He Started a Practice and Never Was Heard From Again: The Danger of No Promotion Budget

You are starting a practice. There are so many things to consider; so MANY expenses! From your X-Ray Machine to the drywall and paint, computers to adjusting tables and equipment, there are so many of them you can, literally, watch your budget money dwindle to nothing with the greatest of speed. But, how did the budget get set in the first place? How do you figure out what the start-up costs really are and where do they end? If you have done this before, they probably end somewhere with your office being complete! After your big "Grand Opening" event, however, how do you fill the clinic? The answer turns out to be the biggest, most neglected and most important, probably-in-the-cut-corners-to-save-budget-money category...Practice Promotion - the cornerstone of any practice!

In functioning as a chiropractic advocate and promoter for more than 15 years, one thing has become clear: Practice Promotion is a question of "Priorities" and on this fact alone, a practice can be made or broken. Such promotion is all too commonly pressed to the bottom of a very long list, the top of which where the word "Promotion" should be engraved in letters of gold! And, reversing your priorities is your ticket to success.

Consider this. While you are picking out the colors for the walls, setting up an incredible, healing environment and thinking of all the people in the community your office will help, none of these things will mean anything if no one ever sees them. Let's modify that to include that the "creation" mode you are in when this happens is to be commended. You should be as creative as possible on it. After all, it's your work environment. But, does your vision at this point include ACTUAL patients lying on those tables? Your first thought may be "yes", as you envision yourself treating lots of people, and even have a picture of it in your mind as you read this. But we are talking about ACTUAL people in your community. Let's face it. How are you going to reach these VERY REAL people?

As a first step, ask yourself a few questions. When you figured out your "budget" to start up, and in weighing out various expenses, would you have left out a telephone? Would you have cut adjusting tables out of your budget because they were "just too pricey" and figured you could start up without them? Would you leave the walls unpainted and left your office looking half done? This would be absurd! Right? You would NEVER leave something this VITAL out of the plan. You need to have an inspiring space in which to practice for doctor, staff and patient. Where, however, is the money to actually put the patients there?

With nothing left in budget to promote your "newly built" practice, you begin to feel your satisfaction and enthusiasm with your new space start to dwindle and perhaps consider your efforts were for naught. This is a budget planning failure, but, more specifically, a breakdown in understanding of the basic facts of promotion. Practice building doesn't end with the 4 walls. It includes a measurable QUANTITY of patients along with a measurable effort in promotion to get them! After all, when you complete your space, it's just that - an empty space!

One of the key problems here is found to be in a confusion that new practice starters have on the subjects of Marketing and Promotion. These are two distinct subjects and, while these topics each could take up several blogs of their own, their confusion is the main point being driven home here.

The look of your space and how you will treat your patients, what services you will offer, your brochure, cards, staff, etc., all of these are what is called "Marketing" which could be on a par with what marketing agencies call "branding". Whatever the industry jargon, this is marketing in its purest form; taking a product to "market". But once put on the market, it needs to be promoted. So, in your favor, you have spent much of your budget money, if not all of it (depending on how you look at these things) on marketing.

Now consider practice promotion. Promotion is how you take all this "marketing", the practice space, your results, your specific "brand" of Chiropractic Care and make it well known to everyone. Look back at your budget. Where was the money set aside for this? Can you see now, in the scheme of things, how neglect of promotion in the budget can make your noble efforts feel empty and wasted?

Realize that, in a "down economy", promotion is king. When conditions in any business sphere are such that income is low, business is "down" or things are "tight", promotion is the ONLY way out. If a business is failing, only promotion can turn it around. After all, is a business with no customers a business at all? Not for long! Therefore, a practice, at the moment it starts, by the definitions given here for "failing business", is actually in a condition of "failing" right off the bat. It has no patients!!! What's the only remedy? PROMOTION!!!

It's an easy diagnosis to make but, perhaps a difficult pill to swallow that a practice, at its beginning, may be "failing". And it should be clarified here that you don't need to adopt a view that you are a failure. Starting up a chiropractic practice is a noble, monumental and life-saving activity comparable to the birth of another human life. And it is as high in importance as the creation of human life for all the lives you will save and lengthen by getting it going. You are indeed a success for having gotten that far so it is more than okay to feel like you have won in doing so. In fact, take a moment to commend yourself for achieveing it or having decided to do so. From there forward, your only barrier is administrative in nature; you've spent everything on Marketing with little or none left for Promotion; and, the best medicine for a failing (or in this case "starting") practice. [IN still other words, a practice with little or no patients.] Take a look at your situation now. Is it starting to make more sense?

Borrowing to start a practice and spending the entire budget on the build-out and various Marketing expenses should NOT stop you from promoting. Promotion is easy and does not require excessive expenditures. It can be as simple as approaching the person in the deli who has a limp or obvious problem and introducing yourself or asking friends for referrals, and asking those referrals for referrals. Whole practices have been built and grown on this. Or it sometimes comes with a price tag as in doing a local home show or health fair. In any case, price is NOT the governing or deciding factor - people met, qualified and signed up FOR A DEFINITE APPOINTMENT to come to the office is!

If you are starting a practice, figure into your budget plenty of finance for promotion and don’t spend it on other things in the process. Set it aside. If you don’t know how to budget for that, talk to someone who has experience with it. If you have already started a practice and didn’t have a promotion budget, you are not a lost cause however, I suggest you figure out how to borrow MORE or sell off something of less importance to pay for it, like your car! Wouldn't you tell your patient to do the same when he balks at the cost of care and ignores the health benefit in the long run?

Whichever the case, "we ran out of budget money" is NO excuse for cutting promotion. Using it as one is for sure, the demise of your practice and all your good intentions, dreams and plans. For you will not be able to pay back any of your start-up costs if there are no patients lying on your tables to treat, heal and charge.

Take a moment. Close your eyes. Go back to the moment you decided to become a Doctor of Chiropractic. Can you recall why you got into practice in the first place? Was it something like "to help as many people as possible through the miracles of chiropractic care"? Now re-affirm that decision you made. Good. Now realize that, without a promotional budget in place, you aren’t helping anyone, your creditors included. So make the decision to change this. Move Promotion to the top of that priorities list and turn your dream into reality. It really is that simple. Trust in it and propser!

Good luck to you in your practice and here's to promotion being at the top of your list, with a full office of patient miracles to follow!

The screening experts and consultants at Screenings Inc. can help you find the right marketing and promotion strategy for your practice. Our practice influx assessment, analysis and planning is spot-on in getting your promotions figured out and operational. Call today to find out how you can make something out of very little or nothing at all in terms of budget.

Frank Sardella
Chiropractic Screening Experts
for more information on Chiropractic Spinal Screenings
go to: www.chiropracticscreeningexperts.com
(845)787-3349