Break through your comfort zone: develop professional alliances and offer seminars and classes

A comfort zone can be described as a safe place with mild confrontation and light decision-making. As health care providers, we often are pulled to the periphery of our comfort zones because each patient requires some confrontation and specific decision-making. As businessmen or women, we also will probe the edges of our comfort zones, depending on our public relations or marketing activity. The purpose of this article is to explore a few areas where practice and patient management can be increased once you and your staff get a handle on this delicate subject.

Let’s start at the beginning—acquiring new patients. Do you lecture in the community or have regularly scheduled spinal care classes? When was the last time you spoke with a local attorney or health care provider to pursue a professional alliance? Do you feel comfortable screening potential patients in a public setting? Can you rely on your staff to participate in community events? Do you or they regularly ask for referrals? These questions may be quickly answered with “I’m not really interested,” but deep down, you probably are not comfortable in these situations.

Every business uses marketing tools to generate new customers. If you question why some physicians have a large practice while others do not, it often boils down to comfort levels and merging proper ethical procedures with responsible practice management. If I was your consultant, and my first recommendation would be for you to begin weekly spinal care classes, would you feel comfortable, or does your stomach begin to grip with unease? If my second request was for you to have your staff ask for referrals, would they become tongue-tied and feel uncomfortable? These are two basic procedures that are utilized and maintained by all flourishing and successful clinics. Confronting your fears and pushing beyond these comfort zones will be a great breakthrough.

Public speaking is not easy, but it is considerably more difficult if you have limited knowledge of your subject and work without an outline. If this area is not easy for you, I recommend that you start slowly. Begin by writing a simple script for a short half-hour spinal care class. Outline your purpose and goal. Obviously, the purpose is to educate patients, while the goal is to increase the number of people under chiropractic care.

The script should introduce you and your staff while defining chiropractic, your techniques, and your patient goals. Discuss common activities that aggravate health and wellness, and relate this to biomechanical and neurological function, such as daily activity or work-related ergonomic stress. Next, highlight your interests and specialties within chiropractic. Conclude with how everyone deserves a chiropractic evaluation, and how easy it is to refer them to your office.

The next step is to schedule a spinal care class. Pick an hour after your lunch or evening work schedule when all new patients are asked to attend and have their adjustments just prior to the class. At first, the attendance may be low; but whether one or many attend, pay your dues and present the best class possible. With time and repetition, your comfort level will increase—as will your confidence and ability to extend these programs community-wide.

This also tests your staff’s ability to both stimulate referrals and generate interest with office programs. If a staff member is uneasy recommending and following through with class attendance, he or she probably is uneasy recalling missed appointments and stimulating patients to maintain their schedule of care. Your staff is a crucial component of your practice’s success, and their comfort level is also a consideration. Staff education and script or patient role-playing should be part of every staff meeting and ongoing training session.

The next consideration is professional alliances and networking. If I gave you the names of three local medical providers, would you feel comfortable calling them on the phone and discussing mutual professional interests, such as referrals and health fair participation? How about dropping by their office during lunch, or better yet, taking them out for lunch? Which suggestion just made you cringe more? How about a local attorney? Many work with personal injury clients and need to refer them to a competent and well-versed health care provider—why not you? Acquiring new-patient referrals from local physicians or attorneys is an area that most chiropractors are afraid to explore.

These professional alliances can be successful and profitable. Create an attorney survey, and visit their offices to question them or their paralegals about your mutual interests—personal injury care. After a few face-to-face encounters, it will be simple to keep the momentum and see more attorneys and other community professionals. Baby steps breed confidence and courage to do more. Before you know it, your comfort zones and ability to confront your fears will accommodate the need to grow—and you will.

Another area where physicians feel uncomfortable is holding public screenings. If you think about it, there is no better way to introduce yourself and chiropractic than being one-on-one with a potential patient. The locale and setting may be a bit uncomfortable, but the possibility of evaluating and helping so many people is immense. Screenings can be arranged in a public mall, your local Wal-Mart, or best yet, local corporations (where you can evaluate their employees for ergonomic stress).

Another uncomfortable issue is meeting corporate decision-makers. Again, if I were your consultant, I would recommend that you evaluate your neighborhood and create a demographic profile. Are there areas for ergonomic workshops with clerical or material-handling facilities? Are church and civic associations nearby? Would you be willing to ask patients where they work and then call or meet with either their human resources or safety managers? The potential of doubling your practice is real if you create one successful corporate alliance with regularly scheduled workshops, employee evaluations, and safety screenings. As is the nature of success, one positive program leads to others.

Fear of rejection is one issue that many people face. When was the last time a patient decided not to follow your recommended schedule of care? If it happens often, I bet you will change the numbers accordingly from the amount of visits you feel are necessary to the number you feel they will “buy.” Are your office fees in line with other community chiropractors, or do you feel uncomfortable with these average fees and therefore lower them to make it more comfortable for you to present them? How often does your front desk assistant receive negative responses from missed appointment calls? If you also received continual negative rejections, do you think it would also stifle the number of calls you make, or at least, suppress the tone and urgency of your voice?

To change and feel less stress with increased confidence, I recommend that you first decide whether you are interested in change. Can you expand your comfort zones and financially benefit? To change, first write your goals and plot action steps to achieve them. Next, locate a speaker’s club such as Toastmasters or Dale Carnegie, and begin the process of reducing your public-speaking fear while building confidence with each programmed exercise. Also, create a survey for every patient to complete. Ask where they work and if they have influence to invite you as a speaker for a quick “Lunch and Learn” seminar discussing stress, health, and wellness. Ask whether they are interested in topical workshops discussing various wellness issues held in your office, and how many people they can bring with them. Ask if they belong to a local civic, sport, or church group that may request speakers. This is a great way to have your patients participate and develop a habit of speaking.

Most people have a cringe level that is either too high or too low, in that it hurts to be or feel rejected. Rather than attempting to break through the maze of fear and the unknown, it is best to feel comfortable at the level you are at. Increased business is out there, if only you felt comfortable reaching out and attracting it.

For survey information, screening guidelines, letters to send to corporations, and workshop flyer ideas, visit my Web site: www.chirosmart.net/shop.   CP

Joel E. Margolies, DC, has been in practice for 25 years in Atlanta and is the author of four books: Smart Start, Workshop Workbook, Chiropractic Marketing and Public Relations, and Personal Injury Workbook. He sends a free weekly chiropractic e-newsletter concerning practice management, public relations, and philosophy to more than 10,000 DCs in 31 countries. Margolies can be reached via email: joel3639@aol.com, or Web site: www.chirosmart.net.