Lincoln Enemies
Click to download a tent poster for your office (in pdf format): 2012-11-lincoln enemies
Motivation Tent Poster – Lincoln Enemies
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Marketing the movie DOCTORED for your practice and community
There has never been a movie like this for chiropractors. Now with this professionally produced documentary on DVD, you have an extraordinary tool to help you educate your staff, patients and community.
It really is historic.
You can learn more about it on the trailer and of course, by watching the movie. I am not going to give it a review here other than to give it two thumbs up.
I recommend that you use it to educate your office team, patients and your community. Here are some tips on doing so:
- It is intended to be shown as a movie and not as a reception room video clip.
- Set aside two and a half hours with your team during some down time. Watch it uninterrupted. No phones, patients, etc.
- Afterwards, eat. Have the food brought it.
- Now, discuss the movie. What did everyone think?
- Then discuss how best to use it – for patients and non patients. Put together some tentative plans.
- Set up two or three special private screenings for 8-10 patients.
- Watch the movie with them, feed them and then ask them what they thought and then how they recommend we use this movie.
- This now becomes a focus group. You will find that you get good ideas from them that might also appeal to other patients. Plus, they will now be very motivated to bring in more of their family and friends.
- Rent a space outside of your office and show the movie for non patients. This requires LOTS of promotion and preparation. Dr. Anthony Ebel has a description with examples of what he is doing this year. See links below.
- Over November and December, use the movie internally to generate excitement with your patients. With Holiday and Christmas and New Year retail promotions, we recommend to keep the promotion directed internally. Then, in Jan and Feb., promote your special screenings to the community.
In the end, I think DOCTORED shows how courageous and committed all of you are who work in and with the great profession of chiropractic.
New ideas and methods that work are often opposed at first before they are generally accepted by the public. This movie will help get your services more accepted and in fact, desired.
RESOURCE LINKS:
Order the movie and trailer
Movie Trailer trailer of movie, originally entitled: “Medical, Inc.”
Dr. Ebel’s flier and tickets Front Back of flier
Interview with one of the executive producers of the movie, Dr. Paul Riegleman from WI (5 minutes) Link
Doctored image you can download for your posters
GMOs… enough to scare any ghost or goblin away.
Having worked in chiropractic offices, Petty Michel & Associates, and being a chiropractic patient myself, I have become more health conscience over the past decade and becoming more aware of the health concerns sugars cause in children, I began to look for a different approach to the traditional passing out of candy for this Halloween. I stumbled upon an article put out by the Green Halloween Organization that put it into perspective and solidified my concern to make a difference in promoting a healthier life style for the little ghouls this year.
GMOs or genetically modified organisms are not something new, yet we often times fail to think about them and how they affect our health when it comes to a holiday such as Halloween and all the fun candies we traditionally pass out to all the costume wearing children that ring our door bells.
Many common GMOs are found in the favorite trick-or-treat candies on the market today. Genetically modified organisms are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). It is an experimental technology which merges DNA from different species, creating unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding.
Picture The Mad Scientist in the lab mixing varies potions(GMOs) to create monsters(candy) and then feeding it to your children and/or grandchildren.
Listed below are 10 GMO ingredients found in Halloween Candy.
- Sugar (GMO sugar beets)
- High fructose corn syrup (GMO corn)
- Corn starch(GMO corn)
- Soy lecithin (GMO soy)
- Soybean oil (GMO soy)
- Modified food starch (GMO corn)
- Fructose, dextrose, glucose (GMO corn)
- Cottonseed oil (GMO cotton)
- Canola oil (GMO canola)
- “Other” ingredients: isolates, isoflavones, food starch, vegetable oil.
The number one reason to avoid GMOs as listed on the Institute for Responsible Technology is that they are just plain unhealthy. The article states: The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) urges doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients. They cite animal studies showing organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Human studies show how genetically modified (GM) food can leave material behind inside us, possibly causing long-term problems. To read the full article go here [Link] Chiropractic has known this information for years and has always promoted an organic or unmodified diet for a healthier lifestyle in addition to getting adjusted regularly.
Studies show some of the most common illnesses linked to GMOs are. Is this what we want for our children or grand children? I don’t think so.
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Osteoporosis
- Atherosclerosis
- Various types of cancer
- Allergies
- Lou Gehrig’s disease
With at least 10 GMOs found in Halloween Candy, you ask yourself what can I do to provide a healthier treat selection for the ghost and goblins at my door this year? As a grandma wanting a better life style for my grandchildren I ask myself, what can I put in their trick or treat bag that will make me feel better about the choice I’ve made and still be as enjoyable to them.
Here are a few ideas I came up with for healthier treats:
- Halloween themed pencils
- Money
- Balloons
- Stickers
- Organic snacks
This Halloween treat your trickers with a healthy treat that will lessen the toxins they may currently be exposed to.
More information on GMOs and additional ideas for healthier treats and snacks can be found at: http://www.greenhalloween.org/2011nongmoguide.pdf
This helpful guide is provided by the partnership of Green Halloween http://www.greenhalloween.org and Non-GMO Project http://www.NonGMOProject.com
“Doctored”– The Movie Shown at October EPOC
I just had the privilege of viewing the new movie, “DOCTORED” in Lake Geneva, WI with the EPOC (Epicenter of Chiropractic) group.
I am sure you have heard of it by now, originally called “Medical Inc.” I know some of you have even seen it. It was great and I would definitely give it a thumbs up. I am not going to review it here except to say that for those of you who have been around for a while, most of the information was not new. It exposed corporation’s greedy control of medicine, pharmaceuticals, food, and the government in an attempt to eliminate competition, including chiropractic, organic food, and other alternative natural health care methods.
It was professionally done and all in all, a good movie – definitely historic as far as chiropractic goes.
But the move is not for us. It is for all the people in your community who are not under care. For them I think it will be excellent.
I also had the privilege of talking to one of the executive producers of the movie (turns out we’ve known him for years!), Dr. Paul Riegleman, and one of the doctors who stared in it, Dr. Tony Ebel.
In the next couple of days, I will send you some suggestions for a marketing plan with input from myself and other doctors, including the doctor who starred in the movie, Dr. Tony Ebel.
So stay tuned. Properly marketed, this movie can be a big boost for your patient volume and create outstanding good will in your community. And maybe just a little bit of controversy. 😉
Are you ready? Good. Stay tuned…
The Chiropractor Versus the Chiropractic CEO
There is a constant struggle in your office.
It is a battle between you as the doctor and you as the CEO.
As the CEO, you want to grow your business. You want it to be profitable, smooth running, and systematized. You want it to be efficient and providing excellent service.
As the doctor, you want to focus on each patient and their unique treatment program. You really could care less about administrative concerns as these are usually just distractions to your patient care.
Who wins this war between the doctor and the executive manager?
Unfortunately, in most cases, no one. Usually, the doctor’s duties blend in with the executive duties and the services get watered down and the growth of the office never reaches its full potential.
Without a doubt, the biggest dilemma in practice management is just this:
How can you be the best doctor you can be
and also run your office?
If you had the time (and perhaps the training, but that too just takes more time!) you could take your business to the next level. But there just isn’t the time. You are too busy as it is.
This was the theme of Gerber’s book, the E-Myth, wasn’t it?
You know you should “systematize” your office procedures, but that still takes time. And maybe this systematizing stuff hasn’t worked all that well for you.
It comes down to roles: how can you be a compassionate and dedicated doctor while at the same time being the CEO of a growing small business?
This Thursday, October 18, 12:30 pm Central to 1:20, we will show you how –
Learn how you can, in 5 hours or less each month:
* Drive your business to the next level
* Improve communication with team members
* Help each staff member be more goal oriented
* Help create a stronger team that is more goal oriented
* Have more fun in practice
* Achieve more of your clinic goals
As the doctor, you are taught patient management procedures. You need them and patients benefit from them.
But as a business owner, you also need practice management procedures. Done properly done, your business will benefit.
We will show you how to do it in just over 1 hour per week, on average.
You won’t find this anywhere else. (Hype alert.) This is a culmination of our Marketing Manager System (2001), 3 Goals Management System (2008), and three other management systems which we have incorporated into our consulting over the last 25 years.
Because we feel this process is so important for your practice, we are waiving the fee for this webinar.
That’s right, this is one is FREE. It should be three times the usual price but we want to get it out to you now and fast. We want to help you get a head start on 2013.
But you have to register, so go HERE to do so.
Best regards,
Ed
PS This webinar is for doctor owners only and the office manager or administrative/office coordinator.
5 Levels of Administrative Support in a Chiropractic Office
Someone in your office needs to be responsible for the administrative duties that fall outside of the usual functions in a chiropractic office of:
- Front Desk
- Patient Accounts
- Hallway/Therapy.
This someone is usually the chiropractor – at least at first. But as the practice grows there is more administrative work to do. The doctor can do it, of course, but he or she should be spending time on adjusting patients and building the office.
The smart doctor knows this rule:
Do what you do best,
And delegate all the rest.
Some offices have a chiropractic assistant that is called an “office manager.” The role of the office manager is often vague and the duties are varied. Usually the “office manager” has had very little, if any, management training.
The growth of the business will eventually stall because of this.
Most chiropractic team members are bright and industrious and whoever is assigned the role of office manager usually does her best for the office. Unfortunately, this is not enough in most cases for the office to achieve its capacity and goals.
In 2013 we will be launching a number of new office manager training programs to help doctors and office managers achieve their full potential.
In the meantime, the chart below may help clarify the general range of duties of an office manager. It lists an approximate hierarchy of responsibility for someone delegated by the doctor to perform administrative functions.
A staff member who has another job in the office, for example, front desk, may take on a part time role of Administrative Assistant. As the office grows, she could take on more responsibilities as the Administrative Coordinator, and then finally as an Office Manager. She may have to delegate some of her front desk duties to give time for the extra admin work she now has.
The titles below are intended to demonstrate that there are different levels of administrative responsibility and are not exact. Your office might just need an admin assistant.
However all doctors need to delegate their management and administrative duties and more offices than not, suffer for lack of well trained and effective office managers.
5 Levels of Administrative Support
Administer = from Latin administrare, from ad- + ministrare to serve, from minister, servant
5. Practice Manager – Similar to a general manager. This role is for a larger office with 15 or more staff.
4. Office Manager – About 5 hours per week or more, but takes on a majority of the administrative duties and some of the management functions. Supports the staff and the doctor to give better service. Is accountable for office growth and performance.
3. Office Coordinator – Works 5 hours a week on administration. Helps the doctor with management duties, including human resources (hiring, training, etc.), marketing, coordinates with the staff on training, marketing, and other special projects.
2. Administrative Coordinator – Works about 3-5 hours a week on administration. Clerical duties, some important. Helps the doctor with management duties, including human resources, marketing, etc.
1. Administrative Assistant – Works about 3 hours a week on administration. Mostly clerical duties.
The Chief Danger In Life…
Motivational tent poster for your office:
“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.”
~ Alfred Adler
[ Also, find the hidden joke on poster: What do you call cheese that is not yours?]
Click to download a tent poster for your office (in pdf format): 2012-10-precaution
Why You Shouldn’t Have Promotions
As a chiropractor, there are many reasons why you shouldn’t have practice promotions.
Hundreds. You can come up with 10 right now. Your staff could think of more. So could your family!
Most of them would have something to do with not enough time to do them, or too much of a hassle, or it might cost too much. Then, there is also: not sure if they would work, or what do we do and how do we do it? Maybe you are really too frightened, embarrassed, or burned out to promote.
Now, you could say: “Hey, I already have more patients than I can see.”
Yes, maybe you could. But then you would have to ask yourself: “is everyone in my town getting proper chiropractic and natural health care?” “Is anyone in my neighborhood receiving unnecessary drugs, surgery?”
On the other hand there are only a few reasons you would want to have practice promotions. These would include:
- Help more people
- Fill up your office
- Make more money
- Make your services and those of chiropractic more popular
In terms of traffic lights, promotions are GREEN.
In your office, what light is flashing? Yellow, red, or green?
Green means GO! Promotion = pro + motion. The word comes from “forward motion.”
Ultimately, there are three basic reasons for not promoting:
3. Not knowing what or how
2. Lacking the motivation
1. Lacking the organization
In our upcoming webinar, we cover the what and the how and the why to get your promotions going, fill up your office, increase your revenue, and make your services more popular.
Hope to see you there.
Best regards,
Ed
10 Strategies for Improving Patient Retention
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.
10 Strategies To Improve Patient Retention
__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. ]
Smile Joy Tent Poster
Where Are All Your Patients?
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.
Life Chiropractic College West “Call Me Maybe” – Cover
This is a cover (copy) of a popular song from a young Canadian singer by students at Life Chiropractic College in California. It is a little rough, and judging from at least on of the comments, one person found it embarrassing.
I loved it. Great spirit.
What do you think of it?
Add your comments below. I would be interested to read what you think.
Thanks,
Ed
Link: http://youtu.be/28ZrcYj-VLI
From the Wave, the Mountains, to Your Chiropractic Office
Dr. Bruce Lipton discussing how the environment determines behavior more than genes.
Just returned from a long winding motorcycle trip in the Sierra’s and Coastal ranges of CA. We will be posting some photos of these on the Chiromotorcycleriders.com web page and Facebook pages soon.
Also attended the Wave in San Francisco put on by Life West. The best seminar program I have seen in a long time. Philosophy is needed, but the science presented by Bruce Lipton, PhD., and others, was amazing. I can’t recommend Dr. Lipton’s books enough.
For those of you who know Dr. Lipton, he is a biologist and taught cellular biology to medical students at the UW Medical School in Madison, WI. In doing pioneering work in cellular biology a few years ago, he realized some basic flaws in the allopathic model of health. He gave up teaching MD’s and now teaches chiropractic students at chiropractic colleges. He says that the profession of chiropractic, and the works of its founder, D.D. Palmer, was way ahead of its time and are fundamentally correct based upon his and other’s research.
Dan Murphy, D.C; Joe Mercola, D.O.; Gary Null, PhD.; and Malik Slosberg. D.C. were some of the other speakers I caught on Friday. Oh, and of course, Dr. Sigafoose. I couldn’t stay for Saturday.
Chiropractic is fairly unique in that it does have a “philosophy.” This gives it a soul and a purpose where other professions, unfortunately, have none.
But the nuts and bolts of studies and research that was presented demonstrated that there is abundant evidence supporting the effectiveness and progressiveness of chiropractic.
Scientific evidence is reaffirming and enlightening. At the same time, the “evidence” you need has always been there in the successes of your patient.
A while ago an office wanted me to help them with their marketing. I was happy to meet with them and they said that they had been receiving help from an “evidenced based” consultant. They said they were trying to establish relationships with MDs. I replied that was great – but I also mentioned that they did not need another license to practice chiropractic. If they were seeking permission from MDs and trying to justify their profession with “evidence” when they already had all the proof they needed with their patients, it was no wonder their practice was slowing down.
I might have been a little too direct as I have never heard from them again.
Will be posting some video clips from the Wave soon and will let you know when they are up.
Best regards,
Ed
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This Month’s Webinars – August
Office Manager Webinar Roles And Goals: What Are The Key Roles In Your Office? – Thursday, August 16th – 12:30 to 1:30pm CDT
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 7 roles and the numbers will go up.
We will also provide you with a fast test for you to grade your office on how each of these roles is performing.
Register Now: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/322088520
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Marketing Manager Webinar: Patient Retention: 8 Practical Procedures – Thursday, August 23rd – 12:30 to 1:30pm CDT
Do your patients see you as often as they should? Do they follow through and complete their programs? If not, this webinar will cover eight basic procedures that any office can use to ensure their patients get the care they need.
By now, you probably have heard more than a few different approaches to patient retention. It certainly isn’t rocket science. However many procedures taught at seminars are just a bit gimmicky, and in the end, don’t work. Find out, or be reminded, of what does work.
Register Now: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/311709721
The Wave – 2012
Ed is live at The Wave in San Francisco, CA. He sent these two pics to give us a sneak preview of what’s happening!
- Jerry Rice talking with Dr. Brian Kelly at The Wave
Jerry Rice is being inducted to the Football Hall of Fame again today. The average career time for a professional football player is four years- Jerry played for over 20 years. He credits chiropractic for his great health and agility in football and also “dancing with the stars”.
- Dr. Mercola speaks to hundreds of Chiropractors at The Wave
(Life West, live at The Wave)
Doctor Joseph Mercola, D.O., gives his presentation to hundreds of chiropractors at The Wave in San Francisco on Friday, August 3rd.
Doctor Mercola has the highest ranking natural health newsletter in the world. His website receives over 1,000,000 hits per day.
Motivation Tent Poster – Pay Attention
Pay Attention
Click to download a tent poster for your office (in pdf format): 2012-08-Pay Attention
Motivational Tent Poster – Enjoy Your Climb Each Day
Enjoy the climb.
Click to download a tent poster for your office (in pdf format): 2012-07-ChurchhillJourney
July Webinars- Positive Job Reviews and Practical Chiropractic Patient Education
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!
- Office Management – How to Do An Employee Job Review For Your Chiropractic Office So That Everyone Wins.
Are these job reviews really necessary? Do employees get raises automatically every year? Employee reviews are often neglected, or are dreaded by both employee and doctor. This webinar covers the basic steps to make them effective and positive for all concerned.Thursday, July 12, 12:30pm Registration
- Marketing Management – Educating Your Chiropractic Patients – 6 Programs that Work.
Does patient education work? How much of it just a sales pitch by companies to get you to buy their brochures and videos? Even if it does work, what are some practical steps you can use in our office? We will discuss 6 simple programs that are working to help increase patient referrals and retention.
Thursday, July 19th, 12:30pm Registration
****To view the calendar and/or register for our other webinars as an active PM/A client or guest, please go here: LINK
Motivational Tent Poster – Playing
Never stop playing and you’ll never grow old!
Click to download a tent poster for your office (in pdf format): Playing
An Introduction on How to Make Your Own Chiropractic Infomercials
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?
Community Education: What Worked And What Didn’t
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.
The New Fast Infomercial For Chiropractors
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:
- Select a condition or health topic that you are interested in and that people in your community are also interested in. For example, pinched nerves, weight loss, flu and colds, childhood vaccinations, ADHD, TMJ, etc.
- Look it up and get some current statistics on the subject.
- Come up with 2-4 helpful home procedures that can help with the condition, or some action steps to take.
- The last tip is to come in and see you for a no charge consult, screening, conference, etc
- Work out the script.
- Post an outline of the script on a white board.
- Practice.
- Get someone to record you while the outline on the whiteboard is next or behind the camera. (Other tactics are to down load a prompter to your smart phone, have someone use cue cards, or just go impromptu.)
- Upload to YouTube.
- Use key words and geographic terms and link to appropriate sites.
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.
Chiropractic Principles, Chiropractic Infomercials, Management by Numbers: 3 New Webinars in June
June, 2012
Milwaukee, WI
A tidal surge of politics rampages across this state with a big recall election for our standing governor taking place. But this surge will no doubt continue across this country for the rest of this year. Like massive tectonic plates shifting, the forces will be widespread as more people become involved in current events.
No matter what side you take in politics, if any, and there are more than two sides, there is only one side when it comes to taking care of your patients. That decision is already made for you by virtue of being a chiropractic doctor and chiropractic team member. That side is simple: deliver the highest quality care and service possible for your patients.
You must always do what is best for their health. That is never an issue.
Similarly, you must always do what is best for the health of your business that provides this care. It too must be strong and healthy so that it can provide the facility that allows you to give provide for your patients.
We encourage you to stay informed on all sides of the issues that concern you, for there is usually some truth to be found in every corner of an issue. But even more, we encourage you to consider voting with the quality of your clinical care and the quantity of your chiropractic services.
Yard signs for your cause or candidate are fine. But even louder should be your voice for the health freedoms of your patients – freedom from toxins in their water, food, and air. Freedom from misinformation about chiropractic care. Freedom to be healthy without drugs or surgery.
In addition to our world class expert consulting and coaching, our free articles on our web site or those especially for our clients in our PM/A Members Library, this month we have 3 “kick-gluteus maximus” (management term for kick-ass) webinars.
- Office Manager Training: How to Motivate Your Team and Keep Them Motivated With Chiropractic Principles and Philosophy. With Phyllis Frase (Date, Time. More info below.)
- Marketing Manager Training: The New Infomercials For Chiropractors That Work and Are Inexpensive, Fun, And Effective. Learn How. (Date, Time. More info below.)
- Executive Management: Why You Shouldn’t Manage Your Practice by Statistics…And Why and How you Should. (Date, Time. More info below.)
Attend these webinars and VOTE WITH YOUR CARE.
Think global, but act local and make your voice heard by setting an example of the best health care provided in the best run health care business in your town.
Webinars for June, 2012 from Petty Michel and Associates
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OFFICE MANAGER TRAINING
How to Motivate Your Team and Keep Them Motivated
This webinar will provide your office manager with the tools to motivate your team by using the key fundamentals of chiropractic philosophy.
The webinar presenter will be Ms. Phyllis Frase, an internationally known chiropractic team trainer. As a team teacher with the Parker Seminars since 1998, she also has taught across the country at many state conferences, and as far away as the New Zealand Chiropractic College. She has been a PM&A consultant and coach since 2007.
An outstanding speaker, she is also a hard worker and gives her all to her client’s success.
45 minutes with Question and Answer available. Excellent for all office managers and doctor/owners.
Thursday, June 14th, 12:30 CDT. Registration
MARKETING MANAGER TRAINING
The New Infomercials for Chiropractors That Work
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.
Ideal for the doctor owner, marketing manager, and anyone involved in practice marketing.
45 minutes with Questions and Answer Available.
Thursday, June 21st, 12:30 CDT Registration
EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
Why You Shouldn’t Manage Your Practice by Statistics…And Why and How you Should
C.A. Reports have been around for a long time. Every management company seems to require you to report your numbers. But is this a good idea? What are the hidden downsides of doing this?
Even if you have the numbers, what do you do with them? How do you use them. What about ratios? And then there are those financial reports your accountant sends you – like they should. What should you do with these other than just file them?
The fact is, IF you know how to use the numbers of your practice your life will suddenly be much easier. Practice “noise” will dissipate and the time spent as a CEO will be less, AND more effective.
This webinar will give you both the benefits and risks associated with using statistics to manage your business, with follow up materials to use in your office.
A must for Practice CEO’s. We also encourage you to include your office manager to participate in this webinar.
45 minutes
Thursday, June 28th, 12:30 CDT. Registration