Everything Else: Why The Goal Driven Practice is More Profitable and More Fun

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Edward Petty

What gets in the way of you growing your business?

What holds you back from your growth? From increased services and profits?

What keeps you from providing better services and improving your marketing results?

The government? Your childhood? Your neighbor’s cat?

One thing that is NOT holding you back is chiropractic or whatever services and skills you provide.

It is everything else.

When you are first growing your business, and let’s say you are barely at 40% of your full capacity, your practice may be performing well. You may have an assistant, but for the most part, you can see patients and generally oversee the operation of your practice. Life is good, and the future is … wide open.

But almost imperceptibly, as you start seeing more and more patients, the tide of administrative demands starts rising.

Eventually, you can look around your desk and see “undones” and “half-dones” and a hundred or so “to-dos” littering your office, smartphone, computer, and brain. You try to keep up, but there seems to be just too much to do.

So, what do you do? There seems to be only one solution – you settle. You settle into a comfort zone just to a point where you can earn enough to pay your bills.

Growth becomes a trap, and after many attempts to reach your goals, you finally settle.

Is there a way out?

Yes. But it has been hidden. And booby-trapped.

But you should know, after years of observation and analysis, what is holding you back is not your lack of effort. It is not chiropractic or your professional services.

The fact is, you can’t really get to where you want to go from where you are now. You can’t get there from here.

You need to make some major Big Shifts.

To get to your goals, you have to start from a different place and build a newer version of your business. This is your next stage. Stage One is survival and entrepreneurial growth. It is a Personality practice.

Your next version is a fast, more advanced business that will take you to your goals and beyond.

The new version is called a Goal Driven Practice.

To achieve this requires making some significant changes or Big Shifts.

MANAGER OR ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT (BIG SHIFT #7)

One of the solutions to breaking out of the trap and moving closer to your goals is assigning someone on your team to help you with…Everything Else.

This could be a manager or an administrative assistant. In either case, the role would probably only require 5-8 hours per week – at least at first.

One of their goals would be to remove everything from your desk, all your to-dos, all administrative traffic, sort it for you, and then work out with you what should be done with each item.

You would delegate, delay or dump each item.

This would help free you to increase your services as a doctor and give you time to expand the business as the CEO.

You can produce $500 to $1000 in services per hour as a provider if you are unfettered. As the CEO, you can direct your business to produce much more than this per hour. So, why are you spending time drowning in trying to do $20 or even $30 an hour jobs?

Everything Else gums up the works. It slows you down, confuses the staff, and the patients feel the confusion and notice the neglect, however slight.

This is why I came up with the Goal Driven System. It unmucks the gears of your business so that you can freely provide services and not be haunted by the looming demands of hundreds of to-dos.

This is covered in the book, The Goal Driven Business. If you can do this, you will be more productive and have more fun.

This is so valuable that I will be scheduling upcoming Zoominars on this subject for you and your manager. And stay tuned for upcoming programs on manager training, and training and even coaching on the Goal Driven System.

And just, just for fun, (I am smiling) don’t miss this future article:

The 2 Management Consultants from Petaluma California.

Seize the future

For more information on The Goal Driven System visit Goal Driven

Goal Driven Job Descriptions

Posted on February 22, 2022 by Edward Petty

playbook goal chart

In a Goal Driven Practice, Goal Driven Job Descriptions are short, fast, and to the point.

And they are used!

They help improve the quality and quantity of services and are motivational.

So, how is this different from other job descriptions?

Most job descriptions are usually a hodge-podge and catchall of unrelated tasks. For example, the front desk job description may include getting supplies, taking x rays, calling attorneys, and scheduling patients. Billing may include marketing and equipment repair.

Staff will do the tasks assigned but end up zigzagging from one function to another, losing focus on what they are doing, and often disengaged in their activities.

In typical job descriptions, the goals are not clearly defined, measured, nor are the expectations stated. Further, employees don’t always see or get recognized for the results of the work detailed on their job descriptions.

Yet another failing of most job descriptions is obvious – they just aren’t used.

Let’s look at how to power up job descriptions so that they are Goal Driven.

Many job descriptions contain the duties of several different roles. A role is an assumed identity. For example, in a restaurant, there are the roles of a server, cashier, dishwasher, and chef, or cook. In a small restaurant, one person may take on a number of these roles, and all these roles would be their job description. Hence the idiom: “chief cook and bottle washer.”

But to be effective, each role needs to be separated, well defined, and organized with the other roles.

In a Goal Driven Practice, job descriptions are broken down into different roles and described in job checklists.

The job checklist begins by clarifying the goals. This includes the mission, the outcomes, what is used to measure performance, and the level of performance expected of that role.

For example, for the role of Patient Accounts, the mission might be something like: “To help the patient pay for all of the services they received in such a way that they will continue to receive services.” The outcome might be a zero balance or “no accounts receivable more than 30 days.” The statistics used to measure this role could be the “percent of collections to adjusted services.” And finally, the expectation might be something like: “All patients very happy with the encounters with Patient Accounts and continuing with their services, with a collections percent of at least 95% of adjusted services average.”

We now list the most important procedures to achieve this goal. The CEO of the office defines WHAT the goals should be – that is leadership. But the manager and those working in patient accounts would work out HOW the goals would be achieved.

Encouraging the team member to define the best procedures to achieve their goals empowers them and gives them autonomy and responsibility for their role. According to Self-Determination Theory, real motivation is intrinsic. It comes from one’s desires and needs rather than external rewards or threats. Edward Deci, in his book Why We Do What We Do, says people “strive for personal causation.” (This is more fully covered in my book, The Goal Driven Business)

If the cook understands that their goal is to make tasty meals that the customers enjoy and for which they will pay, they can be more responsible for how best to achieve that goal.

A team member may have five or more roles, each with a job checklist, as part of their job description. As the doctor and owner, you may have 25! (And if so, that could be a big capacity barrier right there!)

Once the goals are clearly defined … and kept in mind, the rest of the checklist can be easily worked out.

Once per month or more, you or the manager can meet with each team member and do what we call a Coaching Review. This is a fast review of employee performance: at what they are excelling and at what they need to improve. In addition, the job checklist can act as an assessment.

But it is all geared around the goals of their roles. You also ask them what could be added or changed to improve both the quantity and the quality of their outcomes. They can make the changes to the job checklist and make sure you have a copy.

None of this takes a long time to do each month.

Management of your office is not just about getting procedures done. It is about constant improvement in the quantity and quality of their goals.

You may have told your patients something like: “If you do not make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.”

The same applies to managing your business. “If you do not take time to improve your procedures and your people to achieve the goals in their roles, you will be forced to make time to rebuild your practice.”

Steven Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People put it simply and best:

Begin with the end in mind.

The Cathedral, Stone Blocks, and Your Goals

Posted on January 18, 2022 by Edward Petty

stone cathederal

(This is the third in our series on goals.)

The Cathedral, Stone Blocks, and Your Goals

Christopher Wren was one of the greatest English architects. He designed 53 different churches in London before he died in 1723 at the age of 91.*

There is a story about how he walked unrecognized one day among the men who were at work upon the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral — which he had designed. St. Paul’s Cathedral sits on a hill and is one of London’s most famous and recognizable churches.

“What are you doing?” he inquired of one of the workers, and the man replied, “I am cutting a piece of stone and working hard so I can feed my family.”

As he went on, he put the same question to another man, and the man replied, “I am an expert stonemason, and I am building a solid wall.”

He walked a little further, and around the corner, he asked a third man what he was doing. “I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build a beautiful cathedral that will be a place for worship, where people can come to pray, where the poor can come for clothing and food, for the Almighty.”

This is a parable that has some measure of truth, but I have not been able to find any credible verification. But the point of a story such as this is to illustrate an idea or moral.

All three workers had goals. They expressed these to Sir Christopher when asked what they were doing. We can assume that each stone cutter was skilled, worked hard, and did the same work as the others.

One can guess that their goals kept them motivated. But each viewed their goals differently.

The first two workers had immediate tangible objects as goals – a cut stone block and a well-built wall. However, the third stone cutter’s goal was a purpose, a vision of the future he was working to help achieve.

From this, we can look at all goals at two different levels: at a higher level, such as a purpose, and at a tangible level, which is a practical manifestation of the purpose.

In your practice, these two levels of goals might look something like this:

Higher Goal: Our mission is to help as many people as possible in our community become healthier, relieved of discomfort, and better educated so that they continue to improve their health and those around them.

Practical Goal: A person who completed a program of care, whose pain was relieved and is now healthier and incredibly happy with their results and of the service they received and has enrolled in a wellness program.

Practical goals are quantifiable in a set period. For example, how many new patients can we generate, how many visits can we achieve, and how many programs of care can we complete next month?

There must be an equal emphasis on the higher goal, often called a mission, and the tangle goals, often called quotas or objectives.

Too much attention on the mission, and we live in a dreamland and go broke. Too much attention on production quotas, and we eventually feel like we are on an endless assembly line, find no meaning in our work and lose our motivation.

Like the stone cutters, dream about the cathedral but also set a target for how many blocks you will cut and how many walls you will complete next month.

Both echelons of goals should be viewed, reviewed, revived, and recalculated as needed at each team meeting.

Goals are your future – where you want to be. And, where you want your patients and your community to be. So, nourish them both as a mission and as outcomes, and the work to achieve them will come much faster and easier.

Carpe Posterum (Seize the Future),

*Wikipedia

Why Goals Work and How to Harness Their Power for Greater Prosperity

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Edward Petty

Why do goals work?

We all know the obvious: they help keep you focused, and as Yogi Berra, the baseball catcher, said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

We have all heard about their importance. But we may not have heard or understood WHY.

What is the underlying principle behind goals, and why do they work? What gives them their power? And can you harness it improve your business and its bottom line?

Stick with me and find out…

== == == == ==

It was one of those September days in the Midwest when the leaves were turning orange, and the wind was blowing. I was in Chicago – the Windy City – where I attended a seminar downtown at one of its plush hotels.

The program was kind of out of my league – at least then. The fee for three days was $7,000. I was only attending the first day, which was $1,000 – still a lot of money. But I was drawn to the subject, and I was familiar with the person who was putting it on.

There were aggressive young MBA types flying in from around the country and the world. On the night before, at the hotel where the seminar was to be held, I saw several small groups in lively discussion around laptops – as if they were in the middle of inventing the next Big Thing. I remember talking to one young man from Singapore and learning about the high-energy atmosphere of entrepreneurship there.

The seminar focused on building, buying, or overhauling a business. The speaker was a self-made billionaire, a former management consultant, so his teaching fees did not come cheap. This was not a seminar for dabblers!

The subjects discussed on the first day and, as I learned, on the other two days, were surprisingly uncomplicated. They discussed the key ingredients to look for when deciding what business to build, buy, or grow. These few key factors were introduced on the first day of the seminar and then expanded upon the other two days.

But it all started around one principle: the PARETO PRINCIPLE.

Many of you know the Pareto Principle and the Rule of 80/20. This Principle has been used over the last 50 years by major manufacturing companies to improve the quality of their products. The concept is easy to state but often difficult for entrepreneurs to apply. It predicts that roughly 80% of valuable results come from just 20% of efforts. In some cases, the ratio can even be more extreme so that 10% or even 5% produces 90% or 95% of the results.

Not all efforts are equal: there are the “vital few” efforts and the “useful many” efforts. Workaholic entrepreneurs can struggle to put this concept into practical use. We find that delegating a $20 an hour task is risky, so we will spend time organizing a bookshelf or driving to get office supplies ourselves instead of taking care of a potential $1,000 an hour task, or even a $10,000 an hour task.

As a non-business example of the 80/20 Rule, consider all the clothes in your closet. I bet you wear just 20%, or less, 80% of the time. Then, consider how you get to work – out of all the choices of roads to take, you use just a few of them.

Look at a winning athletic team. Just a few players are responsible for 80% of its success. This does not mean that the other players are not important – just not THAT important.

All efforts are just not equal or average.

How might this apply to your business? Well, for example, 80% or more of customer dissatisfaction comes from 20% or less of your patients. On the other hand, 20% or less of your patients account for 80% of your patient referrals.

As the CEO of your business, what are the vital few actions you can take that will produce the most results? I suggest that defining the business’s goals, ensuring that your team understands them, and keeping these goals alive each week is key.

As Stephen Covey advises: “Begin with the end in mind.” Goals are simply the end you have in mind. On the higher end, they would include your mission, vision, and reason for them – your WHY. They would also include the values you hold as standards of behavior and performance.

These greater goals would be manifested as products or outcomes. For example, if your mission included helping people have healthy teeth, then a practical manifestation of this goal would be “Jim,” a patient, having his teeth cleaned today. If your vision were a healthy and pain-free community, the practical outcomes would be 100 patients adjusted today.

As a doctor, what would be the 20% of your actions that account for 80% of your results? I suggest letting the patient know that you understand their goals and work to help them achieve those goals at each encounter.

As the manager of your business, ensuring each team member knows the goals of their roles and helping them achieve these goals, with good coaching and communication, will produce 80% of their successful efforts.

It all goes back to goals.

They are the leverage points that direct and amplify all your efforts.

But here is the truth you must understand:

A small amount of time consistently spent defining the goals of, and within, your business — and working out how to achieve them — are the vital few actions that produce most of your excellent outcomes.

Know before you go.

If you and your team routinely define and redefine your goals, both the higher ones and the practical ones, and work out how to better achieve them, you will have a more prosperous and stress-free business.

Get the goals right each day, and all else will follow in your favor.

Working towards a better future,

If you don’t have it yet, get my book to learn more about how to use goals in your practice. The Goal Driven Business.

***New Training Program***

Also, stay tuned for a new training program we will be offering on the Goal Driven System. It will be limited to just 10 offices and last for 6 months. Its goal is to train the business owner and manager/senior staff member on the Goal Driven System to transform their practice into a Goal Driven Business. A Goal Driven Business is a team of Goal Drivers. That is what this program will teach you to create. (What is a Goal Driven Business? )

Please contact me if you are interested.

If you are interested in taking the training program on the Goal Driven System, for you and 1 team member, please go here to schedule a time to learn more about it. Schedule a meeting with me.

Goal Driven.com
Petty Michel & Associates

Whose Goals: Yours or Theirs?

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Edward Petty

goals-2022 nurturing your goals to growth

At the beginning of each New Year, it is customary to reflect on the past and look at and set new goals for the New Year.

This can help you have a happier and more prosperous New Year.

Life can get messy and confusing, and like a rookie quarterback facing many onrushing tacklers, even frightening. The solution is to have planned goals already established that you can confidently move forward towards regardless of the circumstances you face.

Here is a vital tip about goals that is often overlooked:

GOALS NEED REGULAR NOURISHMENT.

Weekly, even daily, a fast reflection on where you are going and WHY helps focus and energize your drive towards them. Once established, you need to take time aside weekly, and more so on a monthly and quarterly basis, to rekindle them and mark your progress towards their achievement. Make adjustments and course corrections as needed.

Do this as a scheduled and determined ritual!

Share them as well. There is nothing better than sharing agreed-upon goals with others and working together to make things better. Work with your patients, your team, and your family to achieve shared goals.

And do this or else!

There are good consequences in doing this and not good consequences if omitted. Other powerful interests have different goals for you and your patients. So does plain old inertia.

In this New Year, stay true to your goals, nourish them, and help others do the same.

For more information on how to do this, please read my book, the Goal Driven Business.

Faith Demands to Make a Difference

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Edward Petty

December 30, 2021

A year ago, who knew what the next 12 months would be like?

Yet, here we are today.

As the New Year is just before us, again, one can only wonder at what the future holds. Is this the “New Normal?” How far will it shift in the next twelve months? For you, your patients, and your business?

Whatever new realities lie ahead, we are ready to help you and your business. We will be launching a new approach to practice and business building with the theme of Faster to Your Future in January. It is based upon the book the Goal Driven Business.

But just before we start the New Year, I wanted to pass along a message of encouragement.

It often amazes me that with all the wars, both “hot” and cold, the greed, the fear, and tyranny, with all of mankind’s utter insanity over the centuries, we are doing as well as we are. Somehow, as Abraham Lincoln predicted in his first inaugural address in 1861, “…the better angels of our nature…” came through and prevailed. Whatever challenges we may have, his were enormous. He was facing a nation divided, secession of the southern states, the policy of human slavery, civil war, and a world of other conflicts.

But in the end, there is something about the Innate Goodness of Life that seems to propel mankind forward towards a better future, however slightly. I think that the more we trust in the Better Angels of our Nature, and in the Goodness of Life itself, the more sure our road will be toward a better year for us all and a happier future.

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I’m free to choose what that something is, and the something I’ve chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort.

My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

― Jimmy Carter jimmy carter supervising

So with this, we look forward to working with you to help make 2022 both prosperous and rewarding.

With admiration from all of us at Petty Michel and Associates,

Tent Poster – Reach Your Destination – Churchill

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Linda

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”

Winston S. Churchill

For a printable copy of this tent poster download: Reach Your Destination – Churchill

Goals, Games, and Groundhog Day

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Edward Petty

It is a New Year and already we are knee-deep in its work.

But it is a NEW YEAR and it is important that you take time out to make new plans and then review them often.

Life Works in Cycles

Each year in Wisconsin, the leaves fall and then the snow falls. But by July the strawberries are ready for the pickin’. Every month, we can see the full moon. Each day, we can see the sunrise – if it is not cloudy.

In human endeavors, we seem to follow this natural rhythm of following cycles. After we finish the 9th grade, we are ready to begin the 10th grade. We are excited to finish when we get out of school for the summer, and then again, eager to start the new grade when we begin again in the fall.

These are all cycles.

What would happen if you stayed in the 9th grade, year after year? How would you feel?

Yet, in our work life we fall into the trap of doing the same thing over and over and over. This is not the first unique and special patient you have ever seen…this patient is a customer just like all the others — just another case. Today is not the first day of the rest of your life, it is just like yesterday which is the same as a long line of days that go on and on. And on…

We get beaten down by the tedium, working endlessly for some forgotten purpose, as if the assembly line we were on never stopped and was always the same.

This is a major cause of stress.

Groundhog Day Syndrome

You can’t do one thing forever, like in the movie “Groundhog Day.” In it, the main character visits a town in Pennsylvania where everyone watches to see if a groundhog can see its shadow. This is traditionally on February 2 (This year, it is on a Saturday.) The only problem is, for this character, the day keeps repeating and repeating, the same each day. It drives the character to suicide, but even that doesn’t work. Finally, he falls in love and wins the girl and has a new life.

Anything in life that begins, it seems, must end. It can start again, but it must end so that a new iteration can be created. It is the cycle of life.

Goals and Games

This is an important factor in what is called Gamification. With the advent of computer games, design elements are added in to make the game fun, challenging, and motivational.

But games are nothing new. Baseball is a game. It has a season and games and innings. It has cycles. Games have been part of human behavior since the beginning. The Olympics started in 776 BCE.

One aspect of games that can be overlooked is the fact that they are just an activity for play. Play is something we do naturally as toddlers. As we grow older, this activity becomes structured into organized sports and games, but at the core is the desire to have fun. To play.

We can lose this sense of play when what we do has no end and no beginning. Persistence is a good quality, but it can lead to an enforced dullness that buries our enthusiasm.

It is important to keep in mind that in business, as in sports, keeping the perspective of play is more effective than bearing down on one’s duties with serious gravity. Practices that incorporate some of the components of a game into their operations are more productive and have a better time.

What are your goals for 2019? For the 1st Quarter? For this month… or for today? Higher numbers? New team members? Community wide outreach program? New training and greater knowledge?

As soon as you make a goal, you start a new cycle and begin a new game. Try to win. But you could lose. Either way, don’t get too serious about it and just be grateful to be able to be in the game.

Set new goals and play. Play — to win. Have fun. Smile a little more!

Yearly Goals…Be a Homesteader

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Edward Petty

Sometime back in the late 1800’s, my great great grandfather homesteaded land in Oregon. The way I understand it, he found a plot of land he liked in the southern part of the state. This was his goal. He and his wife then settled on it.

You too can be a homesteader.

You have a chance to stake out your own plot in 2019. You can define where you want to be in the future… and then work it so that it is yours. And if you don’t, well, you will still be somewhere, just not where you want to be.

Life is this river and it just keeps rolling, and we are on it. We are not leaves floating rudderless. We have some choice about where we want to be 12 months from now. We can set a course and navigate and sail or row or jump out and paddle ourselves to where we want to be.

This is why we set goals and a course of action. We don’t want to wind up broken and dead on the rocks, or stuck idle in a rancid stinky lagoon that goes nowhere!

But when you do set goals for your business, or even for your career, they are often too lop-sided. They are not holistic. You might say that they are symptomatic. We may only shoot for the amount of money we want to make. This isn’t bad, it just isn’t enough. It is too superficial.

If you want to make more money, you have to see more people. If you want to see more people, you have to take better care of them. To do so, you have to improve your services. To do this, you have to improve your expertise and the expertise of others who see your patients. Lastly, you can’t be an old grouch, unhappy with a poorly managed personal life.

You are in the business of improvement! To improve people, you also have to improve your business. To improve your business, you have to improve the professional skill of each member of the business. Lastly, each member of the team has to work on self-improvement.

Make these into your goals.

DRIVE each other to achieve these goals.

Be GOAL DRIVEN!!

IF this is done, how could you – or anyone lose? Everyone wins.

So, to keep it simple, see the attached worksheet. Set your goals for each area, and every three months, ESCAPE to a place where there is no interruption, your “laboratory,” to confront how you did and make any necessary adjustments to your plans and continue your journey to your yearly goals.

Yearly Goals Worksheet — Link

Set aside 2 or more hours at the beginning of the year and the beginning of each new quarter (3-month period) to review your past and set new goals.

To do this, you must get away. Turn off the phones and remove ALL distractions. You are going to your Goals Laboratory and humbly review the past and boldly make new plans for the future.

You will fall off the rails, so every three months, you will have already scheduled time to review your failings and triumphs and reset. You can now get back on track and re-plan and go forward to the next three-month marker.

Use the worksheet to help you have a Goal Driven year.

Good travels and Bon Voyage.

— Ed

Yearly Goals Worksheet

Goal-Driven Customer Service (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Edward Petty

“Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.” Ken Blanchard, Raving Fans

Customer Service is one of the 5 Power Drivers of your business.

It is the least expensive form of marketing you have and will be your surest guarantee to profits in the years to come.

But in my work in business development, and my experience as a consumer, most service is just adequate. It is “nice.” If it was any less, there wouldn’t be any service at all. Most service is just good enough to get by.

The most common examples of poor service I have witnessed were encounters by the provider that were so routine as to become rote and even superficial. Services were provided as part of a checklist, almost robotically. Even with all the smiles and friendly chatter, this customer was just like all the others before – nobody special. Added to this, the support staff were disengaged, bored, or even irritated at the customer for the interruption.

I have done enough customer interviews to know that most of those who give online reviews, for example, do so out of a sense of friendship and support, rather than from their exuberant advocacy. They are sincere, but just not that excited about the services they received.

For example, how would you compare your last visit with your attorney, dentist or accountant? They got the job done, right? But, it wasn’t “WOW… I just saw my dentist and it was awesome!”

You wouldn’t stand in line to see your accountant all night like people do to get a new iPhone or tickets to a favorite rock concert.

But this is the value customers will need to place on your services inorder for your business to thrive in the next ten years and more

Why Customer Service is SO Important

Customer Service Now

There are dozens of books and studies that document why customer service is vital to the health of your business. Every year there are new studies that show the importance of excellent customer service. I am sure that you have seen them.

Some highlights:

Americans continue to reward companies that get service right. US consumers say they’re willing to spend 17 percent more to do business with companies that deliver excellent service, up from 14 percent in 2014. As a group, Millennials are willing to spend the most for great care. (21% additional), (American Express 2017 Customer Service Barometer)
Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys can increase customer satisfaction by 20%, lift revenue by 15% and lower the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%. (McKinsey & Company)
86% of consumers are willing to pay more for an upgraded experience. (ThinkJar)
One happy customer can equal as many as 9 referrals for your business. (American Express)
A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10%. (Leading on the Edge of Chaos, Emmet Murphy and Mark Murphy)
One happy customer can equal as many as 9 referrals for your business. (American Express)

On the down side:

A typical business hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers. (“Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner)
85% of customer churn due to poor service was preventable. (ThinkJar, Inc.)
89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service. (Rightnow Customer Experience Impact Report)
Depending on which study you believe, and what industry you’re in, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. (Harvard Business Review, 2014)

Customer Service in the Future

As we move into the 2020’s, the quality of your service will be more important than ever before. It will be the distinguishing factor between your business and others that provide comparable services.

A recent report from a survey by Microsoft stated: “As customer expectations continue to climb, it becomes more challenging for brands to set themselves apart from the competition. Markets are increasingly crowded, and both price and product are being steadily overtaken by customer experience as the number one brand differentiator. (2018 state of global customer service report (Microsoft))

Research by Walker, Inc., predicted that by 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the main differentiator.

Your Replacement Is Being Shipped Now

Artificial Intelligence is coming for you.

By 2029, machines will be able to match human intelligence. This is a prediction by Ray Kurzweil (co-founder and chancellor of Singularity University and Google engineer and author of The Singularity is Near). Kurzweil, along with other futurists, predict that computers will be building computers faster and smarter than humans – and this would create a technological singularity – where the speed of technology development of increases infinity fast. According to Peter Rejcek – there is serious investment based upon these predictions. (Singualrityhub.com, March 31, 2017)

How will A.I. impact the professions? How will this impact you?

“Whatever terminology is preferred, we foresee that, in the end, the traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most (but not all) professionals to be replaced by less expert people and high-performing systems. “(The Future of Professions, Susskind and Susskind, Page 303, 2015)

The Future Belongs to Those Who Provide the World Class Service

This is the writing on the wall and those smart enough, will heed it.

I truly hope that this is you.

If you are not the best in your niche, the time will come when you will be left behind – like an abandoned roadside fruit stand bypassed by a newer and faster road.

I want to give you some insight and actions steps so that you will be a winner and a profitable leader in your profession well into the 2020’s.

But beware — there are booby traps and thieves along the way that can rob you of your success. So, let’s look at these villains hang out so that you are prepared and able to create World Class service and dominate your niche.

Six Barriers to Extra-Ordinary Service

1. Organizational demands eventually wear down the provider into mediocrity

How can a provider become a master at their craft and focus on creating great results while at the same time trying to run their growing business? There is just too much to do. All this work finally hobbles excellent service and outcomes.
There is just too much to do – too many roles to assume, too many hats to wear.

2. Hubris

To achieve any success at all, you have had to persevere and breakthrough many challenges. You have many reasons, therefore, to feel that your way is a winning way because, obviously, it has worked. At least up to now.

But great service is not about you, it is not about your business or philosophy or religion or any of your bias’. It is solely about your customer. It is their goals, not yours and not those of the business, that must be achieved.

You must have humility to review the outcomes of your work and question how you can improve as a provider – and how the actions of your support team can also improve.

3. You and your team have lost sight of the value of your services.

The business of providing service to your customers can begin to overshadow the benefits they receive. At some point, the people you care for become “cases,” and their individuality blurs with everyone else’s.

Sometimes the “negative few outweigh the positive many,” and we can’t see or appreciate all the good our services have done for our customers, their families, and even the community.

The joy of helping others and the victories of seeing your customers overcome their issues no longer make you smile or fill your chest with confidence and pride.

4. Culture – Our Shallow World

We live in a fast-paced world that does not seem to have time for understanding, empathy, or thorough results.

We are all in a hurry, and for the most part, don’t expect, or demand, much from our providers.

There also still lingers an assembly-line culture of receiving a manufactured template from our providers, or at least their support team. And, as providers and support professionals, we can fall into the assembly-line mode of just seeing “another case,” with all their problems, idiosyncrasies, and often confused rudeness.

We end up short-changing our customers on the benefits that they could be receiving.

5. The Invisible Product

You are selling and delivering a product that is invisible.

It is not like buying a refrigerator, a car or a kite.

But customers don’t always know what criteria they should use to judge their results. They don’t know the process that is undertaken to deliver the outcomes they want, or even what the potential outcomes are.

So accustom to the objective criteria of your services, you may not appreciate the customer’s lack of understanding about the nature of their situation. As a result, the customer doesn’t know if they had a minor service or a complete one.

Standards become foggy, outcomes become poorly defined. Customers leave unhappy or confused and the provider is dismayed.

6. Not Yet a Champion

There really is a difference between a rookie and a master.

The idea of mastery is a dominate value in sports, music, and in some of the professions. But we live in a commoditized world and we want our gratification fast.

Employees don’t see their roles as a journey to becoming experts, and neither do many providers of services. Everyone works hard and gets results. Isn’t that enough?

No. It isn’t.

Plain and ordinary service will not grow your business. If you and your support staff are not working hard on becoming masters in delivering World Class service, your customers and potential customers will be seeking businesses that are.

# # #

Stay tuned for Part 2: How to Create World Class Outcomes, Provide Extra-ordinary Service, and Raving Fans!

The Importance of Why in Chiropractic Practice Development

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Edward Petty

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]

Faster To Tomorrow

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Edward Petty

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)

: Ed Petty and 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.

On February 1st we will be announcing new management technologies to get you to your goals faster and funner. Or Funnier.

In either case, please stay tuned.

There is nothing like a dream…

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Edward Petty

What will the New Year bring – for you, your family, and your business?

No one can know for sure. But we do know this much – either you create it or someone will create it for you.

Your dreams count. They count more than anyone may have let you to believe.

All things are created twice. First you dream your dream, then you build it.

We’d like to help you build your dreams in 2013. There is no getting around it – we are all in this together.

And, by the way, we want to thank you for your efforts in making this world a better place. We know how hard you work and the sacrifices you sometimes have to make. We also know that you aren’t always recognized for the good you do.

We know that the world will be a better place in 2013 because of your dreams and efforts.

So, here comes 2013. Let’s get busy – it will be a blast!

Spring and Meaning

Posted on March 20, 2008 by Edward Petty

Spring.

And almost three months into the New Year.

It was just 3 months ago when the New Year began. What about those goals you set? Those resolutions you made? How are you doing on achieving them?

You know, it is just amazing, working with the great doctors and staffs that we do. It is so evident that success is so attainable. It is just peeking around the corner, waiting for you to do just that next key action that will propel your office to pick up the speed needed to take you to the next level.

One doctor we are working with, after being in practice nearly 20 years, is hitting his best ever days and highest ever weeks this month. His staff have been emailing us their successes as if they are texting us from a rock concert!

We live for this stuff, by the way – your successes. Many times after years of gradual improvements, it is so gratifying to see an office take off with stability.

Another doctor who has been in practice for years has been breaking collections records. And volume…seems like it is nothing to have a 1000 visit month – with many if not most new patients coming in from referrals. One doctor we work with routinely sees over 1000 visits each month, and each month works with his colleagues and associates to help them hit their best-evers. Another doctor had over 150 on the books for him to see yesterday (Wednesday).

From our perspective, it looks like chiropractic is having a renaissance.

Of course, this is not the case with all of our clients. Some are still laying foundations for future growth. Success can come, but sometimes only after years of implementing the right procedures.

But what are these “right procedures”, and where do you look? Insurance department, clinic management and organization, marketing?

Some of you may feel that you are in a rut, that you and your practice are stuck. If so, take heart and have hope. Things can change and you can do better. We have seen it happen with many doctors in these last three months.

There are so many distractions in our lives, and many of them are negative and disheartening. Demoralizing. Frightening. Discouraging. Yet, we see doctors who have been stuck, finally get things going and do better. After years of stagnation, we see them do their best ever.

Practice development success is dependent on the quality of your systems and organization. That’s 50%

What’s the other 50%?

Part II

The other 50% is an “Inside Job.” That is, your success is dependent upon the structure of your office, but also on the function of your behavior. The quality, and quantity, of your energy, your attitude, and your creativity is easily 50% the cause of your success, or not.

So, if your numbers are down, you should spend half your time improving your systems, and half your time…improving yourself.

Are you frightened stiff? Have you developed “hardening of the attitudes”? Are you resentful, a seething caldron of anger? Do you feel burned out, frustrated, or feel like you just can not make the changes needed? Believe me, this manifests one way or another in your practice. And in all areas of your life.

We all experience these feelings, among others, at times. Sometimes they are acute. But after you have been in business for a while, you may not even notice that you have become less than enthusiastic about practice.

Yet, even if you were locked up in solitary confinement, you would still have the power of choice. You could still be creative. Even if you were shackled, starved, beaten, imprisoned, you could still find meaning and purpose in your life.

This is the basis of an entire branch of psychology as developed by a former prisoner of the Nazi death camps, Victor Frankl. His observations lead him to identify what he saw as the basic principles of living, including:

“Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
“Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.”

Successful people have meaning in their lives.

If you can find purpose and meaning in this very moment, in this day, with your next patient, with this year, your probability of success will be greatly increased. More importantly, you will find that what you are doing is more satisfying.

Fear will vanish, hardened attitudes will become flexible, and your energy will return.

Structural changes will need to take place, of course. Better clinic systems and organizational procedures will then take you to the top. And keep you there.

We can help with all of these, by the way. But you should know and be reassured that chiropractic is happening. It is hip, it is popular, and it is growing, probably more so now than ever before.

Naysayers say otherwise to promote their goods or services. They are sell outs. Don’t buy what they are peddling. Chiropractors have always been challenged and it is actually what has helped you be strong and survive. Insurance cutbacks are not new.

After more than 20 years in business, we are still amazed each day when we hear of the stories patients tell of their success.

Chiropractic works. It has, does, and will for at least the rest of this year. So, find your meanings and purposes, get help to upgrade your clinic procedures and organization, and make those yearly goals you set for 2008.

Heck — why not beat them and make this year your best ever?

Spring has its own meaning, its own purpose: to grow and create. This can be your purpose too.

Every moment, every day. Right now.

Goals For Patients and Chiropractors

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Edward Petty

Goals Give Us Tools to Put Dreams Into Action

Phyllis A Frase

If each of us is on a lifelong journey to find our hat, to know who we are, then by implication we are all on a journey to somewhere. It is our passion for that destination that makes us engaged and purposeful about our work and lives. Without a dream, without goals, we have no direction. As the old expression says, “If you don’t know where you are going, any path will get you there.”

William James, the visionary turn-of-the-century psychologist, might be considered one of the fathers of self-actualization. He understood the power of our thoughts to affect our lives. His advice then is as true today as ever: “Seek out that particular mental attitude which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘this is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude follow it.”

Many, many people are afraid to follow their dreams. They are afraid of goals or at least resist them. They think goals take the fluidity and spontaneity out of life. And they worry about how they will feel if they don’t reach them.

But we need to remember that goals are not a blueprint; they simply provide a vision.

Think about it in terms of a fishing line. A big goal, like a big fish, puts some tension on the line. You’ve got to have tension to succeed. You can’t catch a fish without it. If you line goes slack, you know you’ve lost a big one. If you yank too hard, you risk losing the fish and the lure as well.

We teach our patients our chiropractic truth and values. We offer gentle but continuous pressure to gradually pull and lure them into referring, committed lifetime oriented chiropractic patients. But if you lose patience and jerk the line too often, you can lose the patient by not having systems and procedures that guide that patient. Constant dialogues, clarity, trust and soft tension on the line—those are the qualities that lead to the results and relationship we look to have with our patients.

In your life you’ve got to go after your goals and dreams. Of course, for the passion and the persistence to be there, and to take ACTION and not think about it, they need to be aligned with who you are and not what everyone else thinks you are. They also need to be about what you what to accomplish. And yes, you will surely lose some. But you can’t catch a dream without tension on the line.

So be purposeful. Don’t be satisfied just dawdling along. We need to save people chiropractically…..If you don’t do it and take action, who will?

Observations

observations from our travels in the world of chiropractic

Tag Archives: goals