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Tony Robbins said “There is no greatness without a passion to be great, whether it’s the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent, or a businessperson.”

Much has been said about the word “passion” in our profession. We were told in school we had to have a passion for chiropractic and a passion to help others.

A weekend seminar with most any chiropractic coaching group will fill you with enough passion to spend thousands of dollars on their services. And we’ve all heard that to be great in life, we must have a passion for what we do.

But what is passion?

Does it really have a place in the modern chiropractic practice?

There can be many uses for the word passion ranging from The Passion (as in the suffering of Christ) to “an outbreak of anger.”

However, the best definition for our for our discussions would be Merriam-Webster’s: “an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction”.

Sounds like a good thing to have, right?

Not always…

My first year in practice, when I was really struggling, I often went to the gurus of chiropractic to find help. In almost every case, I was told I that I just needed more passion to be successful.

So I would rededicate myself to reading the Green Books, listening to Sigafoose tapes, going to more seminars, telling the chiropractic “story”; a daily “ritual” of passion. I reasoned that if it was passion that made success, I just needed more of it to succeed.

Needless to say, it wasn’t passion that saved my practice, unless you want to call it a “passion for trying to save my family from living on the street!”. (To find out more about my story, see my previous blog posts “Why We Do It?” and “Wait And See Marketing“.)

The type of passion being thrown around chiropractic is not always a good thing. It can lead you into mountains of debt. After all, what’s a few more dollars in debt to save the world, right?

Unbridled passion can cause you to turn decent patients away, by being a ‘my way or the highway’ type of practice. It can also cause you to spend crazy amounts of money on bad marketing that is never going to work.

So you may think I’m saying passion is not important in life. I’m not.

Passion is important, but it’s not the most important thing.

Passion is only part of success. I think these two guys said it best…

“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Passion is a tool that you should use to push you forward, in the right direction. It’s a defense against the constant onslaught of skeptics telling you chiropractic doesn’t work. It’s a determination to live a healthy lifestyle and keep out of the drug ‘merry-go-around’ of modern healthcare.

I know it’s rare to hear someone speak out against passion in chiropractic. (Some might consider it blasphemous!)

Hey, I’m not against chiropractic passion. There’s nothing wrong with reading the Green Books or listening to Sigafoose tapes. But don’t think by simply being more passionate, you’re going to have a successful practice.

There are chiropractors who need a bit more philosophy and more passion for chiropractic. But is it really the overriding issue that struggling doctors are suffering from? An outsider attending chiropractic seminars might get think it is. But I would say we have bigger problems keeping chiros down than a lack of passion.

Do you agree or disagree?

What’s your strategy for growing your practice during this current recession? Are you trying to keep doing things as usual, “wait it out” and hope to make it through…or do you have a specific action plan you’re working on this week, this month, and this year?

I hope it’s the latter, because the “wait it out” plan is only a plan for failure.You’d better not be asking yourself “How can I survive the recession?”

To sit around hoping next month will be better, yet not taking action steps to make it so is how businesses end up in debt up to their ears and going bankrupt.

Sure, the government is spending billions to try and stimulate the economy…but you have better odds of winning the lottery than getting any “stimulus money” in your pocket. No one is going to save your practice from being affected by the recession except you.

You should be asking yourself “how can I thrive during the recession?” While all my competition is cutting back on their advertising and marketing efforts, what can I do to make mine better?

There were many companies (billion dollar companies today) that got their start during the recessions and depressions. A great article by marketing author Dave Chase states the following in his research…

Because so many companies cut spending during the Great Depression era, advertising budgets were largely eliminated in many industries. Not only did spending decline, but some companies actually dropped out of public sight because of short-sighted decisions made about spending money to keep a high profile. Advertising cutbacks caused many customers to feel abandoned. They associated the brands that cut back on advertising with a lack of staying power. This not only drove customers to more aggressive competitors, but it also caused financial mistrust when it came to making additional investments in the no-longer-visible companies.

Both anecdotal and empirical evidence support the case that advertising was the main factor in the growth or downfall of companies during the Great Depression. To put it bluntly, the companies that demonstrated the most growth and that rang up the most sales were those that advertised heavily.

Are you beginning to see what the key is for your practice to thrive during the recession?

It’s using laser targeted, measurable marketing to bring in more new patients. People are still suffering out there, and they still need our services. In fact, many experts are finding the typical chronic conditions we help with are on the rise. Is it the stress? The loss of retirement assets? Who knows, but the point is patients need us now more than ever.

It’s important to realize that I’m not talking about “pretty” marketing that impresses other doctors but doesn’t do crap to bring in new patients. I’m strongly urging you to use direct response marketing where you can measure a return on investment. Later in the above mentioned article, the Mr. Chase mentions the following…

In general, it appears that direct marketing and interactive marketing will benefit the most — or, at least, will suffer the least — in today’s tough economic climate. Investment bank Cowen and Co. looked at the last six recessions and found that spending on direct marketing actually grew during all six recessions. Understandably, when the budget axe falls, those channels with the least ability to measure ROI will lose revenue to measurable marketing channels.

If you find yourself saying your marketing doesn’t work, I’ll bet 1 of 2 things is occurring. Either you’re not measuring your ROI (return on investment) and you really don’t know which marketing pieces are working and which aren’t, or you have sucky marketing materials.

Direct marketing can come in many forms. Email, telemarketing, chiropractic newspaper ads, internet marketing, yellow page ads, etc. The key is making a call to action in the ads and measuring that response.

Take 30 minutes today and write down your plan for thriving during the recession. What focused, measurable marketing are you going to do next month and the rest of this year? When you’re done with your list, tape it to your desk or wall where you’ll see it everyday and be reminded of what you need to do.

Where is your practice going in 2009?

In this month’s issues of The Chiropractic Marketing Newsletter, I’m covering the 7 most important numbers you must track in your office…and what you should be doing to improve them. This newsletter is an 11 page ‘seminar-in-a-box’ mailed right to your doorstep every month. It’s only $29.97 per month, can you cancel at any time (but I don’t think you’ll want to when you see the valuable information that’s revealed.)

This issue mails out on March 9th at 10AM CST. If you want to receive your issue in the mail, make sure you subscribe by then.

Click Here to Subscribe

Here is an excerpt that covers #5 out of 7. The newsletter goes into much more detail about how to improve each of these 7 numbers to bring more growth and profits to your practice.

#5. Case average.

Case average is a number that represents how much money a new patient will generate over time in your practice. You will sometimes hear it referred to as “lifetime value of a patient.”

You figure it by taking your collections for the month (or quarterly, yearly) and dividing by the number of new patients during the month. And make sure to use the new patients defined as in #1 above, not just the number of patients who started care.

Some chiropractors don’t like to figure this number, because they say you’re putting a dollar value on the patient’s head. But let’s face it, you’re running a business here. There are two parts to running your own practice… a clinical aspect and a business aspect. This newsletter is about the business aspect. (I trust you’ve got the clinical side figured out.)

The biggest reason to determine case average in your practice is to make good marketing decisions. Combine it with your conversion rate and you can really drill down on your marketing

Let’s run through an example…

An ad costs you $1500 to run. The last two times you ran it you got 13 new patients. You’re thinking about running it again, but your not sure if its really worth it.

But because you read this newsletter, you’ve been keeping track of your numbers for awhile. You know that every new patient that walks in the door will equal an average case of $1500. And you know that if a new patients comes in, you have a history of converting about 60% of them to care.

So if the ad produces 13 new patients, you’re going to convert 8 of them (13 x .60 = 7.8 rounded up).

8 new patients times $1500 case average is $12,000.

So now back to the question. Should you spend $1,300 on an ad to get $12,000 in return?

If you said “NO”, you need to go back and reread the above paragraph until you get a yes.

As a side-note….

This is the problem with judging your marketing solely on the number of new patients. Some chiropractors think…”13 new patients, well gosh Dr.. Beck, that’s not very many. Dr. Joe Blow said he got 187 new patients from an ad!”

That’s great for Dr. Joe. But I wonder what his conversion percentage is? And what’s his case average? Because if he really did get 187 new patients and converted most of them, he’s got a million dollar a year practice.

This bring us to our next number you must be tracking…

Subscribe Now to get the full issue…

I’ve noticed more and more people talking about the recession and the economy lately. It’s on the news 24/7, my pastor talks about it at church, and friends bring it up in almost every conversation.

I consider myself a realist and acknowledge people are going through tough times, but I tell my coaching clients to ask themselves…

“What am I going to do about it? What can I do to make sure my business
grows during these troubled times?”

There are practices growing during this recession. I spoke with 4 doctors last week that said February was their best month in years. Real quick, here’s the 2 most important steps they took…

1. More qualified new patients. In this case they were using my Ultimate Chiropractic Ads, but regardless of how you do it, get more quality new ones in the door. And stop wasting money on marketing that hasn’t worked for years. The days of look-pretty ads that aren’t condition specific are over. People need to be persuaded on why they should come see you and let go of their hard earned money. An ad that just has your picture, address and phone # isn’t going to do that.

2. Convert more new patients to care. You must have a simple, yet effective care plan to present to the patient. I’m not talking about using hard sell scripts or getting prepays for 60 years of care up front — these things will only hurt your conversions. Just figure up how much active care it will take for the patient to get to a level of stabilization. Total up the cost and present everything to the patient with at least 3 terms of financial payments — weekly, monthly,  or paid up front with a (small) bookkeeping discount.

How much effort are you putting into these two vital practice builders?

You’re a great chiropractor and you just want to help people get better. And the only way that’s going to happen is if you put some work into getting more and converting more new patients.

This isn’t like real estate or investing in the stock market, where you can hold on to your money and wait it out. It’s your business. Your livelihood. Your dream.

You must plow ahead regardless of the external circumstances. Chiropractic school wasn’t easy. Preparing and taking the National Board Exams was hell. (Double for me — my wife was set to go into labor at any moment while I was taking Part 1). Practicing after 9/11 not a cakewalk either.

Yet, when you look back, you made it through. What else are you going to do? Fold up and go home?

Here’s one of my favorite Youtube videos that shows how one father never gives up. Watch and ask yourself “If he can get up every day and push himself, why can’t I do the same?”

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One of my goals with this blog, and my business, is to provide the information you need and want to help you grow your practice. In 2009, I’ll be launching a program where we dive deep into effective practice building strategies.

To do this, I need your help. What types of practice problems do you need help with? What do you want more information on? What are the best ways you learn?

How can I make sure my blog is giving you the best information to help you?

I’ve put together a simple six question survey that will only take you a couple of minutes to complete. As a regular reader, you care about the information that’s published here. This is your opportunity to let me know how I can best serve your needs.

As a thank you for filling out the survey, I’m giving away my chiropractic referral stick letter system. (I’ve also thrown in a decompression version for those whom it would benefit.)

This letter is mailed to all the patients who start care in your office. In 2006, I tracked the referrals I got from this simple system and it added up to over $100,000 or revenue for my practice.

Click here to take the survey…

THANK YOU!

Here are 8 free software resources that can help with running and marketing your chiropractic practice. In some cases, you could buy a better paid version, however these work fine for getting started.

#1. Gmail http://www.gmail.com

There are many things to love about Google’s email tool. You can access it from anywhere when traveling. It has one of the best spam filters I have seen (it actually learns). Gmail also has a very effective tagging system to keep your emails organized. I used yahoo for years, but now that I have gmail I realize how clunky yahoo’s email service really is.

#2. Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Firefox is an internet browser, like Internet Explorer. But Firefox is a free browser constantly being updated by the “open source” movement. I love Firefox. It loads faster. It’s more customizable. You can even change the browser theme or “skins” to your liking. And the add-ons are awesome (over 1000 add-ons with everything from ebay to google toolbars!)

#3. Open Office http://www.openoffice.org

This free program is very similar to Microsoft Office. It has a word processor, database program, spreadsheet, presentation program, and drawing software. It can open up Office documents, create PDF’s from Word documents, and more.

#4. Kompozer http://kompozer.net

Kompozer is an html editing software. It allows you to build your webpages without spending $400 on software. It operates in a normal view too, so you do not have to know html coding to put together webpages.

#5. WordPress http://www.wordpress.org

WordPress is a free software for running a blog or even a normal website. It’s the software I am using here to run this site. Once setup, WordPress is very simple and easy to use. If you can send an email, you can post pages to wordpress.

#6. Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/

Analytics is free when you setup an Adwords account with Google. All you need to do is pay $5, write an ad for Adwords, then turn it off until you are ready to use Adwords (I will be discussing Adwords on this blog later). This gives you access to analytics, which is an awesome tool for tracking everything on your website. You can set goals to see where visitors came from and what % are signing up for your e-newsletter. It will even tell you what geographical area visitors came from down to the city level.

#7. AVG http://free.grisoft.com/

This is a free virus protection software. Everyone needs virus protection on their computers. This software runs much better than Norton and McAfee, and doesn’t slow down your internet connection.

#8. Skype http://www.skype.com

Skype is a free calling service that works through your computer. You can can call another Skype user for free. You can call landlines and cell phones for a small monthly fee. This works great with other software for recording your insurance verifications. You can also get a Skype In number which is portable to anywhere in the world.