The benefits of gratitude may seem obvious and something we already know, but they can be easily overlooked. We focus on our daily challenges and can take for granted the people who support us, and who have done so in the past. Faced with patient and practice demands, we can under-appreciate the opportunity we have to live an extraordinary life helping others. So it is good to take time – right now -- and then to give thanks.

42 more days until a New Year is here. Before we know it, it will be at our morning doorstep. Like a happy eager dog ready to be taken for its morning walk, tail a wagin’. But before we look at all what is coming, we have the next few weeks to wrap up 2025. This includes the Holidays, both in business and in our personal lives.  We also have all the year-end admin details to complete. NOW is the time to nail everything down --- to plan the events and complete the admin tasks.

Now, back to those Christmas catalogues from L.L. Bean and Patagonia. Both show how patient, long-term ownership and excellent management, products, and services can build generational wealth over decades of brand-building and customer loyalty. In both cases, the owners who resist the quick sale and instead focus on purpose-driven growth and lasting customer relationships can build legacy companies that dwarf what any early buyer would have paid.

2026 is going to be a pivotal year for every healthcare business owner. Perhaps more than any other year before. I’ll explain more about this in upcoming newsletters, but please note: 2026 can be the year you see your Best Ever. BUT FOR NOW, let’s get your marketing structured and stronger than ever. In healthcare marketing, you are selling the invisible.

Many offices we work with now generate most of their new patients through relationship marketing, though I doubt if they call it such. They do not pay for advertising and have all the patients they can handle. This is very cost-effective! My definition of relationship marketing: Relationship marketing involves creating trust-based relationships with patients and referral sources, generating loyalty and organic referrals through genuine care and ongoing connection.

When opening a new office, the new business owner, of course, builds their new business on their behavior. It is their ambitious determination that is driving the initial growth of the practice. So, yes, a Personality Driven practice works at the launch of a new endeavor. What else is there? A dream, and the raw desire to manifest it. However, after the practice is up and running, it needs to transition into a Goal Driven and systematized business.

We’re about to enter the final quarter of 2025. Will 2025 be a “winning” year for you? Are you set to beat last year? Will the next 3 months be better than in earlier years? It can be. IT STARTS WITH A PLAN

Everyone at work fills multiple roles. For example, the front desk may also include a collections role and a promotion role. The doctor may also have the role of CEO, Clinical Director, and business owner. In life, we also wear many hats: father, husband, sometimes handyman, etc. Just clarifying each role -- and its goal -- can help improve the outcomes in your practice.

Using Football and Sports to Market Your Services You can position your office as a resource for athletes of all ages and all types. This gives you instant and outstanding credibility. Promote the fact that football and all athletics are improved through chiropractic care. 4 quick tips on what you can do now and 4 tips on how to implement them.

Then there are the entrepreneurial doctors, those who want to grow their practices beyond themselves. By setting goals and systematizing their procedures, it is possible to “scale,” or grow without a corresponding increase in overhead or ownership time. Unfortunately, most doctors who work to scale their practices experience the Practice Roller Coaster. This is common, but after a while, the zest for practice gets hammered down so that practicing is no longer a hobby.

In a business, it is common for procedures and processes to become abbreviated, overlooked, and dropped out. When this happens, the quality of the outcomes or products deteriorates. When quality decreases, the business begins a seemingly inexplicable downward spiral. I call this Procedure Atrophy and cover it in my book, The Goal Driven Business. (page 164).

A practice is a network of relationships that's created and sustained through service and communication. If you aren’t communicating with your patients – active and inactive - you won’t have much of a practice.

A practice manager helps put in the systems – the standard operating procedures -- in place that allow all your internal and external marketing procedures to be effective. And not just marketing. Patient retention, patient services, patient reimbursement and so on. They take the load off of you, so you are not the bottleneck!

Regular business growth is an arithmetic progression. Scaling is a type of growth that progresses geometrically over a specific period. It's not step-by-step growth.

A smooth and consistent patient pathway improves your patients' experience. One of the tasks we have as management consultants is to help you find and fix the biggest bottlenecks, or constraints, in your patient flow.

Discipline tent poster . a culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness. Collins,J.C. Good to Great

You will find that honest interest in people is one of your best “tools” for retention. People respond positively to authentic curiosity about them. “Betty, where did you find those blue shoes?” “So Frank, I have always wondered, why do you guys call yourselves the Kiwanis?

I call this being trapped, mostly unknowingly, in a Personality-Driven Practice. It is hard to break out of this gerbil wheel. Making the shift from personality driven to goal driven. This is what we call a Goal Driven Business, which you should have after 4-6 years in practice. Unfortunately, most doctors get stuck in the hero role of the entrepreneur who still needs to command the daily operation. The first step is to define your goals.

the more you are motivated by love, the more fearless & free your action will be - dalai lama

If you keep doing what works, and then make improvements along the way, and adapt as needed to changes in the marketplace, you will be able to generate more production with less effort.