that the patients come in an average of 50 times. Very few of their patients drop out of care.
How can your office achieve a visit average of 50 or more?
We will go over at least 8 practice procedures to help your office increase its patient retention on our next webinar this Thursday, August 23 at 12:30. (Office managers, marketing coordinators, and doctors should attend.) Go here to register: Register Now
Here is the first tip: Patients come to you for only two reasons – results and good feelings.
You have to deliver the results equal to or better than their expectations. (Frankly, compared to the medical and pharmaceutical alternatives, you have an unfair advantage!) But even if you miss here and there, what is amazing is that they will stick with you if you – and your office team – make them feel good! I will go over examples of this in the webinar.
As an example in the world of management consulting, I was asked once to help one seminar company, years ago, provide private consultations to their clients. The seminar speaker was busy and asked me to help. He was very popular and charismatic. I agreed and saw about four of his clients. I gave each what I considered to be relevant and practical advice for their unique situations. But what struck me was that the majority of the doctors I saw had declining numbers: their practices were getting worse by objective measurement. However, they all loved the seminar speaker and his program! I didn’t understand it at first until I realized that he made them feel good.
So, get results on your patients. But, at every patient encounter with every team member in your office, make sure the patient walks away feeling better than they did before the encounter.
I will explain more about this in the webinar but it is something you can work on now with your staff. When the patient calls, are the front desk staff truly interested, or are they too busy with their computers? On their 6th visit, is the doctor genuinely interested in the patient as a special person, or just as another “case” to see before lunch.
Review these “moments of truth” with your team. You can practice and roll play and even tape record different types of patient encounters. You will be amazed at how, sometimes, you sound hurried, disinterested, or less than friendly.
We all get so busy that we can lose the moment – and just that one moment with that patient can make all the difference. It has been called “Present Time Consciousness.” But it is really just paying attention.
That moment you have with that patient is unique and you will never have it again.
Make the best of it.
This month, we have 2 webinars designed to help you grow your practice and provide better service to your patients. These are in addition to our world class expert consulting and coaching, our free articles on our web site and those especially for our clients in our PM/A Members Library.
These are short discussions with plenty of slides and examples, along with follow up summaries.
Register now. Keep training!
****To view the calendar and/or register for our other webinars as an active PM/A client or guest, please go here: LINK
All marketing is communication. But it is a special type of communication.
A report of findings is at least partly marketing. The manner in which your phone is answered is marketing. In fact, everything you do that promotes your services is marketing.
Remember that the purpose of marketing is to create — or support — exchange.
That is why we market our services – to increase or support the level of exchange going on between patients and your business. Marketing sends OUT communication so that people can come IN for services so that you can give OUT the services. It’s really physics, but that is another tangent.
On another level, our higher purpose for marketing has to be a sincere desire to help more people.
But the point is – it is an OUTFLOW of communications that helps bring an INFLOW of patients so that you can provide and OUTFLOW of services.
Much of this is done in how you educate of your patients and your community.
The education should be factual and honest, of course. It should contribute to the increased health of those you are educating. But, it should also help create more, or support existing, exchange.
And education is usually the least expensive forms of marketing. A care class for new patients – how much does that cost?
This same approach can be used externally to people not yet patients. One time tested approach that worked was to use a number of different channels to educate the community on a hot topic. We call this the Community Education Program.
At one time, for example, carpel tunnel was the “new” worrisome condition. We would put a column in the local paper about this condition, listing 3 to 4 home remedies, and the last remedy was to come in and see us.
In the column we also would cross promote our very short radio program: “Listen to “Health Tips with Dr. Joe” every Thursday on WXYZ at 12:20, just after the Farm Report.” We also promoted our special workshop on “Home Remedies for Carpal Tunnel.”
We would plan these several months in advance and have them all organized. It was a marketing system, which we always recommend.
We also promoted these in the office as well for friends of patients. We sometimes would send faxes to office managers of local businesses. There are many different channels that were and are available.
Sometimes the workshop would be empty and sometimes it would be full. I remember one night people kept coming in seemingly out of nowhere. It was standing room only. Regardless of the attendance, to the community we were a smart, active and helpful office. We became authorities and someone who could be trusted.
We tracked this over a couple of years and found that not only did we get New Patients directly each month on the topic, but new patients from other sources also increased.
This approach had both direct and indirect marketing appeal. Some companies at the time were offering bland newspaper columns for the doctor that while informative, did not sell anything.
So, your education has to have both: good useful info as well as a sales approach. I never saw these columns work as they were not integrated into a campaign and had no sales sequence embedded in them.
Remember the infomercial? They are still used. Exercise programs, for example, often use this format to sell, or nutrition products sold around a fake discussion group or with a “scientist.” A more honest approach is used by Dr. Mercola in his newsletters and videos that provide good info and often promote his products as well.
The idea is still the same: offer useful tips but also sell your services or products. Every magazine does this. In fact, every media does this.
With our Community Education Program we now making our own infomercials. Using a hand held camera and YouTube, we can show you how to record your Health Tip and post it on the Internet. In a later article I will outline more specifics on how to do this but a fast summary of the benefits and procedure are as follows:
Benefits:
Your own video Health Tip gives you fast high rankings on Google and likely on other Internet search engines. It establishes you as an authority, as someone who is helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. Patients can refer their friends to watch you and people looking for health solutions can find you. You appear trustworthy. This is a very inexpensive process that you and your staff can do.
And the main benefit: you’ll get more new patients!
Procedure:
That’s it.
Takes a couple of hours in all every month. Pretty soon, you are known as THE place to go for natural health care solutions.
Oh, and one other thing… these are fun to do!
So get to it and have some fun and more patients.