“My reaction, was what’s next? How are we going to make it better?
Craig Counsell, Manager, Milwaukee Brewers, Professional Baseball Team
For a printable copy of this tent poster click the link: What’s Next Craig Counsell
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.
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.
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
OK, I admit it. Medicare is not the most glamourous topic to write about, nor does much of it pertain to our world of the chiropractic profession as we know it. However with that said, I am doing due diligence for you and fulfilling my duty to inform you of the necessary requirements a Covered Entity must follow (that’s us included!) to keep the Office of Inspector General off our backs and to help you take preventive measures so you’re not sending back reimbursement money you earned from providing patient care.
Because . . . based on my observations in the field – and this is a review for those of you who read our PM&A articles and utilize our library- how many of you know, for example, what a Part C Medicare plan is? How many of you know that all Part C providers are required to undergo annual Fraud Waste and Abuse training?
Second example: How many of you are aware that Medicare, starting in April of this year and going into April of 2019, is sending all of their beneficiaries new ID cards in an effort to do away with social security numbers for the sake of safeguarding identification?
So how do my two examples above directly impact you, your practice, and your bottom line?
Let’s circle back to the first example. A Part C Medicare Plan is known as a Medicare Advantage Plan. It oftentimes covers more services than a straight Medicare plan does. HMO/PPOs such as Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield have developed their own Medicare Advantage Plans and offer them to their policyholders, your patients. A patient who signs up for an Advantage Plan must also be enrolled in Medicare A (hospital), and Medicare B (outpatient provider services). Medicare Part C providers to date have been required to, annually, undergo what is called Fraud, Waste and Abuse Training. Let’s take each of the three words and define them from the Medicare and Medicaid world.
*Downcoding is also a misuse of billing codes. Stop doing it. Although not intended to increase reimbursement it is a red flag to Medicare, and your services will be questioned as to if they were “medically necessary.”
Back to the training . . . I urge you now to complete this training by the end of December. It is intended for doctors and staff. Download the PowerPoint below, read thoroughly and after completion have each staff and doctor sign off to attest, they read through the PowerPoint. The sign-off can be as simple as logging signatures and completion date in a notebook or a spreadsheet. It is not necessary to print out the PowerPoint. Oh, and many insurance contracts require this training as a contract obligation to be part of their network as well. You can access Medicare’s training PowerPoint here: Fraud, Waste and Abuse
Referring back to the second example of new Medicare cards. You can review our previous article and checklist here: New Medicare Beneficiary Indentifiers to be Assigned Your Patients
Your staff should be asking Medicare patients for their new cards, making a copy, and making sure the address in your practice management program matches the address the Social Security office has on file. If there is a mismatch like the patient has moved and not updated their address, you will have problems getting reimbursed. Make sure your Insurance Profiles in your programs have the new Medicare IDs.
Stay tuned for more helpful articles like this. If you have any questions on the above, contact me! I’m here to help.
Lisa Barnett
920-334-4561
lisa@pmaworks.com
And remember . . .
“The Future Will Be Our Results” (Clarence Gonstead, D.C.)
How do we overcome these barriers to extra-ordinary service?
Let’s first define “service.” Service in a professional service firm or professional practice includes two categories:
A. Outcomes. These are the results from the provider.
B. Customer experience. This comes from what the customer experiences as they move along their pathway through your business.
Let’s begin with your goals.
To create world class outcomes and service, you first need to review your most senior goals. Then, you have to ensure everyone understands them, agrees to them, and commits to doing everything possible to achieve them.
Setting purposeful goals over a lunch meeting does not take into account the sacrifice and effort that will be necessary to achieve them. You may commit to your own goals, but like New Year’s resolutions to go to the gym, you get distracted and discontinue after a few weeks. Some of your team may say they understand the goals – even agree to them – but in fact are only passengers along for the ride.
So, you should review and recommit to your goals each week. Be insistent, allowing for shortfalls now and then, but not compromising in the long run. Be true to your goals or make new ones. Spend time on these three:
a) Mission
This is the purpose of your office. It should be short and to the point and should include something about excellent service and outcomes and helping as many as possible.
b) Core Values
These are the standards for professional behavior and performance. List what values you consider most important in providing health care.
c) Patient Outcomes
Define where you are taking your patients. Relief care only? Or are you taking them further to better health and wellness?
Be true to your goals.
Because of your clinical skill, you can produce wonderful outcomes. But can you do even better? Here are some masters in their field as examples of professionals that never stopped improving their craft:
Music: Pablo Casals
Pablo Casals was a cellist – regarded as the best that ever lived. He was born in 1876 in Catalonia, Spain. In 1963 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F Kennedy, and in 1971, two months before his 95th birthday, he performed for the United Nations and accepted the U.N. Peace medal.
Casals was talented, but he practiced daily. There is a story about Casals and his training regimen:
He [Casals] agreed to have Robert Snyder make a movie short, “A Day in the Life of Pablo Casals.” Snyder asked Casals, the world’s foremost cellist, why he continues to practice four and five hours a day.
Casals answered: “Because I think I am making progress.”
Food Preparation: Chef Jiro Ono
If you want and value good sushi, Chef Jiro Ono is your guy. He was 92 at the time of this writing. He still works in his small restaurant in Tokyo that holds only 20 people at a time. The waiting list can be over a year. Still, at his age, he works on perfecting every aspect of the sushi, from selecting the exact right fish early at the fish market, to the exact texture of the rice. And every night he considers how he can improve on that day’s production. He is considered the foremost sushi chef in the world. (Jiro Dreams of Sushi, David Gelb 2011 documentary, Wikipedia)
“Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success…… Even though I’m eighty-five years old, I don’t feel like retiring.” Jiro Ono (Jiro dreams of sushi, 2011)
Health Care: Clarence Gonstead
Clarence Gonstead was a chiropractor, born in 1898 and grew up in Wisconsin. In 1923, Dr. Gonstead graduated from Palmer Chiropractic College and began practicing. In 1939, he built a new chiropractic office in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.
Because of the growth of his practice, a new Gonstead Clinic of Chiropractic was completed 1964. It was a two-level facility with 29,000 square feet. In 1965, adjacent to the new clinic, a full-service motel was built. Gonstead’s reputation as a remarkable chiropractor had spread beyond the United States and he had patients flying in from all over the world. To assist these patients, he set up a limousine service between the Madison, Wisconsin, airport and the Gonstead clinic about 30 miles away. Patients with their own private planes could fly in and land at Gonstead’s personal airport located next to his home on the outskirts of Mount Horeb.
With no marketing, his practice grew so that that he was seeing over 250 patients per day, working six-and-a-half days a week. He often treated his last patient at 2:30 in the morning.
Gonstead studied and improved his craft. He was not, as a founder of a chiropractic college would later say, a “commercial chiropractor.” He was focused on results and said: “Our future will be our results.”
Eventually, he began teaching others his system which is now recognized around the planet as one of the most effective and popular forms of chiropractic technique. He encouraged other chiropractors to study and to “Practice. Practice. Practice. Never stop.”
So, be like Jiro, Pablo, or Clarence! Use “deliberate practice” and look to see how you can improve your skills and methods so that your customers can achieve their goals faster and better.
Never stop improving your craftsmanship.
It is almost impossible to focus on excellent patient outcomes and run a growing business at the same time. You need a strong support infrastructure. This means professional team members that are trained and motivated to apply procedures that are both simple and effective.
Chiropractic works. Not having a smooth-running support structure is the primary element that is in your way from developing your practice to its full potential.
This has been the major focus of our work over the last 30 plus years. We have found that the better the support, the better the outcomes and the happier the doctor and staff.
Improve your people and systems.
“If you go into any organization that’s customer-facing, you can tell in five minutes when the employees are feeling abused. They retaliate on the customers.” Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor at Stanford University
The way the employees are treated directly affects the service that they will provide to the customer.
Sure, work can be stressful at times. Maybe someone snaps at someone else. This happens in any high-performance activity. But as long as we all share the same mission and values, we can address our personal slights to each other and move on.
It is everyone’s responsibility to create a cheerful work environment for each other. If you are having fun, so will our patients.
Smile more — and make work fun!
“If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’.” Henry Ford.
Of course, you give people want they want – what they consider urgent and important.
But people didn’t want a faster horse, they just wanted faster transportation. Horse, car, airplane… they wanted to get to where they wanted to go – faster. They just didn’t know about how simple, fast, and easy a Model-T was.
You must show them through education that you have what they want and need.
Most offices provide relief. That is what the patient is aware of and willing to pay for. But since you are providing a product that is not tangible using procedures that are invisible, your customer may have a difficult time understanding anything beyond the “quick fix.”
They may know they want more but lack the understanding of what is available.
I know I need to pay my taxes, but what I really want is to pay as little as possible. I also would like to contribute to my children’s education. With some education, my accountant could make me aware of different strategies that would take me to my full goal.
“Customers are thirsty for more information and knowledge,” according to studies by ThinkJar, a customer strategy consultancy.
To deliver your best and complete outcomes, you need your patient’s motivation to do so. It is a path and a partnership that you travel together.
The better that they understand their condition and your unique remedy, the easier it will be for you to help them achieve the best outcome possible.
The more they know — the further they’ll go!
Making the patient experience “WOW” takes a team effort.
If studies show that customers discontinue a service mostly because of a lack of interest on the part of the service provider — and your own personal experience validates this fact, then the solution is simple. Just be genuine and interested in your patients. Be empathetic. Take the time to be totally present, in the “now,” and have “present time consciousness.” You only have 1 patient, and that is the one you are with, or about to see.
Then, when you practice with your team at team meetings, focus on this: the level of honest interest, curiosity, and care.
Practicing scrapes off the “barnacles” that attach to us all as we soldier through our work days. Here are some training tips for working on improving customer service with your team:
Lay out the pathway to and through your services. Do this with your team.
This begins even before your patients contact you. Who are they? Mom’s, seniors, kids? What brings them to you? What other solutions have they tried before they came to you? Get to know them and empathize with their condition.
Then, list the sequence of actions, or a flow chart of what occurs from first contact through their first service and leaving. Drawing this out with your team will expose many areas for improvement.
Against this flow chart, you and your team can now look at where you can add more benefits for your customers.
I have found that practicing a “walk-through” reveals many hidden plusses – and embarrassing weaknesses, in service. The doctor or a team member takes on the role of a customer. They then travel some portion of the patient pathway with the usual team in their roles, acting as if they are dealing with an actual patient.
You are guaranteed to find areas where service can be improved.
Bain Consulting, an international management company, identified 30 different elements of value relative to consumer needs in an extensive study. They categorized these customer values into four categories:
In their research, Bain noticed that the companies that had the highest ratings on the most values had more loyal customers than the rest. They also found that these companies had faster revenue growth than others.
Good service pays. Great services pay even better!
With this in mind, look again at your flow chart and notice where you can add more value to your services. Start with the direct service to your customer, the “functional” areas of your business. For example, how could your customers receive their services:
In the next category that Bain used, what kind of “emotional” values could you add, including:
The next two categories relate to higher purposes. “Life changing” and “Self-transcendence,” including:
Edward Petty
“Our future will be our results.”
Clarence Gonstead, D.C. (1898 – 1978)
For a printable version of this tent poster click Future Results – Gonstead
“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
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:
On the down side:
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
# # #
“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”
— Zig Ziglar
For a printable version of this tent poster email us.
“I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.”
–Arnold Schwartzenegar
For a printable version of this tent poster visit: Stronger Than We Know
“It’s so easy to be great nowadays because everyone else is weak. If you have ANY mental toughness, if you have any fraction of self-discipline; The ability to not want to do it, but still do it; If you can get through to doing things that you hate to do: on the other side is GREATNESS ”
— David Goggins
For a printable version of this tent poster visit: Mental Toughness:Goggins
Hi and Summer Greetings!
A vital component in our 3 Goals System is the importance of becoming an expert.
I’ll cut right to the most immediate reason:
Research shows that experts in any field or role make more money.
In high complexity jobs like professionals, the top 10% produce 80% more than average and 700% more than the bottom 10%[i].
But this is also true in less complex jobs, where it was found that the top 10% of workers produce 25% more than the average, and 75% more than the bottom 10%.
Aside from high school interns that help file and run errands, all the roles in your office are high complexity.
So, how do you become an expert?
From the book, the Talent Code[ii]:
Plus, I believe that through advertising we have been encultured to think in terms of instant gratification – I can get a “meal” through the drive-in at McDonald’s and replace that broken appliance through Amazon Prime.
And providers… you too are often so distracted by organizational issues that, well, good enough is good enough. You get fine results, right?
But I will remind you of Clarence Gonstead.
He continually worked at developing his skills and methodology. Everything else followed, including thousands of patients, so many in fact that he had to build a hotel next to his clinic for those coming from out of town.
And the key is deliberate. Take some aspect of your job and work – deliberately. You might be surprised on how you might have taken some procedure for granted as working but when you examine it, you discover that there is a lot of room for improvement.
Research shows that doctors who have been in practice for twenty or more years do worse on certain objective measures of performance than those who are just two or three years out of medical school.
The reason for this is that doctors working day-in and day-out can begin to go on automatic because their work no longer pushes them out of their comfort zones[iii].
I know… I talk about this all the time …and will continue to do so as it is one of the least expensive methods to improve your business and increase income. And I know you also know this! So, this is just a friendly reminder to train and encourage your team to become experts.
I suggest your goal is to create a team of experts, and… and Expert Team!
[i] Hunter, J. E., Schmidt, F. L., Judiesch, M. K., (1990) “Individual Differences in Output Variability as a Function of Job Complexity”, Journal of Applied Psychology
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=fulltext.journal&jcode=apl&vol=75&issue=1&page=28&format=HTML
https://80000hours.org/2012/09/how-good-are-the-best/
[ii] The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. by Daniel Coyle
[iii] Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson
Ed’s Training Maxims
I am working on some sayings, or aphorisms on training and study. I have come up with a few.
Don’t cringe…!
Can you add any?
Not mine, but good ones:
I’m facing the “BIG 60” in just a couple of days. With that, back in April, I decided to take on the Great Cycle Challenge, which is a bicycle challenge during the month of June for Children’s Cancer Research. My goal was to ride 60 miles during the month of June with 60 friends sponsoring me at $10.00 each to raise $600.00.
This challenge has been more eye opening than I had anticipated.
I haven’t really done much bike riding in probably 35 years. The peaceful rides through the countryside along the White River Trail in Lyons have given me time to reflect on much more than raising money for Children’s Cancer and/or the fact that I’m turning 60.
Each day, while riding, a thought would pop into my head of someone I knew that has had to face cancer. When my (ars) began to pain me…. I would think of those going through treatment and the challenge they face each day of their cancer treatment journey. I would think of the challenges each family faces as their loved one struggles through the pain and how it really affects the whole family when one is afflicted. I would think of those that have lost the battle to this horrible disease. This was motivation enough for me to continue the ride returning to the comfort of my home.
Usually allowing a day in between rides to rest and rejuvenate today was different… I rode 8 miles yesterday and set out for 8 today. Passing the half way mark the ride again became uncomfortable to say the least. Again, I tried to focus on something other than the pain.
Immediately, “DRIVEN” came to mind. My mind pondered that word for a moment…thoughts racing to my head.
When I have a birthday I often reflect on the past, where I’ve been and where I’m headed.
Ed has been an instrumental piece in my life providing me the motivation, knowledge and guidance to become a better person both personally and professionally. He has helped me develop good communication skills, encourages a healthier lifestyle, and is there to listen when faced with a personal challenge. Ed was one of the first people I was able to reach when my husband was killed at work just over 7 years ago. I’m sure my call came to him as a shock as much as the call I received did however during that brief call he calmly presented me with two options. “You can choose to wallow in your loss and look for sympathy from those around you or you can face the challenge and move forward.” Again, that “driven” attitude to move outside our comfort zone at the forefront.
Happy Father’s Day to all those that Drive you to Excellence!
* https://pmaworks.com/observations/goggins/
David Goggins
Now and then I see a motivational talk that I find inspiring.
It doesn’t happen too often.
Below you will find links to an interview with David Goggins. I can’t say much about it other than I found it inspiring and relevant. He reminded me that by pushing through, and not dodging from, discomfort when working toward important goals can lead to success and fulfillment. An important lesson for us all.
David talks about how he achieved his goals. He is an American ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete and former world record holder for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours. He is a retired United States Navy SEAL who took part in the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.
Please watch it. If it resonates with you, you may want to watch it with your team and discuss afterwards.
Sincerely,
Ed
Photo from Wikipedia
Thanks to Dr. Maxwell for the reference.
Links to interview:
NOTICE: Some use of profanity #@!*#!
“I have no other definition of success than leading an honorable life.”
Nassim Taleb
For a printable version of this test poster email us.
May is Good Posture Month.
I am not sure who claims this … the ACA (American Chiropractic Association) and ICA (International Chiropractic Association) used to, but after a fast look at their websites recently, it doesn’t look like they do anymore. Plenty of other websites do, however. See below, for examples.
Posture is a big deal, apparently, from a clinical and health point of view. Patients should know this. But patients are also concerned about their appearance and no matter how much you spend on your clothes, nothing looks good when you have poor posture. There are also mental ramifications to poor posture as well. So… lots of good material here to promote and help your peeps!
Use this event as a reason to encourage your patients to bring in their family and friends. You can change the flier to a community ad for anyone to come in. Use the sample poster and edit to suit your needs. Hang it in your office, fold and include in patient statements, include in your newsletters. Use the promotion all month, or just for one week to make it more “special.”
Attached is a sample poster flier in Word and in PDF format, also an article I wrote on this event some years ago for some more ideas.
Carpe Diem (Seize the Day…and the month of May!)
================
Useful links:
http://posturemonth.org/posture-month/
http://www.whathealth.com/awareness/event/correctposturemonth.html
http://www.straightenupamerica.org/
“I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.”
— Elon Musk
Below is a link to a poster you and your team can refer to that lists the principles which form the basis of chiropractic.
Principles are basic: if you understand them then everything else makes more sense. If you really understand principles, you can develop your own effective procedures in administration, marketing, and patient care.
These 33 principles were published in 1927 by Dr. Stephenson. However, according to Rob Sinnott, D.C.:
“…these 33 principles were the result of decades of effort and consideration. It is also now clear that they were not first written by Dr. Stephenson. As a matter of fact, most of these principles are contained in other language in D.D. Palmer’s 1906 and 1910 texts long before Dr. Stephenson’s well-known effort.”
You may already have these 33 principles hanging in your team breakroom and refer to at your team meetings.
If so… great! Let this then just be an encouragement to continue.
However, if you are not, then please do so.
The chiropractic profession operates in a different model of health than the medical model. In fact, it could be said that the chiropractic system operates outside of the conventual commercial matrix that persuades people to seek symptomatic gratification through pharmaceuticals, bad food, and often, bad culture.
But grassroots trends are on our side. Organic food sales have been booming and people want natural, sustainable solutions. New yoga studios are sprouting up even faster than essential oil representatives, both of which emphasize natural health and “P.T.C.” – “present time consciousness” (an old Dr. Jimmy Parker acronym). And our professional athletes and their teams standardly utilize chiropractic services.
The world is catching up to chiropractic. It wants what you have and have had for over 100 years – natural health and health freedom.
Even though these principles may seem like “old news” in chiropractic and not high-tech, they are, in fact, just catching on. But you must own these principles and this niche in the market-place — and teach them to your team members – and your entire practice family. Do so to improve everyone’s understanding of health and to increase their motivation to improve it. But teaching it also benefits your work in practice management.
You want to get everyone on your team playing in the same ballpark, working in the same model of health and business. Going over these principles will help create a positive team culture that will improve practice performance.
Ed Petty
References:
http://www.elonmusk.info
Interview by Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) is editor in chief of Wired 10/21/12
Textbook of Chiropractic Philosophy, Vol.1, Rob Sinnott, D.C., DPhSC
Download the Poster now: The Thirty Three Principles of Chiropractic-2018
It’s a New Year!
And if you are just reading this in March or September, it’s a new month or a new week!
Whatever time of year it is, it is always time to get the “Word” out your servcies.
It’s time to tell everyone in and around your office and community — about your chiropractic and professional services and how they should get them now!
But what is the best way to do this?
Well, obviously, with each person you see when you are seeing them. You – and your health team – have a captive audience. Sometimes referred to as “Table Talk,” this is your way of educating your people at the time of service.
You can augment this with new patient workshops that motivate, educate, and entertain your people. It is a free class but is part of their treatment program because you have found that people “get better faster and stay healthier longer if they get a better understanding of the health process we are doing together.” Also…“It assists with your treatment program and you get a better return on the work you put in. It is just a good investment!”
Then…don’t forget your team. They need to hear about the successes and case stories of how their office really helps people.
But your patients aren’t always in your office. What then? Shouldn’t your conversation with them continue? Other vendors are certainly getting their “word” out. Pharmaceutical ads are pervasive.
What about people who have not discovered you yet – how do best tell them about how you can help them and why they should see you?
Many of you make posts on Facebook in hopes that this will help market your services.
Does it?
What about email? Some of you subscribe to template emails that go out to your patients. How is this working?
I have some strong feelings about this subject — but first I wanted to see what others have said and what the studies show. Here is the question:
Which works better?
According to most of the surveys that I have seen, email is the winner.
But comparing both mediums is like comparing apples to oranges — both work depending on how much time and expertise you put into it.
But it stands to reason that if you have someone’s email, they are a subscriber and have given you permission to address them personally.
From a sampling of various studies and surveys (references at the end of this article):
“Where is the first place you go online in a typical day?”
“Where do you look when you want a deal from a company that you know?”
Email reaches 79% of the people you send it to (this is the global average inbox placement rate). On the other hand, Facebook’s organic reach has declined to about 1 to 6%, depending on your total number of fans.
So the stats and studies seem to show that you are going to get a better ROI from email.
Over the years, I have observed that patient referrals, patient visit average, and reactivations improve with regular emails.
Facebook and social media can help create familiarity and trust. From this you can direct people to your website for upcoming events or information. You can also buy ads that target specific types of potential patients and set up workshops or make special offers. I have seen this work on occasion very well
But the algorithms, or computational rules, for Facebook and other mediums are always changing and what worked last month may not work this month. Currently, Facebook is becoming more of a “pay to play” medium – peppered with inspirational forwards and political rantings!
With email, you own your list and make your own rules. Plus, it is nearly free.
Email is a direct and personal letter from you to another person.
It is authentic and genuine. It is the reader – and you, personally. It is not manufactured “health news” which is just a mash-up of articles from 1998.
In this busy and more automated world, genuine communication is becoming scarcer… and more valuable.
The biggest challenge is simply getting the email out.
Actually, this is the big problem with all of your marketing – who is going to do it — and when?
We have found some simple procedures that work for getting this done which I offer below. But first, let’s look at the future.
The future medium will continue to be more direct communication for selling. The trendy term is “conversational commerce.”
“Consumers are increasingly relying on messaging apps for all forms of communication, whether personal, business, or commerce. … Messaging apps are becoming the preferred means of communication.” (emarketer)
Messaging is personal, it is one to one.
According to a research commissioned by FacebookIQ and Nielson:
This means, when people visit your Facebook page, if they can chat with you personally, half of them will be inclined to come in for a visit.
You can take a look at a couple of applications – Chatfuel and Manychat – for inexpensive chat programs that you can add on to your Facebook.
You can also ask your webmaster to install a chat system on your web site. An example is websitealive.com.
But the force of all this is personalized communication, something that emails and sales letters and video letters have always done and continue to do better than Facebook.
A few weeks ago I received an email newsletter from a yoga instructor I have followed off and on for a few years. I had question so I sent her an email thinking she might answer it. She did. What’s more, she included a short personal video – directly to me! I am now considering buying her DVD’s when I hadn’t even considered it before.
So how are you going to “Get the Word Out?”
I recommend personally. One-to-one. In a conversation in the office and out of the office through email and maybe… chat.
Remember that a practice is a network of relationships built and sustained in part by communication. Now and then attach a promotion to your email and this is one of the least expensive forms of marketing you will ever do.
Keep the conversation going…and going and going.
Till next time,
Ed
(*Facebook Drama. Social networking definitely has positive uses. But, according to one of its founding executives, it has negative effects. In an interview at Standard School of Business, Chamath Palihapitiya, (known as “C.P.”) who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, says that he feels tremendous guilt for the company that he helped make. Facebook, and others he says, have succeeded by “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He hasn’t used it for years and won’t let his kids use it either!
“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.”
It is a great interview that you can watch or listen – link at the end of the article.)
https://www.campaignlive.com/article/facebook-study-53-consumers-likely-shop-business-message/1404632
https://www.mailmunch.co/blog/email-marketing-vs-social-media/
http://image.exct.net/lib/fe641570776d02757515/m/1/SFF1-TheDigitalMorning.pdf
https://returnpath.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Deliverability-Benchmark-Report.pdf
https://support.getresponse.com/uploads/2016/01/The-State-of-Email-Marketing-by-Industry-January-2016.pdf
http://image.exct.net/lib/fe641570776d02757515/m/1/SFF14-The2012ChannelPreferenceSurvey.pdf
https://manychat.com/
https://www.websitealive.com/alivechat/
https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Content-Advertising-Key-Revenue-Generators-Messaging-Apps/1013247#sthash.OEDM1ML5.dpuf
https://www.campaignlive.com/article/facebook-study-53-consumers-likely-shop-business-message/1404632
Talk on social consequences of Facebook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk
“Strive for excellence in few things, rather than good performance in many.”
~Richard Koch, the 80/20 Principle
For a printable copy of this tent poster click: Strive for excellence.
“Wisdom frees us from doubt, virtue frees us from suffering, resolution frees us from fear.”
~Confucius
For a printable copy of this tent poster click: Confucius Virtue
“Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life…”
~Viktor E Frankl, MD, PhD
For a printable copy of this tent poster email us.
Oklahaven, a non-profit children’s chiropractic center has been dedicated to making sick children well using natural, drug-free chiropractic care since 1962. To help fund their efforts the Annual Have A Heart Campaign is held in conjunction with Valentine’s Day each year.
If you’d like to participate, a complete marketing kit is available directly through Oklahaven simplifying the event preparation for your marketing coordinator.
Click here for a pamphlet with more details or visit the Oklahaven “Have A Heart” web-page.
Sign up for “Have-A-Heart” 2018 at http://www.chiropractic4kids.com/
