"What comes from the heart, goes to the heart." -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Simply phenomenal! I just got an e-mail from a doctor whose income has multiplied seven times since he changed one thing about his practice -- the way he advertised. He stopped following the crowd, and used a few suggestions I gave him, and his whole life changed. And, in turn, he's changed lots of lives for the better in his community.

Here's the reality.

No business can survive very long without new customers, and the business of chiropractic is no different. One way to bring in those new people is to advertise. And yet, so many doctors have "lost their shirts" advertising that they shy away from it, not wanting to get burned again. They get "in pain" but don't take the right lessons away from the experience. They just stop advertising, instead of learning how to advertise the right way. Worse yet, many of those doctors actually allow their newspaper ad representatives write their ads for them!

My friend, Ray, is a financial advisor. One of the biggest challenges for him is that new clients have a hard time really believing that he can do what is says he can do. When I first heard him tell me how to save money, I said, "Wait a minute, why the heck isn't everybody doing this?" His answer was simple. "Because they can't believe it, so they do what everyone else is doing." (Ray saved me $35,000 in taxes last year). Likewise, most doctors don't believe that there are ways to effectively advertise in chiropractic. But, "you gotta believe."

Let me share seven of the most powerful secrets of advertising:

1. Come from the heart, and get into people's lives. If you come from the heart, and have the right intentions, people will bond with you. It's known that people buy on emotion, and then rationalize their decision with logic. So, write your ad "from the heart." Talk to people as if they were right in front of you. Don't write like a doctor. Write using simple words -- words that make it clear you're sincere, and just like they are. When I finish an ad, I always try to step back and then read it as though I were John Q. Public reading it for the first time.

2. Catch their attention. Use a terrific headline. Some will tell you the headline is 90% of what makes people take notice of your ad. I agree, and often think that it's closer to 100%. The best way to write headlines is to model the ones that have been so successful. The next time you're in a supermarket line, take note of the tabloid headlines, replace a few words, and voila, you've got a headline. Of course, it must be appropriate, so don't use something like "Harrison Ford Impregnated with Alien Love-Child."

A good copywriter spends as much time on the headline as he or she does writing the body of the ad. When writing a headline, imagine the busiest person in the world. That's the person who's attention you need to grab.

3. Offer people what they think they need, not what we think they need. Believe it or not, average people don't want to be subluxation-free (that comes later). They don't want their Innates expressing at full potential (not yet, that comes later). People are self-oriented, wanting to feel good and have better lives. So your ads should be geared toward letting them know you can help them in what they are looking for. You can only teach lay people the "Big Idea" after they understand that you can help them in what they feel they need now.

4. Tell a compelling story. Ads written in story format do better than ads that look like ads. Some experts say that "advertorials" have seven times the readership of traditional ads. The more story-like your ad is, the more readers you'll have. But, since you've got only a few seconds to hold their attention, you must start off with a bang!

5. Stand out, and be different. Probably the worst thing you can do is make your ad look like the typical "Eight-Danger-Signal" ad, the one with the goofy "professional" photos in the corner. They have no heart, no rapport, and no uniqueness to them. Just because everyone is doing it does not mean that it works so, only model success.

6. Call people to action. It sounds almost funny but human nature is often such that if you don't specifically tell people what to do, they often won't do it. Tell your readers what to do. They should pick up the phone to call you to make an appointment. There is a dramatic decline in response rate if the "call to action" is not clearly spelled out in your ad.

7. Have an irresistible offer. People like special offers, and yes, even wealthy people like special offers. Greg Stanley states (and he is absolutely correct, as usual) that people do not like to pay high fees for initial visits where nothing is done to start actually correcting a problem. They are willing to pay fair fees, however, for services that do start correcting the problem. And, contrary to popular belief, a lower "front-end" fee does not attract the "bottom of the barrel." Figure out your patient visit average, and you'll quickly see that financial success is in the "back-end."

Another draw is having offers that end in "7". A $17 new patient offer will out-pull a $15 new patient offer every time.

If you follow just these seven secrets in your advertising, you'll get great results. Chiropractors are famous for giving this lesson to the medical profession, but let's take the lesson ourselves. Let's stop doing what doesn't work and start doing what does!