Talk your way to the top

Speaking to groups of people in your community is one way to grow your practice.

As a chiropractor, opportunities to speak are abundant since people are always looking for better ways to care for their health. Public speaking gives you the opportunity to market your message and develop a steady flow of new patients.

Many DCs, however, are either apprehensive about public speaking or lack the proper training to do it well. Others are simply tired of depending on traditional confrontational closing techniques to create new patients.

There are powerful strategies you can learn to communicate chiropractic with professionalism and ease — strategies that can be used by new and experienced speakers alike.

Strategies for success

In particular, there are three strategies that will immediately boost your confidence as a public speaker and add a new dimension to your talks.

1. Develop an entertaining chiropractic presentation.The first secret to creating new patients through speaking is to develop an entertaining speech. This important element of humor is often missing from traditional chiropractic presentations.

Many chiropractors originally provided too much serious content in their talks. Like many DCs, they followed the “present and persuade” theory: Present all of the logical reasons why people need to have their spines checked and, once informed, audience members will be persuaded to sign up for a complimentary chiropractic exam. This approach, however, has its limits, because people are rarely motivated to act based solely on straight information.

Successful marketing depends more on connecting with people emotionally than logically. And chiropractic care is no exception. Now you do need to offer your listeners some facts and figures; the important information just needs to be balanced with entertaining material. When you make your presentations fun, people will be more receptive to your serious message.

One of the best ways to deliver a chiropractic speech that entertains as well as explains is to lighten it up with humor. Highly successful speakers can deliver a serious message and have fun with their audiences, and so can you. Humorous stories are more powerful than telling jokes.

When you tell a joke, you run the risk of offending someone or at least weakening rapport with the audience. Instead, share original stories where the humor is aimed at you. Opening your talk with self-deprecating humor is a great way to make an impact. Using humorous stories to support key points is important too; they ensure audience members remain attentive throughout the presentation.

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