Momentum Magic: How the Flywheel Effect Boosts Your Chiropractic Practice and Service Business
- Ed Petty
- Apr 15
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 22
How to Get More for Less in Your Chiropractic and Service Business
Good managers keep what is working, working.
Good businesses become great because of the momentum developed by continuing to do good work.
This is a vital concept in business management and one that we spend time on in our Practice MBA course that is currently running.
Entrepreneurs, who are also doctors of chiropractic, dentistry, and medicine, tend to try new approaches to care for patients and practice building. This can result in improved and increased services.
On the other hand, it can sometimes knock out successful procedures. For example, the doctor attends a seminar and returns with a new therapy machine and a different method for processing new patients. In doing so, they make changes to well-established systems. Staff, and even patients, must learn the nuances, which are often much more detailed than the doctor appreciates.
We have seen this -- not exaggerating -- over a thousand times over the years. Sometimes, it pays off, but often not.
Improvements are needed, of course. But they need to be tested or piloted first. If they make sense, then they can gradually be put in place without upsetting what is currently working.
And more importantly, if what was working stops working, FIX IT! Don’t throw it out and start with something new – without first trying to get it to work or improving it.
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.
This is explained in a metaphor by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great.
"Picture a huge, heavy flywheel—a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible. Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it around a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction... The flywheel builds up speed... Then, at some point—breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn... its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort".
Collins emphasizes that this process is not driven by a single defining action or moment but rather by persistent effort over time.
He explains: "A flywheel is an underlying, compelling logic of momentum... There’s an inevitability built in. If you do A, you almost can’t help but do B. And if you do B, you almost can’t help but do C... Each turn builds upon work done earlier and generates power and momentum".
Keep doing what is working, and then do it better, and you will go from good to great!
Seize your future,
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For more information on how to create a more profitable business that is more fun than what you are doing now, please purchase and then use the book,
The Goal Driven Business
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If your practice-building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals, there are reasons -- many of which are hidden from you.
Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my book, The Goal Driven Business.
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