LONGSTANDING CHIROPRACTIC SCREENING RIDDLE:
Where can a chiropractor show up uninvited, perform a spinal screening, invest no money and be well-received by a majority of prospects?
LONGSTANDING ANSWER:
Utpoia (alternate answer: nowhere)
NEW ANSWER:
Virtually anywhere!
As a result of an interesting and successful pilot in New York City, it has been found that chiropractic can be taken to the streets successfully in any urban, metropolitan or even rural public area making this "pie in the sky" fantasy into bona fide non-fiction. These "street screenings" are simple, easily done, require no initial monitary investment and can be even more effective than the venues that may have taken hours, days, weeks or even months to secure.
Without getting into the mechanics and particulars, the first fifteeen minutes of this pilot yielded three appointments, with a very refreshing, enthusiastic response from those approached. It was simple and it effected better and faster results than even the best of events done prior. So effective, in fact, was this new screening format that it appears one can organize a majority of practice marketing around this very concept.
Yes, there were logistics to consider and, yes, there were demographics involved and a bit of planning prior to going out. With minimal planning, however, and little or no permission required, quite an impact was made with stellar results. Screenings become such a simplicity when one need not rely on someone else's permission. Just plan it and do it.
Though this can be considered a major discovery it is really not far from the concept of patient referrals. The only difference is that one does not already know and must introduce himself to those he meets, a concept which may be out of the comfort zone for some. Even for those comforably-challenged, this concept proved to be sufficiently fun and enough of a purpose-booster to emerge the "hermitest" crab from his protective shell. This concept is a return to basics of talking about chiropractic to everyone known and met. It is also, incidentally, the fastest way found to spark a growth spurt in any practice.
Next time you find yourself in a public place, start a conversation with someone and see. It's quite an amazing experience and you will find well-qualified candidates all around you. You will find there is an easier way to do this. Try it!
Screening Experts offeres online seminars for screening technique, practice marketing and event location and set-up. Call today to find out how to learn more about how to do no-cost public screenings as they would apply to your area.
Frank Sardella
Chiropractic Screening Experts
www.chiropracticscreeningexperts.com
(845)787-3349
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Bankrupt, Former and Moonlighting Chiropractors Give a Valuable Lesson In Getting New Patients and Referrals
A recent encounter with a Bankruptcy attorney, who is a trustee for a state bankruptcy court shockingly revealed a trend that many doctors of chiropractic had been filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Such information was indeed puzzling. Why, after all, was there such financial trouble for such an effective profession?
This was reminiscent of an encounter during late-night grocery shopping in a local supermarket. It was most disappointing to have a chance meeting with a former associate from a client's office. When last seen, he had enthusiastically left that practice to open his own. Unfortunately, he was not at the supermarket grocery shopping. He was stocking shelves. Further horrifying was the decline in his attitude toward the chiropractic profession and the apathy with which he explained that he had given up altogether and was considering study to be a physical therapist. What happened to someone who so loved adjusting patients?
Yet another chiropractor recently mentioned that he took a temporary part-time job to "make ends meet" while "things were slow". Why were they so slow?
Even more demonstrative were the bombardment of offers to consider "business opportunities" which involve "revolutionary nutritional products" sold Network or Multi-Level Marketing style for Screening Experts clients to sell to their patients, products which have been increasingly appearing on the front counters of chiropractic offices. What about the business of chiropractic care?
The common denominator? Financial Stress.
While it is known that chiropractic does not generate the highest income of all "health care" professions, it is not this fact that causes such financial stress. It is not even lack of "marketing skill" or knowledge of promotion basics. It is fundamentally an issue with basic purpose and how well that purpose is being fulfilled on one's patients. It is this that opens the door to reversing financial downtrend.
Recollection of one's original motive to join such a purposeful profession seldom, if at all, would be financial in nature. Medicine, surgery, drugs - these are the serious financial fields, ones which any number of chiropractors could have chosen had they been motivated financially.
Perhaps it is time to examine, reevaluate, refresh and decide upon goals and to unbury that original, unique spark. Treat the dwindling few patients you may have left with the original vigor and thrust toward wellness which drove you to work so hard to become who you are and new patients and referrals become the "side effects" of what you do. The financial benefits always follow.
Doctors repeatedly ask, ad nauseum, why DON'T my patients refer? This is unanswerable until one reverses the question. Why DO patients refer?
Speaking from experience that led to a career in the profession, patients refer because chiropractic provides a result where other practices have promised but never delivered. Surgery and drugs are not often found to change lives, in fact demonstrate conclusively that adverse health conditions cannot be changed and one must "live with them". This is also from direct experience with prescription drugs, medical "specialists" and the "you-have-to-live-with-it" attitude which has proven to be anything but living.
Through assitance to someone's ultimate healing, their life is forever changed and restored to them is the ability to enjoy it. Moreover, a confidence is gained that their health is under their control, regardles of what medicine says. It is this factor alone that makes someone refer, this directly from the first-hand experience of one who has referred thousands to chiropractors since first treatment in the mid 1990's.
How can bankruptcy, potion-selling, change of profession or moonlighting be avoided and financial success achieved in practice? Recall your original purpose and channel some of the attitude and swagger you had in first attending college. Rediscover and list all you can recall. Then, formulate it into a purpose for your current practice. Apply it all the way with your current patients. Insist that they follow through and do everything within your power to get them well. They will refer others for sure. Take it from a patient who has for nearly two decades and counting.
You are hereby challenged NOT to prosper doing this!
Frank Sardella
Chiropractic Screening Experts
www.chiropracticscreeningexperts.com
(845)787-3349
This was reminiscent of an encounter during late-night grocery shopping in a local supermarket. It was most disappointing to have a chance meeting with a former associate from a client's office. When last seen, he had enthusiastically left that practice to open his own. Unfortunately, he was not at the supermarket grocery shopping. He was stocking shelves. Further horrifying was the decline in his attitude toward the chiropractic profession and the apathy with which he explained that he had given up altogether and was considering study to be a physical therapist. What happened to someone who so loved adjusting patients?
Yet another chiropractor recently mentioned that he took a temporary part-time job to "make ends meet" while "things were slow". Why were they so slow?
Even more demonstrative were the bombardment of offers to consider "business opportunities" which involve "revolutionary nutritional products" sold Network or Multi-Level Marketing style for Screening Experts clients to sell to their patients, products which have been increasingly appearing on the front counters of chiropractic offices. What about the business of chiropractic care?
The common denominator? Financial Stress.
While it is known that chiropractic does not generate the highest income of all "health care" professions, it is not this fact that causes such financial stress. It is not even lack of "marketing skill" or knowledge of promotion basics. It is fundamentally an issue with basic purpose and how well that purpose is being fulfilled on one's patients. It is this that opens the door to reversing financial downtrend.
Recollection of one's original motive to join such a purposeful profession seldom, if at all, would be financial in nature. Medicine, surgery, drugs - these are the serious financial fields, ones which any number of chiropractors could have chosen had they been motivated financially.
Perhaps it is time to examine, reevaluate, refresh and decide upon goals and to unbury that original, unique spark. Treat the dwindling few patients you may have left with the original vigor and thrust toward wellness which drove you to work so hard to become who you are and new patients and referrals become the "side effects" of what you do. The financial benefits always follow.
Doctors repeatedly ask, ad nauseum, why DON'T my patients refer? This is unanswerable until one reverses the question. Why DO patients refer?
Speaking from experience that led to a career in the profession, patients refer because chiropractic provides a result where other practices have promised but never delivered. Surgery and drugs are not often found to change lives, in fact demonstrate conclusively that adverse health conditions cannot be changed and one must "live with them". This is also from direct experience with prescription drugs, medical "specialists" and the "you-have-to-live-with-it" attitude which has proven to be anything but living.
Through assitance to someone's ultimate healing, their life is forever changed and restored to them is the ability to enjoy it. Moreover, a confidence is gained that their health is under their control, regardles of what medicine says. It is this factor alone that makes someone refer, this directly from the first-hand experience of one who has referred thousands to chiropractors since first treatment in the mid 1990's.
How can bankruptcy, potion-selling, change of profession or moonlighting be avoided and financial success achieved in practice? Recall your original purpose and channel some of the attitude and swagger you had in first attending college. Rediscover and list all you can recall. Then, formulate it into a purpose for your current practice. Apply it all the way with your current patients. Insist that they follow through and do everything within your power to get them well. They will refer others for sure. Take it from a patient who has for nearly two decades and counting.
You are hereby challenged NOT to prosper doing this!
Frank Sardella
Chiropractic Screening Experts
www.chiropracticscreeningexperts.com
(845)787-3349
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