“The more you are motivated by love, The more fearless & free your action will be.”
~Dalai Lama
Printable version of the tent poster email services@pmaworks.com
“The more you are motivated by love, The more fearless & free your action will be.”
~Dalai Lama
Printable version of the tent poster email services@pmaworks.com
“There is a child inside me that wants to come out and do something to surprise all the adults.”
~Philippe Petit
Printable Version of the Tent Poster [Link]
What improvements do you need to make in your practice for 2016?
Managing your practice is similar to managing a sports team in many ways. There are goals, rules, plays (procedures,) skill development, strategies, winning and losing. There is also coaching and training.
The teams that win the most constantly work to improve. But the improvements often focus on just the refinement of the basics.
One chiropractor I worked with told me stories about his experiences with John Wooden. Coach Wooden was a very successful basketball coach who coached the UCLA basketball team to 10 national championships over a 12-year period.
Here is what Coach Wooden has said:
“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur…. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement.
The Deming Cycle is a process of continuous improvement that helped grow the Japanese car industry in the 60’s to what it is today. For a long time, Detroit auto companies weren’t that interested in what Deming had to say – and, of course, we can see how that turned out for them!
Constant improvement takes discipline. Those of you who had to practice a musical instrument or an athletic skill in school remember the daily routine. Improving the little things can get boring and when a colleague calls with excitement about this new seminar or gadget or website, many doctors are off to the chase the “shiny things.”
Innovation needs to happen, certainly. But the real successful businesses and teams continually work to master what they already do.
Mastering the basics is always the key to success. Deliberate practice, study and good coaching. And this takes discipline and… a certain degree of humility to admit you can personally improve.
But since you are not a full time coach and mostly work IN the practice, you have to schedule specific times to work ON the practice. But what do you work on? ICD 11? (Yes… it IS on the horizon!) More E.H.R?
Well, maybe, but these are not the areas that will significantly improve your business over the long run and take it to the next level.
To help you uncover what should be improved, you can use our updated Practice Progress Grid. You can go over it with your team and plot where you were, where you are now… and then where you want to be next year! (Link is below.)
This can help reveal what organizational and engineering steps you need to build a better business machine for 2016.
In most cases, the improvements don’t have to be major. They just have to be continuously refined. But some areas that are holding you back from your goals can be hidden or overlooked.
If you want to dig deeper, we also have our Practice Development Assessment(PDA). It takes more time to complete but gives you a more complete analysis. (The link is below.)
The world is changing faster and faster. You have to constantly improve to keep up, let alone, to stay ahead. And if you don’t… well, your patients will be going to those offices that are.
From all of us at PM&A, we look forward to your continued improvements and to helping you get closer to your goals in the New Year.
Ed Petty
Link to Practice Progress Grid
Link to Practice Development Assessment (No charge for first 15 users, $25 thereafter.)
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupèry
For a printable version of the tent poster: Yearn for the Sea
MILWAUKEE, WI – November 27, 2015 – Petty, Michel and Associates (PM&A), a national chiropractic practice management company, is pleased to announce that David Michel, a partner with PM&A, was recently awarded the 2015 Presidential Award by the Chiropractic Society of Wisconsin (CSW). The award, presented during the Awards Ceremony at the CSW’s second annual 2015 Health & Wellness Summit, held at the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells this past October 9th through the 11th, identifies:
Mr. Michel serves on the Board of Directors for the Chiropractic Society of Wisconsin (CSW). The CSW is a member driven and member controlled State organization that develops and maintains positive relations with consumers (patients), chiropractors, legislators, lobbyists, insurance companies and medical providers.
Dr. Jay LaGuardia, President of the CSW, when presenting the award to Michel, stated: “We would not have been able to achieve the success we have thus far without his valuable service.”
David Michel has been involved with the Chiropractic Society of Wisconsin since its inception in 2012.
Petty Michel & Associates (PM&A), a practice development company, was founded in 1988 as an alternative to conventional practice management seminar programs. For more information, go to: http://www.pmaworks.com
*This notice specifically pertains to those offices where the Provider of Medicare is NGS: CT, IL, ME, MA, MN, NH, NY, RI, VT, and WI.
For those of you who have NGS as their Medicare provider (states listed above), we wanted to make sure you were aware of a new policy which has some big changes, mostly positive and where you could get more information about it.
The NGS(National Government Services) recently published the new Chiropractic Medicare Policy which will go into effect on 12/1/2015
For more information on the chiropractic medicare policy visit:
L66315 Chiropractic Services Policy
Sincerely,
Dave
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody were members of a group
There was an important job to do and Everybody was asked to do it.
Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody would have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry because it was Everybody’s job.
Everybody thought Anybody would do it, but Nobody realized that Anybody wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that Everybody, blamed Somebody, when Nobody did, what Anybody could have done.
(abridged version of a poem by Charles Osgood)
Printable version of the tent poster The Parable of Responsibility
“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility, it’s easy to say “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problems”.
Then there are those who see the need and respond, I consider those people my heroes.”
~Fred Rodgers
Printable version of the Tent Poster Mr Rodgers Responsibility
“The fate of the living planet is the most important issue facing mankind”
-Gaylord Nelson
Click here for a printable copy of the tent poster living planet
“Most of the people I talked to thought that it would be a financial disaster… closed and forgotten within the first year.”
For a printable copy email us.
If you are like many chiropractors, other doctors and professionals, you are wasting potential revenue and don’t even realize it.
Before I tell you how this happens, let me give you a definition that I have been using for years that has helped many offices.
A practice is a network of relationships that is created and sustained through communication and service.
OK. Keep that definition in mind.
Now, here is how you can lose extra income and create extra work for yourself and your team: You start out spending a great deal of time and effort on generating new patients and then on processing them. You get to know the new patients and hear their stories. You empathize with them, ask them questions, and examine them. You explain what you have found about their condition and worked out what you see as their best option for treatment.
During their first few visits you are sensitive to how they are responding to your care and so continue to communicate with them. You put all this work into your new patient in order to help them follow your treatment plan and get better.
But as the patient improves and their frequency of visits decrease, your focus on them lessens. Your attention gravitates to the new patients.
When the patient has moved through your care plan, they often just drift back out into their community with an inadequate lifeline back to your office.
You have invested in, and created, a great relationship with your patient. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to stay in communication with them? They know you and like you and your team — shouldn’t you keep the connection alive and active? Just because their health condition has improved, don’t you still have approaches to help them become healthier and happier?
They have family and friends that can use your help now. They also belong to businesses and other groups that could use your help. Why let this relationship atrophy? Why not secure that lost income as well?
In some sense, the business is constantly starting and stopping. It is nomadic. This is the other “Paleo” practice: each day when the sun comes up across the plains, you are out hunting for and gathering new patients. This may be good for a diet, but not if you want a low stress practice. Wouldn’t it be better to create a business where existing long time patients would routinely stop by for care and refer their family and friends? This would save you a lot of effort, money, and stress, wouldn’t it?
A practice should be supported by business systems.
These systems are like an engine. An engine has starts and stops, but it also has a flywheel. The flywheel is a heavy wheel that, once it begins to spin, continues to do so with much less effort than it took to get it going.
A good practice is supported by a business flywheel, or a number of flywheels as there are different sub-engines in the business.
For internal marketing, the flywheel is the conversation that you first began. You want to keep it going and going. After you get it spinning in high gear, it takes little effort to keep it humming along.
You put in place a system of constant communication with your patients when they are NOT in the office through e-newsletters, hard copy newsletters, notes and cards, Facebook, and any other medium available. And of course, there is also personally seeing them at events in your community – county fair, grocery store, restaurant, salon or barber shop, etc. You want to keep the conversation going.
A very effective method is through electronic newsletters. Done right, and they usually aren’t, these newsletters can improve the numbers in your office.
We have tested this and found that the offices that do have personalized newsletters to their patients have more returning patients, more referrals, and more wellness visits as a result. Hence, more revenue and less stress about generating new patients.
See link below for a procedural article on what we have found that seems to work best for e-newsletters. Your customized e-newsletter can fuel your Facebook page, website, hard copy newsletter, and other mediums. We have worked out a relatively simple and very cost effective system that offices are using now to make this work.
Keep in mind that if your patients are not in listening to you, they will be listening to someone. For example, there are about 80 ads for drugs every hour on television (http://www.topmastersinhealthcare.com/drugged-america/) and this statistic is more than ten years old. It has been estimated that each of us are bombarded with about 2,000 advertising impressions per day. How many of these ads influence your patients toward unhealthful products or services?
Customized newsletters, and the cascading communications that they can feed, cost little but they help to keep the patient flywheel – and the communication – going. And in so doing, the patient wins, the community wins, and so does your business.
-Edward Petty
Publishing Your Newsletter – Does your mailing bottleneck when it comes to time to do the monthly newsletter Follow our easy steps to get your newsletter out “simple and fast”.
Newsletter Content – 9 suggested topics to include in your monthly newsletter to keep the conversation going.
The purpose of your newsletter is to keep the conversation going. It is designed to sustain the relationship that you have started. It can even help create new relationships. It serves to remind the patient that you are there for them and can continue to help them.
Marketing IS communication. Nothing beats live two-way communication – in person or via the phone. But next to live communication, the personal letter is best. The letter is a tried and true form of communication.
A newsletter is NOT a brochure, or a pamphlet, or regurgitated “content.” It is a personal communication from you to someone else. Too many newsletters are mass produced and have generic types of “content.” The one thing that is becoming more valuable in today’s world is authenticity. This is important because it creates trust – which is also scarce. So, keep your newsletter personal, even “folksy” and your patients will feel that the real you is talking to the real them and will have a greater impact.
Components of a patient newsletter should include some the following:
1. Letter from the Clinic Director
A short letter to the patients from the Clinic Director anchors the newsletter. If you include nothing else, this is the most important part of your newsletter.
It can be short or long. Shorter is better, with only 4 or 5 paragraphs. A longer letter also works ONLY if it is compelling. A worthy story or rant against some injustice…these can work. If it expresses your VOICE, it will work.
Your letter should usually include some reference to you personally. For example: “Yesterday, when I was taking my kids to school, my youngest mentioned she was told that she needed to receive 43 vaccinations next week….”
You can include some health news, with statistics and cite a reference, or refer to an article in another part of the newsletter. You can include office news. Refer to a photo attached of the new carpet, painted wall, or gift from a patient. New research, celebrities utilizing similar services, recent chiropractic success cases in the office, clinic expansion or renovation, new computer system, and personal adventures … all of these are good.
This can also be done via a short video as well.
Whatever you say, it should be delivered as if you are talking to just one person, perhaps the last patient you just saw. End the letter by saying something like… “I look forward to seeing you soon.”
2. Health Tips
Information for a “Health Tips” column, such as “Health Sleep Habits for Kids” The topic should be consistent with the time of year (September – back to school month) or Community Education Program theme (Children’s Health). Dr. Mercola has built his empire with great health tips from his newsletter. If you are not a subscriber, I encourage you to look into it. (www.mercola.com)
3. Special Promotions
Information on any upcoming promotions, spinal care classes, community education lectures, or anything else of a special nature.
4. Staff News
Include any news about staff, such as a new baby, new staff, new staff promotion, continuing education or seminar attendance. Pictures please.
5. Doctor/Clinical News
Include news about doctors, such as new seminars attended, advanced training, specialties, new associates, new diagnostic or treatment equipment, etc.
6. Patient News
Any news that is appropriate about patients, such as patient of the month, patient success stories (include photograph of patient), patient news: “Joe Smith wins the lottery and enrolls at Palmer!” Ensure you have a signed release from any patients that you want to include information about. Some clinics like to include a copy of their “thank you for referring board.”
7. Community Education Calendar
List the dates, times, places, and other pertinent information about community events that you will be sponsoring during the next month or quarter.
8. Just for Fun
Begin a recipe column. Assign this to one of the staff as appropriate. For example, if your office manager’s name is Jean, have a column called “Jean’s Recipes”. Each month, Jean can feature a different recipe, including, for example, the doctor’s favorite special chili recipe. Recipes should be simple (or at least not take up too much space). “Jean” should make some comments about the recipe.
9. Cartoons and Jokes!
Newsletter CONTENT Checklist
Submitted in digital format (Via computer). Bonus if you include photos or even a video.
There is a fast way to “keep the conversation going” with your patients, vendors, allies, and other people connected to your practice and business.
Use an email service.
It has simple templates in which you can paste the content you want. Later, with some easy editing, you can also print out the newsletter and have a hard copy for in office fliers or mailers. You can paste the content of your newsletter to your website and to your Facebook page. You can even use short video clips.
The email service makes it easy. Smooth organization and delegation of the work makes it even easier.
Almost ANY communication is better than none. On a regular basis, get your newsletters out regardless of how neat or interesting they are. Quantity first, then improve the quality.
Here is a short outline of some of the steps you can use to get your newsletter out fast.
FORTY ONE YEARS AGO, around this time of year (August 7), a twenty four year old managed to sneak up to the twin tours of the World Trade Center, shoot a cable to the other side, get it rigged up tight, and walk across it to the other side. Actually, he made 8 passes, performed dances and entertained an audience a 1/4 of a mile below. He finally came in when it started to rain.
He was arrested, but the the charges were later dismissed if he performed for children in Central Park, which he did.
I recently had the opportunity to listen to Philippe Petit (on August 7, 2015), now 65 years old. He gave a stirring presentation in San Francisco to chiropractic health professionals at the Wave, a seminar put on by Life West Chiropractic College.
Philippe was born in 1949 and still very active. He considers himself, among all things, an artist. But he also juggles, climbs rocks, fights bulls, fences, builds structures with 18th century tools and considers himself an accomplished equestrian.
He explained that he learned early in life to follow his passion and his intuition. But his creativity seemed to be overlooked or given little importance when he was young and so he felt that it must be illegal.
In his book Creativity, Philippe writes: “The creator must be an outlaw. Not a criminal outlaw, but rather a poet who cultivates intellectual rebellion.”
In his talk to us on August 7th, he offered some tips, or precepts that he thought might help us as they have helped him in his life.
He began by talking about his passion to pursue his goals. But right next to that, he emphasized the importance of tenacity. This was a word that included determination, discipline, preparation, and training to do what was needed to be done to achieve those goals about which you are passionate.
He exhibited this nearly a half a century ago as he pursued his goal to walk from one 1,300 foot tall building to another on just a wire. He started planning the walk when he was only 17 living in Paris. The Towers were not yet built. Certainly, the walk itself took immense focus at the time. But it lasted only less than an hour. The real work was in the planning and preparation and training. This took tenacity.
He stressed to listen to your intuition. When you have a question or a problem, listen to your gut and an answer, sooner or later, will visit you. But you do have to listen.
He emphasized simplicity in all that you do, but still be elegant. And don’t be afraid to make mistakes. This is how we learn and move forward. All this, of course, takes courage.
You have to believe in yourself. (Or as Dr. Jimmy Parker used to say, you have to have “FCB – Faith, Confidence and Belief.”) In your role of doctor, provider, and as a professional team member, you have to have faith in yourself and in the services you provide.
In our 3 Goals System of Practice Development, the Third Goal includes your greater purposes. These go beyond financial demands (Goal 1), which are necessary, or profession and business competence (Goal 2), which should be sought. But above it all are your Greater Purposes, your highest values — professionally and personally, that we really seek and that make life worth living.
We learn at an early age to quell our passions and creativity and to fall in line with convention. Obey and comply. And, to some extent, this is necessary for a society and a business to function. But in the bargain, we often lose our spirit. Our creative aspirations, our sense of fellowship with each other, and the outrage at the wrongs that we see — these gradually lose their importance. Our greater purposes become blunted — or even forgotten.
Certainly, this has happened to many people in your community as they “report in,” zombie like to the local drug store for “health care”, especially if it is promoting “free flu shots.” (Average drug prescriptions per person in 1993 was 7.1 In 2014 it was 12.2 And watch out for anyone over 50 where the average prescriptions used are 19, and over for those over 65 – 27. That’s right – 27 prescription medications per person. Average!2)
It is important to keep your greater purposes in sight and to respect them enough to keep them alive. They can and should be integrated into your professional life as you do not work in a factory assembly line as your parents or grandparents may have, or as those who produce your cool t-shirts and running shoes do now. For example, if you like children, have pictures of kids on your walls and have a special “Kids Day.” If you like running, put up pictures of runners and get your patients to join more running clubs. If you want to help the homeless kids in your town, promote a donation program for the local shelter.
Back at the seminar: I noticed that some of the presentations were held in ballrooms that had special, but temporary names. For example, there was the “The Reggie Gold” ballroom, the “Frank Sovinsky” ballroom, and the “Lloyd Latch” ballroom.
In the mid 1980’s, I worked for several years directly for and with Dr. Lloyd Latch. Though he didn’t promote it much, I am sure that he did have the largest chiropractic clinic in the world. While his personal production was high, the total office saw over 2,000 visits per week. The key was that he had created a wonderful team of doctors adjusting patients in 28 adjusting rooms and supported by a dedicate team of professionals.
And what was a key to his success? Over and over I heard Dr. Latch tell his doctors, and others who would visit, that success was “an inside job.”
I think this is exactly what Mr. Petit was getting at.
Success doesn’t come from the latest marketing procedure… it comes from deep inside. It comes from your heart, your passion, your imagination, and the tenacity to work and train daily.
Mr. Pettit says that there are –
“qualities inside all of us, that we are rarely encouraged to recognize
but that are essential to make our dreams come true, to plan, to construct a wondrous life.”3
Successful people learn from others, but ultimately take their own counsel.
As Philippe wrote:
“Observation was my conduit for knowledge, intuition my source of power.”3
So, follow your greater purposes and integrate them into your professional and work life. Allow your team members to also pursue their greater purposes – and you will see your practice become more creative, productive and wondrous.
Carpe Diem (seize the day),
Ed
———————–
This is a tale of a staff member conspiracy.
It is about a hidden and quiet plan by scheming staff members.
The planning took place towards the end of 2014 in a chiropractic office next to a river. By a lake. But that is not important.
Quietly, Ann and Betty met to discuss how they were going to fix the … situation. (I changed the names, but the rest is true.)
Dr. JM is an excellent and respected doctor who has a loyal following of patients. But as much as he wanted more new patients — as he was only generating about 6 per month — he just could not bring himself to do much marketing. And this is in spite of the excellent advice and support of his faithful and expert coach and consultant (moi).
But secretly, the two ladies hatched their own private strategy. And it worked.
More new patients started to come in. In fact, on my last visit to their office, they had three new patients come in, more than they usually see in a week.
What exactly did these enterprising chiropractic assistants do? Hmmm?
Maybe you could do the same?
Yes, you can and here is what they did:
Betty, the office manager, and Ann, the front desk coordinator, got together and worked up a procedure for generating patient reviews on Google.
The office manager wrote up a procedure for patients on how to post a review on Google. Ann, who calls most of the patients “honey” and says that they are all “her” patients, can be very forward and, well, controlling. She would simply get the agreement of key patients to make a review. She then gave them the procedure that was on a slip of paper and told them to go forth and spread the word.
In time, with her friendly but insistent nudging, they would. And now, their doctor has over twenty great reviews spread out over many months. The new patient increase is coming from people calling in off of the Internet.
Everybody is a reviewer.
People buy on the Internet from reviews. This is like word-of-mouth of old, only now it is a 4 or 5 star review. In fact, Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, uses reviews as their primary marketing tool. Once you buy something from them online, you are continually asked to post a review about what you thought.
I recently posted a review for something I purchased and found out that I have a “review rank” of 16,678,570. (But at least I earned 1 “helpful vote”, so that is nice.)
There are now many web sites that a consumer can go to review you.
Everyone is a reviewer. It is the new currency used to buy and sell products and services.
Get reviewed.
To help you, we have provided links on our blog for the following:
If you are an active client, you can go to our members site and download the same files as customizable WORD files. Get Reviewed info on PMAmembers.com
Start your own conspiracy to help share the successes of your services. But… get reviewed and watch the new patients come in.
Here in the good Ol’ USA, we are about to celebrate Independence Day, the date we commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and declared our freedom from the yoke of the British Empire.
I think for those of us in health care this day bears special significance. In fact, I think of the chiropractic profession in particular.
Chiropractic has remained independent for 120 years. It has been fought by monopolist trade organizations, suppressed, and slandered, but it still stays outside of the clutches of Eli Lilly, Merck, or Monsanto.
To Chiropractors and those who work in the profession: You are brave, tough, and independent. You are living the American Way. You are a gritty bunch for sure and have maintained your integrity for putting care before profits.
The challenge you have is not only to remain free, but to help your patients and community also be free and independent.
Your patients are at the receiving end of billions and billions of dollars that are spent to manipulate them to purchase products that are known to be unhealthy. Through pervasive and clever marketing and massive efforts to influence government, Americans have become over fed, over medicated, and under nourished. Obesity rates have tripled (11% in 1960’s, 37% 2010)1, drug consumption has soared (average 7 per person in 1993 to 12.2 per person in 2014).2 Vaccination recommendations for our children from our government has increased from 64 in the 1950’s to over 1000 in 2013 (69 doses of 16 vaccines between day of birth and age 18).3
And the results? American’s health rates compared to other countries are abysmal. We are the worst or close to it in many categories. 4 Yet this is not what is advertised, so it would be shock for most Americans to hear that in the competition with other countries for the best health care, that they are losers.
The true American Way5 was and is to question authority, seek the truth and to stand up for justice.
But the truth can be obscured and the path of least resistance is easier, and it can seem more acceptable to simply follow convention and herd mentality. But the facts are there – provided by whistle blowers, mothers, and researchers, and we all need to look at the facts, do our research, and continue to educate ourselves and stay vigilant.
We can’t forget our patients… they too need to learn how their health choices have been manipulated, how they have been deceived, and what they should do to truly improve their health.
There is a price to pay for freedom. It takes work and is not always easy, but — it is the American thing to do. Stay brave, stay alert, and continue to help your patients achieve better health.
Happy Independence Day from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, USA
References.
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]
Some of you in the PM&A community have been asking about Phyllis Frase. Where is she? Did she move? Why?
Ok Ok.. Here’s the story for those of you interested:
Phyllis is always on the go. She has worked with PM&A as a coach for the last 8 years or so and has done an excellent job while at the same time giving presentations at various venues across the country.
For the last 15-20 or so years, she has been a Parker Team Teacher for the Parker seminars. We have long been a supporter of the Parker Seminars as they provide good basic info on chiropractic practice management.
In April, she moved to Texas to work more intensively with the Parker team. She will continue to coach with us part time.
You can still reach her at her email, below, and also on our PM&A Facebook page.
Like you, me, and the rest of us, she is still in the game working hard to help others get healthier through chiropractic.
We wish the best to Phyllis and we’ll be seeing her at upcoming Parker seminars.
And that leads me to this…
the NEXT Parker Seminar is in Chicago June 5-7.
Phyllis says:
“Early registration ends May 1st for the most incredible seminar in chiropractic profession #ParkerChicago June 5-7, 2015. We have a great lineup of speakers for everyone. Use discount code, CHISPKRDISC25, for a $50 dollar discount on registration. Ignite your passion and transform lives!!!!!”
If you have not yet registered and would like to take advantage of this offer, Simply… visit the Parker Seminar-Chicago web-site and when registering enter the following code. CHISPKRDISC25
So there you have it.
More news to follow….
Carpe Diem…
-Ed