Published: 2009-10-21 17:32:32
Author: Tom Necela | Dynamic Chiropractic | October 7, 2009
Like it or not, most health professionals are in the wrong business - chiropractors included. It makes little difference whether you have DC or MD after your name; the rules are the same. The business into which health professionals have stumbled is marketing.
What is perhaps more disturbing is that if you believe you are a healer, health coach, spinal rehabilitation trainer, nervous system facilitator or enabler of the body's innate health potential, then it is likely you are a lousy marketer. Here's why: A central point of our existence as chiropractors is to reach buyers who can purchase our services. Without buyers, we don't have a business. Unfortunately, there are a lot of excellent health professionals of all disciplines who are starving because they cannot grasp that fact. A lot of mediocre health professionals are also succeeding because they can.
How Can I Grow My Business?
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is: "How can I grow my business?" Sadly, that question is virtually unanswerable in a broad, sweeping statement. Perhaps a better question is: "How can I determine which patients to pursue?" With only 10 percent of the public utilizing chiropractic services and 85 percent (or more) of chiropractors all clamoring for the same segment of low back pain patients, there is a gaping hole of patients in need of your help. Savvy chiropractors can fill that hole if they target the right population that could use their services.
Another good question might be: "How can I better express and promote my value?" It appears to me that some chiropractors start their relationships with patients by spewing chiropractic philosophy and science all over them. As disturbing as that sounds, many first or second visits in your office are just that.
Patients are concerned with the fact that you can help them. Questions should be oriented around their needs, paying close attention to the "What's in it for me?" factor. In other words, they don't really care about you trying to establish credibility by bragging about your past successes, and they aren't concerned with the volumes of research that exist on chiropractic's efficacy. Where's the value in that for them? In effect, patients routinely send us the message of, "Show me the value or I'll show you the door."
This is where many "canned" reports of findings or stock chiropractic protocols fail. We attempt to jam our perspective down the throats of our patients, insisting that they be interested in obtaining corrective care, that they need to restore their cervical curve or that their life will just not be the same without our miraculous supplements. While our assertions may in fact be accurate (for example, poor posture certainly has been proven to produce a myriad of health problems), they are still our assertions.
What Are We Truly "Selling"?
In order to truly engage your patients (also known as the prospective purchasers of your services and those who put food on your table), they have to be intensely interested in what you are selling. I know that some of you reading this will be deeply offended by my use of the term selling, but that is the reality of the business we are in. We "sell" patients on the need for our chiropractic services delivered in our (hopefully) unique style.
After all, the patient could simply sit at home with their same problem, popping pills and ignoring our approach. However, as chiropractors, we believe we have a better way to help them; one that addresses their desire for pain relief but also promotes improvement of function, education on lifestyle changes and prevention.
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