Ever since my collaboration with best-selling author Michael E. Gerber on our book, The E-Myth Nutritionist, with Michael E. Gerber, I have been providing chiropractors with "the E-Myth perspective" inspired by Gerber's work. Even though it would be useful to provide the overall context to all perspectives and explain all five of Gerber's E-Myth principles, this article will only focus on the fourth principle, the Franchise Prototype Model, and possibly in future articles I can elaborate on the remaining principles.
The Concept
What if you set up your chiropractic nutrition practice as if it were meant to be a prototype for 5,000 more just like it? Not almost like it, but just like it, perfect replicas or clones. In other words, you pretend you are setting up your chiropractic nutrition practice with the intent to franchise it. It doesn't matter that you have no plans in the slightest to franchise it. The point is that you set up your practice as if you were going to do so. Why? Because the advantages are so enormous and the risk of failure is so vastly reduced that it would be foolish not to embrace a winning model. Retail nutrition sales are in excess of $20 billion a year in the U.S., and if you are following a franchise prototype model that offers turn-key nutrition to your chiropractic patients; you now have an existing formula for success.
The Franchise Prototype is the working model of your ideal chiropractic nutrition practice. The Prototype is the medium through which assumptions are tested, through which the best creative thoughts are refined and put into the mix and through which ideas are sorted out. The Prototype acts as a buffer between hypothesis and action. Every method that is tried in the Prototype is used for one reason only; to answer the only question that ultimately counts in your practice.
Does it work?
At the end of testing a variety of methods and ideas in the real world, you will be left only with the methods that work. These might include several methods of operation servicing different aspects of the practice but, more importantly, your testing program will have taken these methods out of the isolation of their individuality and blended them together in a manner which will allow the various aspects of your practice to freely interact together and so produce maximum efficiency. The finished product will serve as the model for your chiropractic nutrition practice. In a name, you have created The Franchise Prototype; which, in essence, can be defined as the system that runs the chiropractic nutrition practice.
The Franchise Prototype System
There is nothing more important in your chiropractic nutrition practice than creating a system that works and then sticking to that system. The system runs the practice. Staff are secondary. They run the system. The system is clear-cut and clearly defined. The system takes all discretion, all opinion and all argument out of the mix and therefore no decision can be made on a whim or made by somebody whose judgment is affected by a particular mood at the time. The system has been put in place because it works and therefore it only needs to be followed by the people who run the system for your practice to work. And you don't even have to be at the front desk to watch staff do it! You are no longer your practice and it will not disappear if you are not doing everything yourself. In fact, the system can be, and should be, operated by staff with the lowest level of skill, otherwise how could you have another 5,000 businesses like it. Staff only have to follow procedures to achieve the consistent, predictable results which are beneficial to all patients. The system is the solution to the problems that have beset all chiropractic nutrition practices since time immemorial!
Rules to Follow
Your chiropractic nutrition practice must be set up to follow certain rules in order to take advantage of the Franchise Prototype Model concept. First, it must provide consistent value to patients beyond what they expect.
[pb]Questions to ask and answer: What could your chiropractic nutrition prototype do to provide consistently outstanding value? How can you give your patients the results they want systematically, rather than personally? How can you create a chiropractic nutrition practice whose results are system dependent rather than people or expert dependent?
Second, your practice must stand out as a place of impeccable order. How can you create structure and order? How can you create a chiropractic nutrition practice that says to your patients and your staff that you know what they're doing; a practice that says to your staff, you know what you're doing?
Third, all work in the chiropractic nutrition practice model must be documented in operations manuals. This is your bible for "how we do it here." It documents the purpose of the work, the specific steps to be taken, and the standards relating to both the process and the result. It is crucial for your prototype.
Fourth, it must provide a uniformly predictable service to patients. Looking orderly is not enough; the chiropractic nutrition practice must also act orderly, it must do things in a predictable, uniform way. How can you ensure that what you do, you do the same way each and every time?
Fifth, the nutrition you offer must utilize a uniform look. The chiropractic nutrition model must be thought of as a package for your one and only product - your practice. How can you package your nutrition as carefully as a box of cereal? Sixth is systemization, by which I mean developing an integrated system that does the work of the practice while the staff run the system.
The Franchise Prototype Outcome
The end result is that, on the basis of the smooth, consistent, orderly chiropractic nutrition practice system that you have put in place, the reputation of your chiropractic nutrition practice will grow in leaps and bounds. Note that well. The reputation of your chiropractic nutrition practice, not your product! Chiropractic and nutrition are not your product. Your own personal chiropractic nutrition practice is your product and, as the reputation of your practice grows, so does its notoriety in the community and so does its possibility for referrals.
Think of McDonald's, the most successful small business in the world, and the first and best example of The Franchise Prototype. Managers with little management experience and staff with ordinary skill levels, yet the business thrives on a major league basis because attention has been paid to every detail in the system so that the highest levels of discipline, standardization, order and cleanliness apply in a way which guarantees that customer expectations can be fulfilled in exactly the same way on every occasion. McDonald's Franchise Prototype was a masterpiece creation and it set the lead for others to follow. Consider this. Whereas 80% of all other business profiles fail in the first five years, 75% of all business format franchises succeed. So why would you even consider taking the more dangerous route?
Chiropractors typically follow one path when it comes to offering nutrition. They usually purchase some supplements, get a basic understanding of the products from the manufacturer and try to remember to use the products when appropriate. This almost never works, and leads to frustration when the supplements expire while sitting on the shelves. However, once you have established your chiropractic nutrition Franchise Prototype, you will be able to continue happily offering nutrition for as long as it suits you. Clearly setting up your chiropractic nutrition practice by way of the Franchise Prototype will give best return! It is your key to success.
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