Mastering Your Skills in Your Chiropractic, Healthcare, and Service Business

Service Quality IS Your Marketing

A few years back, a chiropractic group practice asked me to help improve its marketing and increase the number of new patients and total visits.

I visited their office several times and offered practical solutions to improve their marketing. But this was secondary. Our primary work was on something else altogether.

I would meet with the doctors on each visit to review their basic patient procedures. We discussed specific cases, and the senior doctor would quiz them about their actions with a particular patient on each visit.

After my visit, they continued the rest of the month with doctor meetings to review cases.

On a few subsequent visits, we role-played where I presented as a patient with difficult and different conditions. I was not always an easy case! I presented them with challenging situations, and the senior doctor often corrected the newer doctors.

After a few months, their new patients nearly doubled over several months. Total visits also jumped 50% according to monthly trends because of improved retention and reactivation of patients. (I just reviewed their stats, and it’s all there!)

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR NUMBERS ARE DIPPING IN YOUR CHIROPRACTIC, HEALTHCARE, OR SERVICE BUSINESS

WHENEVER your numbers are dipping, the FIRST thing you need to do is to focus on the basics.

Do this yourself, your doctors, and your staff.

It starts with being comfortable with the patient, facing them, and being interested in them.

One of the best chiropractic doctors I have ever worked with would approach each patient with compassionate, confident curiosity. She concentrated just on that one patient. She hadn’t yet determined what action she would take. She would put her hands on the patient and innately, for lack of a better term, “look” at the patient. This is how I understood the concept of “Innate-to-Innate” communication and healing that I heard Dr. Jimmy Parker talk about years ago in Nevada, which I gather also came from the work of Dr. Thurman Fleet.

However, without attributing it to any system, this doctor was simply being with the patient deeply. Subjectively and empathically, she observed the patient. Objectively, she did the same through an exam and x-ray. She “got” where the patient was emotionally and physically.

She had extraordinary retention and referrals.

Her new associate, on the other hand, could not do this. She was friendly with the patients. But, she was not comfortable with each patient enough to look at them deeply, listen to them thoroughly, and question until she “got them completely.”

Her retention and referrals were not great, and the practice faltered.

Despite my recommendations, the senior doctor did not regularly train the associate doctor and put her through the boot camp type of apprenticeship she needed.

Focusing on the basics also applies to the entire team and their interactions with patients.

A GOOD RESTAURANT FILLS ITSELF UP

In my book, The Goal Driven Business, I refer to chef Jiro Ono, who operates a sushi restaurant in Japan.

Born in 1925, he was still working in the restaurant until 2023 which seats only 20 people. The waiting list for a reservation can be over a year. Each day, he worked to perfect every aspect of sushi, from selecting the right fish early at the fish market, to the precise texture of rice. Every night he considered how he could improve that day’s production.

“... You must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. … You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success....” (Jiro Dreams of Sushi, David Gelb 2011 documentary)

It reminds me of the old adage, “A good restaurant fills itself up.”

Challenge yourself and your doctors and staff to continue to master the skills of your profession. Always do this first before you worry about marketing.

Keep mastering your skill,

Ed

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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.

The Goal Driven Business

By Edward Petty