Set SMART Goals: Make This Year Your Best Yet! | Podcast Ep. 312

Foreign hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. On today's episode, we're going to break down, in my opinion, one of the most important things that you can do right now to set yourself up for success in 2022. And that is creating smart goals. Yes, that's an acronym. We'll break down what each letter means, we'll apply it to practice, and I'm going tell a couple little stories about how really setting goals dramatically changed the trajectory of my success level and why I think it's so important. Yet often it's not really brought to the forefront in so many chiropractic practices. It doesn't need to be hard, it doesn't need to be confusing, it doesn't need to take a lot of time, but it does need to be done. You have to be able to set those targets so that you have a plan and really a focus for you and your team as, as we cruise through into next year. But as I said at the top, today on this episode, we're breaking down smart goals. And you might have heard of these before. S M, A R, T. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. That's what the acronym stands for. I want to break it down one by one, showcase some examples of how you can think about it and hopefully really encourage you to take this seriously as we get into 2022. I know goal setting for me it always seem, seemed like, I don't know, something I didn't want to do back in the day. It just was like, I don't know what to set, I don't know how to set it, I don't know how. It just didn't seem very actionable to me. And smart goals, making them specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound makes it so much easier to do exactly those things to really hone in on what you're trying to achieve in a year. And, and it sets sort of that North Star. And the beauty of setting goals is that they're unique to you, they're unique to each and every practice. So you might have revenue goals, you might have income goals. Right? Top line revenue goals, you might have income goals, which is more bottom line. You might have new patient goals, you might have average patient visits per week type goals. There's a vast array of different types of goals that you could have for, for next year. And that's the beauty of it. I don't want you to think about this and get overwhelmed that you need to have 17,000 goals and you're trying to track it. Now you're spending so much time tracking things that you're not doing things. Don't think about it that way. Just if you're just getting started with this, think about maybe those one to two goals that you could have for next year. I'll give you some examples of goals that we've used internally and I've used internally with the evidence based chiropractor and with the smart chiropractor. And they're pretty basic. You know, it is revenue and membership. I look at that each and every year and I say, okay, at the end of this quarter and at the end of the half year and at the end of the year, here is where I would like to be in terms of top line revenue and here's where I'd like to be in terms of total membership numbers. So you can see just with those two things right there, it's specific, right? I'm saying here's the exact revenue number I'm hoping to hit next year and, and here's the specific number of members that I'd like to have. It's measurable because it's numbers. So it's pretty easy to line up. It is attainable. So I'm always looking to stretch things a little bit, but I'm not being unrealistic. I'm looking at where I'm at right now and I'm saying, okay, what was my revenue last year and what do I hope it to be next year? So I try to make it attainable, realistic as well. I look at it through the lens of, okay, let's be honest with you, what's going on in the marketplace. Let's be honest with where we're at with systems and processes and let's be honest with the things that we're going to add on next year that'll help us continue to grow and then time bound. So I look at it in terms of having a deadline, right? Understanding is this goal, a monthly goal, a quarterly goal, maybe it's a half year goal or potentially it's a full year goal. So all of those things, you don't need to get overly complicated with it, but just probably the two places you'll want to start is looking at what's my top line revenue and what are my number of patient visits per week and setting goals around that. I think is a great way to get started with goal setting. And you know, I'm probably going to butcher this quote right here, but it's like you Know you set your goals for the moon and if you miss, you still hit the stars kind of thing. So getting it out there, writing it down, putting it out into the universe, however you want to describe that, right, really can make a huge difference in the desire, in the ability. And just what you put out there tends to come back energy in, energy out. So as you look towards 2022 and say, where do I want to be with my practice 12 months from right now, as we're closing down this year, I think it is important, it is critically important to set goals to be able to get there. If you don't, it's like a rudderless ship. Each and every month you're going to be cruising around, you don't know where you're going. Your team as the leader of the team in your practice, whether it's a small team and just you, literally, or whether you have a multi location, large team, having everybody in tune with where you are trying to go over the next 6 months to 12 months makes such a wild difference in productivity that, you know, just that benefit alone is worth sitting down and setting a few goals. And it also keeps everybody motivated and inspired and tuned into the business. You know, now I know that there are some numbers probably internally in your business that you don't want every single team member to know about. That's cool. But that's why looking at your goals and saying, what are those numbers? I don't mind sharing. And one number again, maybe, maybe you don't want to share revenue numbers. I think it's important to do that. However, you know, the patient visits per week should be a pretty obvious one where you can set that goal. And now everybody on the team knows, hey, here's where we're trying to get to. Now. How do we increase our, our average number of patients per week? Well, we can increase that by increasing our new patients. We can increase that by ensuring that our retention is good, that our patients are completing their active care plans. How else can we do that? We can do that by reactivating past patients. So once you set that goal now you're able to peel back and say, great, what are the action steps that we can take to get there? And that starts to inform your plan. So having smart goals again, I think is so important for all businesses. But let's break down step by step exactly what these mean and exactly how you can think about it. So we start with the S, of course, specific, you know, setting real numbers with real deadlines. So it's not just, well, I'd like to have more new patients. I'd like to make more money in 2022. It has to be specific. Now, the nice thing about our businesses, I think, as chiropractors is, uh, we're profit, you know, so we, we're ha. We have revenue numbers, we have income numbers, and we have expense numbers, and we have a bunch of patient statistics, right? What's our pva? What's our average patient visits per week? How many new patients did we get last month? How many patients did we reactivate last month? So it's pretty easy to be specific with our, with our data because we're a business, right? So number one is specificity. Setting real numbers with real deadlines. We'll get to that a little bit more. It's. It can't be arbitrary. It can't be more. It has to be specific. The M is measurable. Make sure your goal is trackable. Don't talk about, well, we'd like to have more engagement on our social page, more influence. We'd like to have, you know, more people coming in. Again, this almost ties to the specificity, but making sure that your goal is trackable and when it's specific, it probably is going to be able to be measurable. Excuse me. So how do you track and measure your results? And the third one is attainable? You know, doing work towards a goal that's challenging but possible. Don't try to, you know, take over the world in one night. Don't try to, you know, increase your practice by 700%. If the last four years you've grown by 5% per year, right? So you want to have it be something that is attainable and something that a team, your team can sit there and look towards and say, okay, we're making progress towards that goal. Doesn't mean you need to lowball it, but it does mean you need to make it attainable. So just looking at how your business has run, how your practice has run over the past few years is a great starting point to say, okay, how do I set this? Where it's a little bit of a reach, where it's a little bit of a stretch, where everybody on the team is going to have to push a little bit harder, but that it's not demoralizing, right? That's the last thing you want. The R is realistic. So being honest about what you and your team is capable of is this goal realistic? And this ties into any hurdles you have to overcome or any benefits. So, you know, if you are going to get started right now, we're in open enrollment with the Smart Chiropractor. If you're going to get started by, by automating your marketing through the Smart chiropractor, well, you might alter your goal and up it a little bit because saying, hey, what are we realistically doing to get there? Well, we're now outsourcing and automating a lot of our marketing so that we can generate more new patients, we can retain our active patients through their care plans at a higher level, and we can reactivate patients consistently. Okay, great again. Now when you start to get realistic, you're saying, what are we doing to get there? What are those action steps that our team is taking? Are we utilizing a service like the Smart chiropractor or are we doing the same thing again and hoping for a different result? Right. So being realistic with your goals, so, so important. And the T is time bound. Giving yourself a deadline, it can't be, well, we'd like to get there someday, right? The time bound aspect of this, it's almost like sales urgency and scarcity, right? Having that time, that time bound component, having that deadline forces the team to look at and say, where are we at in accordance with that deadline? Do we need to push harder? Are we ahead of schedule? And we can celebrate? But keep our foot on the gas. Understanding each aspect of this and having goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound will undoubtedly help your practice grow and succeed in 2022. There's just no way around it. So over the next few weeks, I'm gonna encourage you, take a few moments, sit down, whether it's between patients at night, before you go to sleep, during, during your study time, whatever it might be for you, sit down and really identify what are the goals I can set for myself. And you could use this personally or professionally. By the way, there's a million ways you could use this. But in the context of this podcast, I want you to focus on your practice and, you know, focus on what are those high level North Star type numbers that I can create a smart goal around in 2022 that can get the team excited, that can get us unified, that can get us working towards something, and that pushes us a little bit to do some new things next year, to explore some new avenues to be able to make that goal realistic, to be able to ensure that we do our best to hit it. Once you start doing that, I noticed about a decade ago is when I started really setting goals in terms of, hey, what am I looking to do this year? Am I Looking to add on a new business? Am I looking to, you know, increase my income a little bit? Am I gonna go, you know, look towards having a new hobby or whatever it might be? I said here, here are the things I want to accomplish. Do I wanna go on vac, whatever it might be? I looked about 10 years ago and really started to dive into this and it dramatically changed my results at the end of each and every year. And why is that? Because I had something to reference. And that reference point, that North Star is really the secret sauce of growth, it's the secret sauce of development and it is the secret sauce of really pushing yourself towards greater success. So if you have any questions about this, of course you can hit me up. Jeff, the Evidence basedchiropractor. Com Also want to say a few words about the Smart Chiropractor. If you don't have your marketing plan set up and ready to go for 2022, we are going to have open enrollment opening very, very soon for the Smart Chiropractor. So our goal is to really guide that patient journey for you so you can have more new patients coming into your practice, more and better retention of your active patients throughout their care plans and then of course, better retention on the back end. Also exclusive Smart Chiropractor members. We recently launched our Smart Care Store system to help you create and generate recurring revenue by having your own online store that has a bunch of fantastic subscribe and save products in it. And of course because we're helping you get out there via social, via email, all of your streaming video, all of those things that we do within the Smart Chiropractor, we can help promote and market and generate sales in your store for you. So again, if you're looking towards your goals in 2022, and some of those goals are I'd love to more revenue, I'd love to have less stress, I'd love to increase the number of new patients. Now of course you want to be specific with those numbers for you and your practice, but if those are in your wheelhouse, you're going to want to check out what we have going on at the Smart Chiropractor because we're going to help you be able to get there. And finally also we have over 125 open positions paying $85,000 or more@chiromatchmakers.com so check out the job board there, see what's available, you know, jump around. There is a whether whether it's a subluxation based practice, whether it's a rehab and pain based practice, a PI practice. We really have it all available there and we do not take any jobs that are paying these low, you know, upfronts with these like, hopefully, you know, unicorn type things in the future. No, we want to ensure that we have high quality, high paying jobs for docs. We have over 100 available right now, so be sure to get in our ecosystem, check out what we have going on and basically have an awesome week. We are heading down towards the end of this year. We're gonna have some fun over the next few weeks on this podcast. So get out there, have fun in your practice, get out there, you know, build relationships with other healthcare providers. Do some fun and cool things with your patients as we round down this year. And one final thing with the Smart Chiropractor during our open enrollment right now we are giving away an HSA FSA email template. So if you have not sent anything to your patients yet showcasing, hey, your benefits are use it or lose it, you want to do that. Time is definitely running out, so head over to smartchiropractor.com, let us know how we can help. Have an awesome week in practice. If you have not left us a review on this podcast, please do so. It helps more and more docs. Find out about it and have a great week and I'll catch you next week and talk to you soon.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. If you want to grow your practice, come back for next week's episode. If you want to grow faster, visit the evidencebasedchiropractor.com and join our MD Marketing membership today.