Chiropractic Marketing | Chiropractic Advertising | Chiropractic Ads

Are all chiropractic practices and doctors exactly the same?

Obviously the answer is no, but you wouldn’t know it by asking many of the chiropractic consulting groups. This is Lie #2 in my “5 Lies Chiropractic Coaches Tell” series.

Most chiropractic coaches think every problem in practice has the same answer, and it usually involves studying their procedures more thoroughly. In other words, there’s no personalization, no one-on-one tailored coaching.

You see, these coaching groups want client #1 in Dallas, TX to be no different their their client #2 in San Diego, CA. It doesn’t matter if client #1 is insurance and client #2 is all cash. If #1 has decompression and #2 is “adjustment only”. The coach wants them to have the same hours, same layout, same procedures, etc.

Let me tell you how they tried to convince me of this lie…

Years ago, with only $3000 a month in collections and an overhead of $15,000, my practice was in big trouble as in, get evicted, close the doors, and call the bankruptcy attorney. Things had gotten so slow that at one point my practice was averaging only 1-3 new patients a month.

I even hired two different practice consultants during this time. I studied their manuals, listened to the videos did everything they taught. I went to as many seminars as I could afford, memorized all the scripts to a “t”, and tried to get new patients just like the consultants taught.

Every couple of weeks I would have a phone call with my “assistant coach.” He would tell me how the head coach built his practice — doing outside events (which in most cases just means he did spinal screenings), running a newspaper ad from 1968, and “persuading” his patients to refer.

I would then put their one-size-fits-all plan into action.During one of my worst months, I spent every spare minute I had doing 8 screenings and 2 outside talks. Sure, I got a handful of patients to sign up at the screenings and talks, but most of them didn’t show up for their exam or stay around long.

Two weeks later, I’m back on the phone with the coach, and here we go again…

“Dr. Beck, you must be doing something wrong. Our system works, it’s the doctors that don’t work the system. Did you do…” Then he would ask me a list of questions about unimportant procedures that had nothing to do with getting new patients. Silly questions like “Are you saying your cheers and chants in the morning? Is your CA holding her mouth right when she answers the phone?”

Mr. Coach, are you kidding me? Your system not only sucks, but it hasn’t worked well since 1982 when the head guru built his practice. You’re fired!

Here’s the truth…

EVERY PRACTICE IS DIFFERENT! EVERY CHIROPRACTOR IS DIFFERENT!

A good coach or consultant should recognize this truth and personalize his coaching to reflect it. If a question comes up about a coaching recommendation or procedure, the consultant should be available to answer it with a specific answer.

How many times have you asked a chiropractic coach a specific question, only to get a vague, generalized answer. Can you imagine a pro golfer asking his coach a specific question, then the coach going off on a long tangent about the metaphysical aspects of Tiger Woods’ swing? That coach would be fired very quickly.

Coaching is a lot more than “Here’s the manual, here are the cd’s, come to a seminar every month, don’t ask questions about the system, just implement it!”

Coaching is guiding the chiropractor, giving him tools to make things easier, and helping him personalize those tools to his practice.

What kind of coach do you want? One that has a “one-size-fits-all” approach, or one that works with you to personalize and customize proven tools to your practice?

[ad#atifadd-6]

It’s no secret that the economy is going through tough times right now. Chiropractors are suffering as well. Many doctors will be looking for a business coach to help them grow during these troubled times.

Hiring a coach is a great idea (I have one and I’ll even be coaching a limited group of chiropractors starting later this month.) But there are some big lies, I mean whoppers, that are drilled into chiropractors heads.

At the expense of making a few coaches and consultants mad (and even rubbing a few subscribers the wrong way), I’m starting a series of blog posts that are focused on uncovering the “5 Biggest Lies That Chiropractic Coaches Tell”.

So with that said, let’s get on with #1 (a lie that really gets my blood pressure up!)

Lie #1: It’s All About You “Head Space”. With some coaching groups, this lie is a HUGE one! If you’ve been to many chiropractic seminars, listened to any coaching CD’s, or been with a consultant you’ve likely heard it.

In 99% of cases, when the “head space” lie is used it’s a total pile of B.S. The coach pulling a guilt trip on you. Here’s the 2 most common ways it’s used…

1. You feel uncomfortable doing something, ie. high-pressure sales scripts, spinal screenings, controlling the patient (you know, things that 99.9% of the human population would feel uncomfortable with). If you voice this concern to your coach, typically he will tell you to work on your head space by saying things like “You should go meditate some more…Read the green books some more…Get over yourself… Get out of your own way already…Most chiropractors are just subluxated between the ears…Don’t you want to save the planet?”

One chiropractor contacted me about this awhile back, saying…

“Implementation of some of their ideas was tough (mentally). I’m sure they would work but my confrontation levels were not high enough to be effective. I asked about other methods and they told me that I need to just continue to get out there and my confrontation levels would improve and it would get easier. I agree that it would but I still have a mental block about it.”

2. If the consultants procedures and systems aren’t working well for you, and you speak up about it, you’re likely to find out it’s “all your fault”. And what’s the solution for this? Yep, they try and have you beleive “it’s not their systems that are failing, it’s your head space…it’s not their coaching that sucks, it’s gotta be your head space…it’s not the system that’s failing, it’s you!”

At best these are half-truths, a partially true statement intended to deceive or mislead, about a doctor’s mindset (I think it’s a half-truth in about .1% of chiropractors). At worst, and certainly in many groups, I believe it’s a type of brainwashing (check out”Guilt” in Dr. Lipton’s brainwashing processes here).

If they can break down your will enough, and make you feel guilt, you’ll do just about anything (including pushing patients to refer, making patients bring their family in or you’ll kick them out, spending thousands of dollars on marketing that sucks.)

For those who’ve never been part of a chiropractic coaching group, you may think I’m being a bit far fetched here. But let me assure you, these things do occur every day in our profession. If you’ve been in one of these groups, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

This coaching lie is quite difficult to defend against, after all how do you argue with the statement “it’s all in your head.” Chiropractors who are struggling are very susceptible to this because they will do just about anything to get out of their current situation.

I’ve been there too. One coaching group I was in required you to go to a 5 day “bootcamp.” At this camp, I did some things I would have never done if I wasn’t in a severe financial crisis.

Each morning we’d get up, gather in a circle down by the river, and chant “ohhmmmm, ohmmmmm”. After the circle chant we’d individually go sit in a private place outdoors to meditate, then rejoin as a group and talk about the “visions” we had. Next, we’d run 6 miles up and down rough country roads. Upon completion of this morning “ritual”, we were officially ready for brainwashing learning part of the bootcamp to begin. (Disclaimer: yes mediation done the right way can have benefits, just as running can.)

Fortunately I was too broke to make it to Bootcamp Level 2, where I heard doctors went into smoking teepees and laid done until their bodies shook with visionary convulsions.

How do you protect yourself against all this “Head Space” nonsense?

First, when considering a coaching or consulting group, look to see how they are marketing themselves to you. Are they using guilt and head space tactics right from the outset? If so, do you think their coaching will be any different.

Second, look at what they are offering you in their program. Are there any actual tools for marketing or is it all about feeling like you’re “part of a movement”? Is their group/seminars just an excuse to get together and get “pumped up” every month?

What should a coach provide?

A coach should provide proven systems and tools for new 1. patient marketing, 2. conversions, and 3. retention based on sound business principles. If you can’t easily find those three things (in that order), or they aren’t based on proven marketing principles that work, then run away as fast as you can.

A coach also guides and helps you along the way, personalizing the proven systems to your practice. Every city, every town, every chiropractor is different. You can’t just hand out a manual and some cd’s, then hammer the doctor until he has everything down pat.

If the #1 problem in chiropractic is poor-to-no practice marketing, then that should be the first priority for your coach. Nothing else matters if you don’t have new patients coming through the door.

We’ll be talking a lot more in upcoming blog posts about what a coach should do for you and your practice. But now I need to go get adjusted so I can get my blood pressure back down

[ad#atifadd-6]

What’s the biggest problem chiropractors face in building a more profitable, more successful, and lower stress practice?

If you answered “Not bringing in enough quality new patients”, you are correct. New patients are the life blood of any practice. No matter how good your procedures, patient education system, or adjusting ability, without a consistent flow of new patients a practice will fail.

Marketing to bring in quality new patients is the subject I’m teaching on in my first edition of the The Chiropractic Marketing Newsletter. This is my monthly, 11 page print newsletter sent by first class mail that “tells it like it is” when it comes to chiropractic marketing, new patient conversion, and retention strategies. Each month you’ll find great examples of what’s working in other chiropractic offices, as well as strategies being used outside the profession.

Here’s a quick overview of what I’m covering in the February edition.

-The 5 niche conditions you should be focusing on in 2009.

-10 Surefire Strategies For Bringing In More New Patients

- The Tools and Resources You Must Have In Your Marketing Plan

-A bonus video lesson integrating newspaper ads and the internet

-3 major reasons that the “marketing to everyone approach” doesn’t work

Because this is the first issue, I’m willing to let you test it for only $2.95 this month. If you like it and choose to stay a subscriber, it’s only $29.97 per month.

This issue mails out on February the 9th at 1PM CST. If you want to receive your issue in the mail, make sure you subscribe by then.

Click Here To Subscribe Now

Have you ever had people try and keep you from being successful? Enduring through trials in business and life is one of the major keys to success.

I’ll never forget going to over 20 banks to get a business loan, each of them telling me no. One Vice President of a community bank even said “Oh, you’re a chiropractor. Chiropractors just don’t do well in business” with a sad look on his face.

When my practice was struggling, many extended family members were pushing me to declare bankruptcy. One of them even said “You should go to medical school and become a real doctor!”

There will always be people and difficulties in your life that try to discourage you from being successful. How many times in the past year did you run up against a trial and think it was going to be a big struggle to overcome?

But many times these “tests” of character are what sharpen us for greater things…

If not for the banker “feeling sorry for me”, I may not have gotten mad and kept trying until I found a bank loan. If not for my family members insisting I declare bankruptcy when my practice was struggling, I may have not been so “stubborn” and resisted any notion of it.

What do you have to endure in practice?

One chiropractor recently spoke with me about his struggling practice. He said that his patients were complaining about paying for care and were even quitting care because their insurance wasn’t paying correctly.

My answer to this doctor…”Focus on getter better quality new patients so you don’t have to deal with these problems.”

This is why I created The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads. I got sick and tired of seeing chiropractors having to meagerly survive on spinal screenings and other outdated marketing strategies.

Whatever you are struggling with now, you can overcome it. Look for solutions and tools that can help you. It’s likely that someone else has gone through it before you, and now has the answers you need. Find those people and get the answers.

I hope you’ll find many of the answers you seek from this blog and my products (especially if it’s a marketing problem because that’s my purpose for this business). But if I don’t have the answers you need, then keep searching until you find it.

Don’t give up. There’s a reason you are a chiropractor.
[ad#atifadd-6]

What strategies do you really need to focus on to build a bigger and more profitable practice this year?

Most chiropractic coaches and consultants have a specific “thing” they want you to work on. Many want you to work on your “report of findings” procedures. (In fact, most chiro coaches I had spent 90% of their time on ROF’s.) Others focus on retention and patient education.

But when you look at the big picture, there are really only 5 ways to make your practice more profitable in 2009. Small changes in even one of these 5 can make a huge difference in your practice. Change all 5 just 10% and you will see a doubling or even tripling of your practice this year.

1. More New Patients. Sounds simple right. Everyone knows you need more new patients to grow. Yet as simple as it sounds, it’s much more difficult to actually do. Old, rehashed marketing from the Mercedes 80′s is no longer working and many competitive areas make it difficult to market in. However, with laser targeted marketing you can still see huge return on investments. I gave you my 7 major new patient strategies in the last blog post, which you can see by clicking here.

If getting new patients is so important, why aren’t more consultants and coaches giving you tools to make this easier? (Read my recent rant about this entitled “Chiropractic Coaches: Where’s the beef?“)

#2. Better conversions. Once the new patients are in the door, now you have to convert them to some type of recommended care plan. The conversion process in chiropractic starts from the moment they call your office until the day they agree to a care plan and start paying you. Of the “5 Ways to Grow Your Practice” listed, this is the one that gets 90% of the attention in chiropractic circles. Go to any seminar and you’ll see days spent on how to do consultations, exams and reports.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very important to have a good conversion process, but it is just 1/5 of the equation. Plus, I believe many of the larger “coaching groups” make the conversion process way more complicated than need be (and thereby less effective and more stressful than is necessary.)

#3. Increase the average $/visit. My first two years in practice, I felt like I was collecting good money per visit by converting patients to long term care plans. But one day I woke up and found out I was only collecting $17 per visit on average. No wonder I was about to go out of business. I was infuriated! After 2 years and $20,000 spent on coaching, plus pages of statistics compiled every month, why had I not been taught to look at this number before. Of course the fault was mine, but I never made that mistake again. Within 3 months I was collecting $57 average per visit. Eventually it got up to and stayed around $85-95 per visit.

**Here’s how you figure it. Take all your monthly collections and divide by the number of total visits you see (yes, even those “scholarships”). Ask yourself if you’re happy with that. Ask yourself if it truly values chiropractic. And if you have a coach and he hasn’t made you figure this, you really need to ask yourself why he would ignore such an important number from you.**

#4. Increase the number of visits per patient. You might call this retention or PVA (patient visit average). Many doctors will read this one and think it’s taken care of in step #2. “More conversions” above. However, we both know what you recommend a patient do and what they really do are two different things. That’s not being negative, that’s reality. And the sooner we face reality, the sooner we can do something about it. So, what can you do to ensure that patients follow through with their care plans and maintenance. Patient education? Sure, that’s important. But if you’ve read this blog for very long, you know I like specific action steps…Not broad generalizations like “You need to do more patient education!” or “You have to have more passion, energy and drive!” To increase the number of visits a patient has, you must have a good internal marketing plan where you communicate and build relationships with your patients.

Here are two articles where I gave 8 internal marketing strategies…

7 Internal Marketing Strategies Part 1

7 Internal Marketing Strategies Part 2

#5. Lower expenses. It’s not how much you collect in practice but what you take home that counts. This often overlooked strategy is rarely mentioned at any of the chiropractic seminars I’ve attended. However, it can make a huge difference in your bottom line. Other than taking home more money, by lowering your unnecessary expenses you can have more to spend on marketing. Are you carrying too much debt in your practice? (I recommend the Dave Ramsey plan for wiping out debt.) Spending too much on employees that don’t work? Blowing money on useless marketing that doesn’t produce? Paying too much (aren’t we all) in taxes?

Yes, this is a touchy subject, after all “No one has a right to tell me what to do with my money!”  Maybe that’s why it’s not discussed at seminars. But, by cutting out the “fat”, your practice will be a lean, mean profitable machine.
[ad#atifadd-6]

Some say the recession of 2009 will be around for a long time. Others think it’s going to turn around soon. Regardless of what the future holds, one prediction can be made…

“Those Chiropractors Who Excel At Marketing
Will Be Least Affected By The Economy (And Will Most Likely Prosper)”

Today I’m going to cover seven new patient marketing methods you should be using in 2009. While there are plenty of free ways to market your practice, these 7 deal with paid new patient marketing.

1. Blogs. Blogs are the new websites. They are interactive, change regularly, and are absolutely loved by Google. This means that you can start a chiropractic blog and be at the top of searches on Google. Dr. Walker in Florida started his blog after studying the blogging lesson in my ChiroMarketing Academy program, and jumped straight to #1 for Google searches on the term “chiropractor” in his area. Just after a few weeks, his new blog even beat his long standing traditional website that was only ranked #4. (There are at least 10 other clinics in his area trying for that #1 spot.)

2. Chiropractic Newspaper Ads. A properly written and laid out newspaper ad can bring in tons of new patients. But most chiropractors do this wrong. They either run a “pretty” and boring brand image ad or they run an outdated and overused ad that came with a kit over 10 years ago. Today’s consumers are much tougher to connect with, and what worked 10 years ago isn’t going to cut it today. Your ads have to connect with the reader emotionally and empathetically. They have to believe you really do care. (This is why I developed The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads.) Newspapers are around to stay, and if you’re not using them you’re missing out on many quality new patients.

3. Email Marketing. Email technology has come a long way. You can now load up a pre-written series of emails and have them go out over time to a prospective or current patient. Because this is all automated, you can set it and basically forget it. The key is writing good emails that actually convince patients to pick up the phone and call. I teach two lessons on this in ChiroMarketing Academy and give two recommendations. To do it yourself, I recommend Aweber’s email system. To have it done for you, I recommend the dashboard system.

4. Referral marketing. Unlike many chiropractic consultants, my systems for getting more referrals has nothing to do with pushing patients to refer, forcing their family to get checked, or any similar procedure. Everyone talks about referrals, but few people actually give you tools or systems that you can use to bring in more. One very simple referral system is mailing a well-written (not pushy!) “stick letter” to new patients. We tracked the stick letter referrals in 2007 and it brought in over $100,000 to my practice that year. You can pick it up as a free bonus to the Ultimate Chiropractic Ads here.

5. Google Adwords. Adwords is Google’s very sophisticated marketing machine. When you search for a keyword on Google, you see ads at the top and down the right side — these are Adwords ads. You bid a certain price to be up near the top, and each time a person clicks the ad and goes to your website you get charged. There is huge, huge potential with Adwords for your practice. Google has almost 80% of the U.S. search market. This means your potential patients are likely using Google every day to learn more about healthcare solutions you offer. But be forewarned — I see a lot of chiropractors screw up on Adwords, wasting a ton of money (and these yellow page services offering to do it for you aren’t much better.) Adwords is easy to set up, but can be difficult to get right. Two of the 24 lessons in ChiroMarketing Academy are focused on Adwords…one basic lesson and one advanced one.

6. Yellow Page Book. Every consultant I’ve ever had said stay out of the yellow pages (not surprising considering the other bad advice they gave me!) But the chiropractor down the street had a full page double spread colored ad in there. Were they just stupid or did they have a reason to be doing this for 10 years? Could it be the consultants just didn’t have a clue what a good ad looked like, so their best advice was to stay away from the yellow pages? People who want a solution today are going to pick up a phone book and find someone to go see immediately. This is especially true for people over 40 — they aren’t going to turn on their computer and search through all the different websites. Once you have the right ad to run, it’s a very smart media to be using. If you know how to do it correctly, you can get a very good response.

7. Telemarketing. Using telemarketing services with a reputable company is such an easy way to get new patients. Some doctors have this misconception that telemarketing is some kind of sleazy way of bringing in new patients. It’s nothing of the sort. One client of mine is getting 10-15 new patients a week from telemarketing, and converting a very large percentage of them to care. Sure the conversions are probably going to be lower than new patients from the strategies I mentioned above, but it’s really return on investment that you should look at. I ran telemarketing campaigns for almost 6 years straight and always made money on them. If you’re interested in the company I worked with that checks the do-not-call lists, makes sure the patients can speak English, and even calls businesses, then leave a comment below.

[ad#atifadd-6]

Have you ever picked up a chiropractic journal or magazine, and looked at what the consultants/coaches in our profession are selling and teaching?

I recently received a journal and noticed the following terms being used…
-pressing
-high energy
-training
-high volume
-philosophy
-technique
-case fees
-rythmic flow
-consciousness
-”attacking” medicine

You may remember that famous commercial on TV years ago.  The one where the old lady would get the hamburger, look at it kind of funny, and say “Where’s the beef?”

That’s what I wonder about many of these coaching programs. Where’s the beef? Where are the tools and solutions that answer the major problems of growing your practice?

The #1 problem in the chiropractic profession is getting quality new patients. This isn’t a theory, but a fact — lack of marketing tools and strategies keeps more practices from growing than any other factor.

Yet, you’ll be hard pressed to find a single article in a journal or magazine even mentioning this topic. (I’m not opposed to coaching by the way, with the right kind of coach it can be very effective in growing your practice. But I get sick and tired of the half-truths and hyperbole that is preached by most chiropractic coaches!)

Why do consultants have to go to great lengths to teach on the small things in your practice, yet fail to give you considerable strategies and tools to bring in new patients?

I fell victim to this many times in my first 2 years of practice. Hours and hours spent training on a script, report of findings, or specific procedure — only to wonder when the new patients were going to magically appear.

Granted, I should have known something was up when these coaches kept introducing unique terms they had come up with. Even though I was an adult and had been in chiropractic awhile, I never quite understood what or how these terms related to growing a chiropractic practice.

That is why I created this blog. To give chiropractors free information on marketing and advertising their practices. And since the popularity of this site has grown over the past few months, I’ve had more than one chiropractic consultant express their “dissatisfaction” with me giving away this valuable teaching.

This is also why I created The Ultimate Chiropractic Ads. Chiropractors need tools that work in their office…tools they can implement and see results from right away — not next month or next year!

Will you join with me in 2009 and help our profession flourish? Will you focus with me on those things that really matter?

Let’s throw out those fancy terms that aren’t really important in growing a practice. Let’s get right down to the truth of the matter.

Here’s where you’ll find 90% of my blog focus this year…

#1. New patienet marketing. I’m going to give you more tools and strategies, free downloads and forms, more information than any consultant will give away.

#2. New patient conversion. Once the new patient is in the office, now we need to convert them to care so they can pay, stay and refer.

#3. Retention. There are many non-forceful strategies that you can use to keep, reactivate, and build relationships with your current patients. (Some consultants teach that you must “force” or “scare” a patient to stay under care. I believe this is unethical.)

If you want to learn how to improve the above three things in your practice, then this is the place to be.

On the other hand, if you’d rather read about unbelievable hype like “How to build a huge, humongous, oversized high volume practice that collects case fees the size of Warren Buffet’s Retirement Fund!!!” , then you know where to find that type of teaching.

There’s no more contemplating whether or not a recession is coming. It’s here.

You can’t turn on the TV without hearing about the recession.  What does it all mean for you, the chiropractor?  Will it affect your new patients?  Will your current patients keep coming in?  Will your income drop?

I can’t predict the future.  I can’t tell you what the economy will do in 2009.  I do know that as long as your patients have jobs, nothing will really change with their finances.  Maybe their dropping 401k balances will worry them. But all the doom and gloom they hear constantly is likely to affect their spending more than any real change in their household budgets.

But I can say one thing for certain: if you cut back on your marketing, it’s guaranteed your new patient levels will drop off. If your new patient flow decreases, your income will follow.

A friend of mine bought a practice in August of this year. In just 3 short months he’s doubled the practice and cut back to only one employee. Another successful friend is having the worst winter of growth in the history of his practice.

What’s the difference?

Marketing. The doctor who bought new office really cranked up the marketing. He’s been testing my ads like crazy. He’s got fibromyalgia patients, decompression patients, he’s advertising for headache patients, and many other niches. And he’s not just running ads. I coached him on implementing 4 other major marketing campaigns to be running each and every month. This isn’t including the internal marketing that occurs naturally as a result of all the new patients flowing in.

Who do you think is going to do better during a recession? The chiropractor who markets his practice more, with better tools and strategies, or the one who cuts back and waits to see how long it will last?

While all your competition is cutting back, if you push ahead, you’ll be the one who comes out on top.  While everyone jumps out of yellow page advertising because “money is tight”, you’ll have an opportunity to stand out be staying in. You’ll also have quite a bit more negotiating power to get a good rate. The same goes for chiropractic newspaper ads.

Now before we go any further, we should discuss two detrimental myths that some chiropractors hold…

Myth #1. Chiropractic marketing doesn’t work. To that person, I say you are using the wrong kind of marketing. I fell into this trap during my first 2 years of practice. Too many “Mercedes 80′s” coaches trying to make me do their type of marketing. A variation of this myth is “Marketing doesn’t work in my town”. To this I say…really? Is there a newspaper? Billboards? TV station? Do you ever get any junk mail? It’s more likely you’re using bad advertising and marketing tools. Remember, what worked in the 60, 70′s, and 80′s won’t work in 2009. Your patients have had it with hyped up marketing promises. people in your community have grown more immune to the continuous flood of boring or pushy advertising everyone else is doing. As a result, you must be very specific and clear about what you are offering and how it can benefit the patients.

Advertising and marketing does work. It’s what every successful business is built on. You just need the right tools to make it work. (More on this in future blog posts!)

Myth #2. Marketing is unethical. This is a big roadblock to success a few doctors have. I think it comes from the “medical doctors don’t have to market” mentality. Maybe the GP never markets (unless you consider the millions drug companies spend doing it for them), because he’s so full of people wanting drugs and running in every time they have a paper cut. But the specialists market all the time.

Have you ever seen an ad or billboard for a hospital? What about a pain management or scoliosis center? In the city where I live there are hospitals advertising all sorts of specialties…sleep centers, back pain centers, fibromyalgia centers, cancer centers, heart rehab centers, neonatal units, and more.

Yes, there is some marketing that’s badly done out there. Not so much unethical, but just pushy and sleazy, hurting your practice image. I recommend you stay away from that kind of marketing.

Now back to the recession…

There is a recession going on. But are you going to sit around and mope about it? Or are you going to make sure you don’t have a “personal recession” with your own practice or income. There’s no government bailout coming for chiropractors. Ain’t gonna happen.

I will make one prediction for 2009. And I’ll bet it holds true. Ready?

“The chiropractor who  uses proven marketing tools and strategies  in 2009 will be more successful than his competition.”

A revelation right?

Don’t cut back on your marketing (unless it’s the “Mercedes 80′s” marketing). Use the tools and strategies you learn about on this blog to grow and build your practice…like there’s no recession in site.

See you next week.
[ad#atifadd-6]

Do you read books on business and marketing?

Successful business experts recommend reading at least one non-fiction book a month. And I agree, you should continue learning no matter your age, your success level, or your intelligence.

I read a lot. Usually 2-3 business/marketing/improvement books a month, plus one fiction novel. Here’s the top 6 of the business books I read in 2008. All of them could benefit you as a chiropractor. Buy them. Read them. Profit from them.

1. The One Page Business Plan. I made a business plan when I opened my practice, but I thought it was a one time event. Later, coaches and consultants would talk about “vision” and “mission” statements, but the way they described them sounded “fake”, like something you tell yourself just to feel better.

The One Page Business Plan is different. It’s straight and to the point. This book is really more of a workbook (with the forms on CD)  that takes you step by step through creating a very simple, yet powerful one page business plan. It also acknowledges that your plan can change each year and make it easy to edit as you go.

2. QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life. This is a great little book you can read in one day. It’s about taking responsibility for everything you do and asking yourself what you can do to make things better.

This is a great training tool for new employees. Have them read it the first week they start working for you. It makes them take a different look at the “blame game” so many people play.

3. The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant: Principles for Successful Living. Another very short book that you can read in a day (my wife read it in 3 hours!). It teaches biblical principles about success and running a business. Each principle is taught with short stories through a young teen learning from his wise grandfather.

A great book, especially for Christian business owners that personally giving to churches or charities.

4. 6 Steps to Free Publicity. At only $14, this is the best lesson you could get on how to get free publicity for your practice. It’s up-to-date nature includes using websites, emails and press releases to get your practice noticed.

While you won’t use everything you learn in this book, there’s more than enough here to market your practice for free and reap the benefits of good publicity.

5. Think and Grow Rich. I’m not sure why I put off reading this classic book on successful living for so long. It’s probably been mentioned or recommended to me by more successful people than any other. But this year I finally got around to reading it. Even though the first edition of this book was written in 1937, I was shocked at how good these principles really are.

While I’m not a fan of a couple of chapters in the book, 80% of this book is golden. There are quotes, stories, and lessons in this book that you can ponder on for a lifetime.

6. Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business. This book is probably the best overview of modern marketing available. It’s just been released, and I’m not even done with it completely, but I had to get it on this list. It covers 12 different channels any business can use to market their product or services, including direct mail, the internet, radio, direct print, and more.

It gives some good examples, and isn’t all fluff like so many other books about marketing. I also appreciate how it mostly focuses on measurable direct-response marketing, not pie-in-the sky branding that’s usually a waste of money.

That’s my list. What books on business and success would you ad? Comment below and let everyone know which books had a big impact on you in 2008.

While everyone has heard that they should implement systems in their practice, actually doing it is another story. I know it was for me. But I also realized the immense power systems had, mostly because it would put things on autopilot for me.

Here’s just a few systems you can have to make your practice more profitable, more successful, and much less stressful.

• New Patient Marketing
• Employee Hiring And Training
• New Patient Conversion
• Reactivations
• Referrals
• Internal Marketing
• Office Flow
• Patient Financials

Also realize many of these bigger systems should be broken into small systems. For example, new patient marketing should include different channels like chiropractic internet marketing, newspaper marketing, direct mail, etc.

Who has the time to create all these systems anyway?

Finding and putting in the time to write out (or even make videos) of these systems is quite time consuming. This is why you should buy systems that are already done-for-you, so all you have to do is implement them in your practice with very little hassle. Here are a few systems (all of which I have used or created myself) put into place with very little effort…

*   Insurance Compliance System
*   Chiropractic Internet Marketing System
*   Patient Home Care Rehab System
*   Insurance Appeal Process
*   Office Software System
*   Email Newsletter And Autoresponder System

Not all the systems you would need are available (yet!) for chiropractors to purchase and quickly implement in their practices.

So you will have to bear down and create a few systems on your own.The easiest way I have found to do this is to write an outline of the main points you want to cover. Then explain each section in as few words as possible, creating an instruction manual you can have employees (yourself) refer back to on a regular basis.

In 2009 I’m going to be bringing you some very good systems you can apply to your practice. Especially done-for-you systems that help with the biggest problem in chiropractic: your marketing!