It's the moment you have been working toward for years. The long hours of learning the art and science of chiropractic is about to pay off. You set a goal in life to help others by sharing your passion for chiropractic. Opening up your own practice is the culmination of hard work, determination, overcoming obstacles and mastering your craft. Optimism rules your thoughts and you are finally ready to take the next step on the journey of owning your own business. Open up the doors and the world will come in with open arms.
Not so fast. It's easy to get excited about your new venture while losing sight of minute details that can make or break your first year. Effective long-term practice systems have a foundation built upon four pillars of support: staff development, marketing, communication and adaptability.
Staff
You can be the most skillful doctor in town and yet still struggle if the wrong people are part of your team. Many doctors spend thousands of dollars on practice-management systems with little success because they are built upon a foundation of poorly developed staff. The most critical element of new-practice success is hiring the right people to interact with your patients and each other.
Personality counts above all else for your front-desk staff. Technical skills can be taught, but personality traits are hardwired. Changing a bad personality is nearly impossible and not worth the effort. Go for the gold in personality; the extrovert, the one who likes to smile and loves interacting with people. Hire front-end people based on communication abilities instead of experience.
For positions involving record-keeping, billing and insurance, introverted personalities may be your best choice. Choose someone who is detail-oriented, task-driven, accountable for their work and likes to follow a routine. Once you hire a cohesive team, do all you can to make them feel valued and appreciated. Develop a positive learning environment that fosters ongoing opportunities for continuing education. They should feel they are truly part of a team, not just an employee who shows up to punch a time clock for a paycheck.
Do they have input into practice policy? Can they approach you with new and innovative ideas to improve the practice? A productive, feel-good environment goes much further than you realize in building a successful practice. Rules of the road: Hire for attitude and train for skill; hire slow and fire fast.
Marketing
Do you have a marketing calendar for every week of the year and a monthly summary sheet? If not, create one now. How can you hit a target you can't even see? Set goals for yourself and your staff for each week and hold everyone accountable, including yourself. Documenting and tracking a marketing calendar is essential in discovering what works best for your practice. You should know every detail about each campaign and its effectiveness-to-investment ratio. There are many online resources where you can download sample annual marketing plans. Simply follow the template and change according to your target niche of patients.
Never stop marketing. Marketing is not something you do when business is slow; it's something you do so business never gets slow.
Implement a strategy based on social media exposure to form more personalized relationships with current and prospective patients. Log into Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogging sites. Connect with people. The best part about this model of advertising is that it's 100 percent free! In a first-year practice, you want to keep expenses to a minimum; what better way to do that than pay nothing? During the first year, it's natural to tighten up the belt and cut your marketing. Much of your effort should be from "internal marketing" and assurance of patient retention. It is more cost effective to keep an existing patient than to constantly search for new ones. Some of the best ways to do this include:
- Word-of-mouth programs: ask your clients to help you out.
- Referral strategies with incentives.
- Newsletters and special promotions.
- Educational workshops partnered with like- minded non-competitors.
- And of course, outstanding customer service that keeps patients coming.
Involve your staff in discovering fun and creative ways to market internally. If these ideas sound a little crazy, I suggest to you that they are the ones you should implement. Remember, being remarkable is a good thing. Boring is bankrupt, particularly when it comes to your practice.
[pb]Communication and the Curse of Knowledge
How you interact and communicate with others is a benchmark for success. People do business with people they like. If patients like and trust you, then you are on the fast track to first- year success. Invest yourself in learning to communicate better with patients and staff. Keep it simple. People make decisions based on emotion and justify it later with logic. Appeal to the emotional third brain of people to motivate them to action. Don't get caught up memorizing some fancy script written by some management company guru. Be authentic. Patients can sense the moment you are not genuine and they will get turned off quickly.
We often make the mistake of thinking that everyone knows what we know. In the health care world this is called, "The Curse of Knowledge." When we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become poor communicators. Our knowledge and experience render us unable to relate with others.
The better we get in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That's why knowledge is a curse. You just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of communication so your patients and staff truly understand what you mean.
What's the easiest way to ensure someone understood you? Just ask! When you finish a sentence, ask them if they understood what you meant. When communicating with patients and staff, take time to ensure everyone is on the same page. Use stories and analogies to help communicate complex or detailed topics.
Communicate from the heart and watch the magic happen. Action step: Go online and purchase one book a month on becoming a better communicator. Put the strategies into action.
Adaptability
Can you change with the times? Old-school methods that worked a few years ago may no longer work in the current economic environment. In order to survive, you will have to adapt to new trends, new technologies affecting your business social and economic changes, and many other things. Don't get intimidated and spread yourself too thin by taking on too many roles. Become legendary at one thing; don't be a jack-of-all-trades. Decide what you want to be known for and kill that category. Delegate the rest. Adapt to working on and growing your practice every day without losing your personal life in the process. Time management is a key component of adaptability. The way you make your time more valuable is to make sure you're getting high-return activities done instead of always pushing them back to spend time putting out fires or just working in your business.
The 3 by 11 Method
Here is a simple and effective practice-building strategy endorsed by business consultant Pat Rigby. It's called the 3 by 11 Method:
- Step One: Each evening before you go to bed, list three high-return activities you can accomplish the next day. These are work- on-your-business tasks.
- Step Two: In the morning, choose one of the high-return activities and complete it. See it through beginning to end. If it's not something that fits into an hour or two at the most, break it down into smaller components and finish one of these. After you finish the task, check it off and move to the next one. The goal is to finish high- return tasks by 11 a.m.
- Step Three: Evaluate what you got done at the end of the day and then create your 3 by 11 list for tomorrow. If you are booked with patients the entire morning, pick any three-hour window throughout the day to use as your "by 11" time. During that time, make sure you shut out distractions and get things done that will take your business to the next level. Focus in order to succeed.
Remember to always strengthen your core pillars of success; staff development, marketing, communication and adaptability. Neglect a single pillar and the entire structure crumbles. To say that surviving a first year in practice is difficult and challenging would be a serious understatement. Almost 70 percent of businesses do not survive their first year of operation. That is not a very strong track record.
In the majority of cases, this is due to basic operational mistakes and lack of a clear vision detailed with expectations and contingencies. The fate of your business is in your hands. If you master key habits, your chances of survival will increase exponentially.
