416- The Top 3 Factors for Success (or Failure) in a Chiropractic Practice

Welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor, where each week we deliver the latest chiropractic research and marketing strategies, all in the time it takes to get to your office. Now, here's your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid.

Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I am your host, Dr. Jeff Lengmaid. On today's episode, we are going to talk about the top three reasons for success or failure in a chiropractic practice. I was asked this question on an interview the other day. I thought it was an awesome question and I'd love to highlight the three reasons that I have found looking at thousands of practices and including my own experience on what is a successful practice and what might be more apt to lead to struggle and or failure. Here's the beautiful part. We're gonna talk down all three reasons and every single one of them is completely controllable. So we'll talk through why it's the case and then we'll talk about the action steps necessary to use it to fuel success. Before we get started, I wanna say a few words about Patient Pilot by the smart chiropractor. We are in an end of year open enrollment for Patient pilot. We've had nearly 500 docs opt into our Fast Money patient reactivation training if you were one of them. Thank you. If not, I'll drop that link down below, head over to Fast Money training and get in because we're going to hook you up with my favorite campaigns, hsa, FSA templates, et cetera. And if you'd love the whole thing powered for you. In utilizing our automated hsa, fsa, chances are before the end of the year you can generate enough revenue to pay for Patient pilot throughout all of next year and then some. So head over to the smartchiropractor.com or fast money training if you're not in the training yet and get my favorite campaigns. Go get access to everything you need to make the end of Q4 as successful as possible for your practice. Now, as I said at the top on today's episode, we're talking the three reasons for success or failure in a chiropractic practice. What are those three reasons? I'm gonna touch on them as highlights and then we'll dig deep into each one. Number one, breaking through obscurity. Number two, protecting your confidence. And number three, clarity of vision. What are you really trying to do? So let's start with breaking through obscurity. This is one and it is the challenge for every single doc because you have to break through obscurity to have people be able to choose you. If not enough people know who you are or what you do, there's just absolutely no way to be successful. Your net worth is your network is another way to put this. And it is exceptionally true. In a chiropractic and a service based business, we are at the tip of the spear for this. The amount of people who know who you are, that's step number one and know how to choose you. There's a big breakdown in many practices between step one and step two. Know how to choose you are the most successful practices. And this is true everywhere, always, for all time, and it remains the same. Now here's the beautiful part. In today's day and age, whether it's Google reviews, social media, email blasts, outbound calling, old fashioned dinner with a doc, programs, whatever it might be, there are more opportunities than ever for people to know who you are, which is awesome. So if you are a young doc, or you're a doc, even maybe experienced doc, and you're just like, I just can't get to the next level. More people need to know who you are. That's just what it boils down to 100 times out of 100. Now the secondary part of that is the part that really hinges on which is do they know how to choose you? So it's not only getting attention, which is the imperative, but but it's getting the attention and then walking to the next step. In smart chiropractor land, we call this teach and invite consistently, regardless of if it's email social media flyer that you're handing out, whatever it might be, teach, how are you engaging, entertaining, inspiring people? How are you inviting? That's your call to action. That's the next step you want that person to take, if they qualify, so to speak, if they're interested, and then do it super consistently. And that's really the key to the whole thing. And for so many practices we look elsewhere, we look at redoing our forms, we look at whatever it might be, these ancillary and tertiary items, when really the heart of the issue is not enough people know who you are and not enough people know how to choose you. So step number one again, get people to know who you are. There's plenty of ways to do that. If you have questions, of course you can hit me up. But there's plenty of services, plenty of solutions out there and plenty of work you can just do yourself. Shooting reels, ensuring that you are getting out in your community at as many events as Possible and like one event enough at this point, one event a month. Excuse me, it's probably not enough. If you're a new doc, you need to be pounding the pavement every single day. Ah, that sounds like work. Yes. And is it fun? Probably not the number one thing you want to do, but you have to break through obscurity or else you can never be successful. And the second part is linking number one with number two. Number two is ensuring that people know how to choose you. If you are a chiropractor, quote unquote, that is super difficult. I equate this to being a lawyer. If somebody's like I'm an attorney, you're like great. Are you a maritime attorney, a corporate attorney, a tax law attorney, a personal injury attorney, a divorce attorney, an estate attorney, like there has to be a qualifier. And if you look at the content you're putting out and there's nothing that showcases based upon either their symptom or your focus. And either their symptom or your focus how they can choose you. You're just, you know, you know, what ing into the wind. So it's really a matter of linking number one and number two. So that is all about breaking through obscurity. Number one challenge for nearly every provider out there. And you can just never do enough of it until everybody in the world knows who you are and knows how to choose you. You, you have, it's a never ending cycle. So step number two is protecting your confidence. And this might seem a little, you know, off kilter, but this is super critical. Especially, especially if you are a doc earlier on in practice who might not have seen the success you want to as of yet. Protecting your confidence is one of the most critical aspects. And I can't forget whether I read about this concept or whether somebody, I had a conversation with somebody very early on in my career when I was going through some pretty significant practice growth struggles and they just highlighted to me you need to do everything you can to protect your confidence. You know who you are, you know what you're doing, you have a vision for what you want to see through. But if you start to have self doubt, if you start to have indecision, if you're unable to take action steps and feel powerless or feel as though you are not in control of your situation, that there's other factors that are, the economy's bad, the guy opened up down the street, this person ripped me off. When you start to think that way, that is a self perpetuating thought process and it does nothing for you and that will drive you to failure faster than just about anything else on planet earth. So protect your confidence at all costs. Ensure that you're following people online that feed in to what you wanna see and who you wanna be. Ensure that you're connecting with people, your friend circle your colleague, circle the people that you are getting around. Hopefully they're the ones that should be lifting you up. Hopefully they're a step or two ahead of you and you're learning from them. Not with envy and jealousy, but with earnest and intrigue. Absolutely critical to protect your confidence. And the other component of this is to be able to make decisions. I see so many docs of all ilks, younger docs, more experienced docs, that just, they can't make a decision. I see this all the time with the evidence based chiropractor, with the smart chiropractor, they'll kick the can down the road from forever. And it's just, it's not the way a successful business runs. Decisiveness is one of the most key aspects in business success. And you can see that across the board with large companies, medium sized companies, small businesses that are hyper successful. It's about making decisions now it's making informed decisions, don't get me wrong. But it's about making a decision and then making it work or pivoting. It's not about, well, how do I eliminate 100% of risk before I do anything. Because this one other guy who has nothing to do with this, you know, I felt as though I might have been taken advantage of, which may or may not be true. Like that is a recipe for disaster. And that that thought process creeps in to so many chiropractors. And some of that is because most of us as chiropractors are caregivers as opposed to purebred entrepreneurs. So we have that little bit of maybe self doubt in the business realm. We don't feel as though we are the ultimate business people. It's kind of a, a side effect or you know, collateral damage of doing what we want to do, which is taking care of people day in and day out, but that you have to protect your confidence. So feed into that, connect with people you know like and trust, make decisions and be decisive. Because time is actually the highest commodity, the highest item that you have. Indecisiveness wastes time and time is the fixed asset by which all of us are draining every single moment of every single day. So indecisiveness is the highest cost you can possibly have in your life and business. So Be decisive. And then number three is clarity of vision. So what are you really trying to do? And clarity of vision, it touches on the first two in some ways that we've discussed, which is breaking through obscurity and protecting your confidence. But clarity of vision is what are you really trying to do in practice? What, who are you really trying to take care of? What's your patient avatar? Who are they? What are they struggling with? Because that's how you power your messaging. And we see this with failure or struggle when it's like, well, I don't know what content to put out. Well, it's just clear at that point that you haven't thought through your patient avatar because if you did, you'd know who they are, what they're struggling with. And the obvious content that you produce is where do you meet them in that path and guide them along. Clarity of vision also is in regards to business operations. Are you trying to grow multi unit locations? Are you trying to grow one lone wolf location? Are you trying to build out a really big, really successful 5,000 square foot space? A 2,000 square foot space is your vision. A hundred thousand square foot building with multiple other providers based upon that vision, you will make different decisions to get to that end point. And without that clarity of vision, you're on a rudderless ship, as they'd say, and you're just never going to get there. Or if you do, it'll be on accident and take 20 times longer than it should have. So clarity of vision is critical. The other component with clarity of vision is it affects your business decisions. For example, docs that are like, well, I want to be viewed as this trusted expert in my community and I want to guide patients throughout a lifetime of care, meaning I want them to come in to see me on and off when they need me throughout their life. And I want to be viewed as the absolute trusted expert. I want to have the sterling reputation. And then you're going and running like discount ads to get people in the front door. This is, that's not a clarity of vision, it's clearly clouded vision. You can't be the cheapest option, selling off your services to the lowest person that comes in and then expect those same individuals to hold you in the highest esteem as this awesomely fantastic doctor. It doesn't work that way. So you would, if you had clarity of vision and you wanted to have the most sterling reputation, doesn't mean you need to overcharge people, but it needs, you really need to focus on where and how are you attracting new patients. When, where and how are you improving your patient retention? When, where and how are you having patient reactivation systems that are not one off? Every once in a while somebody just calls desperately hoping for the best, but you actually have systems and automations that drive your success. Now if you're looking to be the discount leader and compete based upon low cost and super high volume, then absolutely run the discount. That is how you will do it, but it is not the way that it works if you want to be viewed as this unbelievable expert. I have all these certifications, I know so much. I can help people in all of these sports realms, yet to get them in the door, I just discount their service. It doesn't work that way. So ultimately these are all decisions that you need to make as a business owner that will move you towards success or pull you towards failure. And the more that you're able to, number one, top priority, break through obscurity, absolutely critical to protect your confidence at all costs. And three, have clarity of vision so you can make decisive decisions about where you hope to get to in the future. The more that you're able to accomplish all of that, the better off you'll be and the more likely you will be successful over time. So I hope this has been super helpful. I'd love to have feedback on this episode. It's a little bit different so hit me up. Jeff the evidence basedchiropractor.com I would absolutely love, love to hear from you. Additionally, let me highlight a couple things before we wrap. Number one, stay tuned. Next week I'm gonna have an awesome interview with Dr. Pound over at Aligna Sleep. These are the pillows I use in my own house. So if a chiropractor asks me or a patient asked me, what pillow do you recommend? Align of Sleep pillows hands down. Alignasleep.com I'm gonna drop the link down below. Head over there, connect with them and their team immediately because it is the best pillow on the market. It is founded by a chiropractor who's entrepreneurial, who's doing the right thing, who has been involved with very major institutions. Dr. Pound's a real deal. So go over there and support him. He supports his podcast, alignasleep.com, i'll drop that link down below. And finally, if you are looking for a new piece of tech in your practice, many people out there looking at shockwave devices, stemwave is the one. Go stemwave.com the evidence based chiropractor. I'm gonna drop that link down in the show notes. Go stemwave.com the evidence based chiropractor this is the unit I personally use. Had tremendous success with this unit clinically and from a business point of view. Go stemwave.com the evidencebasedchiropractor if you're interested in shockwave therapy, Stemwave is where you need to go. Go stemwave.com the evidencebasedchiropractor thank you for tuning in. If you have not left a rating review for this podcast, I would love it if you would take a moment and do so. You can scroll on down, tap how many stars, leave a bit of feedback. That would be awesome and and I hope you have a fantastic week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

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