“Don’t be such a Tool…”

Honest question, are you being a bit of a tool to your patients? Because I see quite a lot of chiropractors who are acting like tools when it comes to their work with patients. Some a little bit like a tool. Quite a lot of us are acting like a complete tool. Now, when I say tool, what I'm referring to is the idea of how our patients choose to use us. So many chiropractors, and I, myself included, start their career thinking that really they are offering a service service. They're offering adjustments to a patient. You know, they'll come in and they'll give us some money and we'll give them some adjustments or some treatment or some manual therapy, whatever it is that you do in the room when your patients on the bench. And there's a big problem with that because when you act like a tool, when you are providing a one off tool, you're providing your patient with one thing that they are using to try and fix a specific problem. And there's a much, much better thing you should be doing which is to provide an outcome. So acting like a tool is like just having a spanner. If you think that you provide adjustments and that's what you do, that's like selling spanners. If your patient comes in and goes, I'm doing some diy, I've got a nut that I really need tightening at home. Have you got a spanner? You can go, oh yeah, here's a spanner. And they go, oh great, here's some money. Thank you for the spanner. I'm going to go and use that. Then that's it, I'm not going to come back, I'm not going to talk to you again, you know, unless I ever need a brand new spanner for that one specific thing, I'm not going to be a repeat customer and I'm probably not going to go out referring lots of people to you because we never had a chance to build a relationship. That's what happens if you just think that you're providing adjustments, you're providing hands on treatment, is that the patient thinks, I need some chiropracting, I need some clicking, I've seen it on YouTube, whatever it is they think they come in to see you and you go, oh yes, I'll give you some clicking, I'll give you some chiropracting, whatever it is they think it is, and they go, oh, thanks. While I think I need that, I'll pay you for that and you can give me that. And then when I've got what I Wanted. I'm off. And most patients think, my back hurts, I've got pain. Maybe if the chiropractor clicks me and does their chiropractic magic, my back pain will go away. And then lo and behold, the back pain goes away. They go, thanks, see ya. And they're off. And you're going, wait, hang on. We haven't fixed the underlying problem. And maybe you did what I did for a number of years, which is really practice hard at the report of findings to try and educate and go, I know you think you just have this problem, but you can use this tool for so many other things and actually the problem you think you're fixing is part of a bigger problem. And we throw loads of education at them and it doesn't really work that well. It kind of does. Sometimes some patients are going to do what you tell them, others are just going, okay, yep, I'll nod and smile, but I only need a spanner for this job. And once I'm done with the spanner, I'm good. The alternative is we need to provide an outcome for them, is to find out, okay, why do you want this spanner? What are you doing at home? Oh, okay, you are fitting a new door. Well, you know, as well as needing a spanner, that's a bad example. I don't think you need spanners for doors. But as well as fitting that, you know, you're actually going to have to make sure that you level it. Right. So to level the door, you know, we're going to make sure that we've got a plumb line, we've got a few levelers here that could help you do that. Have you thought about how you're going to drill the holes? Okay, well, there's actually some drills that you're going to need and you'll need a particular bit. You've got, is it a doorway into a bit of wood? Okay, you'll need a wood drill bit. I'm rapidly reaching the limits of my DIY skills as my wife will back up. This isn't really the metaphor I'm most familiar with, but you can see what I mean. Instead of selling a tool, you're now providing an outcome. What you're providing for this person is, ah, you want to have this new door hung. You want to have that look really nice work, really well. Okay, why don't I help you do that? And along the way, yeah, I've got a spanner you can buy because that's going to solve one problem of getting the door handle fitted. Whatever the spanner would do there. But also you've thought about, you got to level off the door, you got to drill. Well, there's some other problems here along the way. And instead of providing a one off tool for a one off problem, that is okay, thanks, see you later. You are now providing an outcome which at the end of it is the patient goes, oh, thanks, my back pain sorted. Now I can go play tennis on the weekend with my friends. Now I can relax comfortably, even get a good night's sleep and not be stressed that I'm not going to be able to play with my kids on Sundays, whatever it might be. Their back pain is part of a bigger problem and if you can find out what that is, you can offer an outcome. And, and the great thing about offering an outcome is that there's multiple steps involved and you're often showing them solutions to problems they didn't even know they had. And that really demonstrates your value. When you can solve a problem before they even thought about it, there's also going to be multiple problems on the way to doing that. It's not just going to be one thing, there's more to do it. But they understand that because they know that they're on a path to get this outcome. So you demonstrate much more value. You show them that, hey, I'm not just about the clicking. There's a lot of other stuff I can provide and help you with. And by the time they get their outcome, you've had more time, they've stuck with you longer, you've built that relationship, you've built that trust and rapport, you've likely got a fair few more reviews and referrals along the way, just naturally because of that. And you've built a lot more trust. So the patient's much more likely to stick with it, to get the outcome they wanted. They won't disappear as soon as they don't need the spanner anymore. But also as well as that, you're going to have the chance to build that long term relationship and demonstrate your value in other things. They might go, oh, I never knew you did knees. I've had a knee issue for a while actually. You know, my mum has struggled with a knee throat. Do you think you could help her? Because you've shown them that you're not a tool, you're not a one off thing, you provide outcomes and you have multiple tools and multi. Even if all you do is adjust, you have multiple bits of expertise you can bring in along the way. So if your practice has been struggling. If you're worried about the effect of the cost of living crisis, the effect of utility bills, if you're noticing patients dropping off and it's not, not that busy as it used to be, I urge you to think about this. Are you being a tool? Are you just offering one solution? Are you just seeing patients come in thinking you can help with back pain and trying to educate them about how you can do other things for them, about how you can improve their biomechanics, give them a subluxation free spine, give them a perfect nervous system, give them a strong biomechanic, whatever it is you think you do, rather than trying to teach somebody who comes in for a spanner going like, hey, do you want this drill? I've got a lovely drill. There's lots of stuff you can do with drills. Find out what they want and then show them how you can do that. Offer an outcome. That's what we need to do. Because if you're just providing a service, you're just being a tool. And being a tool is not a good way to build a practice long term. If that's something that you're struggling with, if you want to do it but don't know how, that is a key, key part of the Happy Patient project. So as I've been talking about recently, I will be opening up enrollment soon for the new and improved version. Very different way. You can access it as well. We're changing lots of things and it'll be easier than ever for you to invest in that. So if you'd like some help with that, keep an eye out. Soon I'll be releasing more details. Take care, everyone.