In my last article ("Why reinvent the wheel?," March 2002, p. 21) I mentioned that you were likely to have a bigger audience if you go to where people already are, rather than try to create a brand new audience.

One of the challenges that goes along with finding a "ready made audience" is that there is a lot of legwork involved in setting these talks up. If you don't have the staff to help support you in this process, you may find yourself putting all of your energy into the preparation instead of the actual presentation.

In addition to that, you are wasting your talents in a support role instead of that of an educator. My recommendation is to hire someone and pay him or her an agreed upon amount for every talk he or she sets up. Then you'll be able to spend your time educating patients and earn at least five times the amount per hour that you had previously agreed on per talk.

If you had 50 people at your next group lecture at the local organization and only 45 minutes to present your information, how many of them might be motivated to come into your office and stay for long term chiropractic care?

What if, of those 50 people, 35 actually came into your office but just four individuals stayed on for even 20 visits or more? If you're going to spend an hour of your time to educate potential clients, why wouldn't you spend two more hours (two more talks) that would most likely produce highly committed people interested in bettering themselves through chiropractic, and not window shoppers? This is what your investment of two extra talks will do for you.

When going out to teach the public you must remember that these people did not go through four years of chiropractic college and therefore they lack your level of understanding of chiropractic. Even after going through those four years, many D.C.s get out of chiropractic college and realize they have a problem communicating chiropractic. What this means is, we must all take our time educating ourselves to such a deep understanding that it can filter out to the people in our office.

Remember, you're speaking to many who have never been exposed to chiropractic, have no chiropractic training, have been raised – and still live – in a medically indoctrinated society. They may not be ready to let go of that old belief system and accept a whole new philosophy in one hour. In my experience, if you can invest two more hours into these people, you will begin to shift at least 75% of your audience and keep them at a neutral starting point.

When you begin to set up your speaking schedule, don't just book one talk. Book three talks on each consecutive week. Present this to the corporation or association as a lecture series. In other words, if you are going to speak at lunch times on Tuesday, then book three consecutive talks on Tuesday, all at the same time. When having three talks booked at a corporation or an association, you should be comforted in the fact that you will not have to be a salesperson at the end of your single presentation because you now have had three opportunities to educate and teach people.

*** People need to have old beliefs broken down before they accept new understandings and ways of thinking (talk #1).

*** Next, they need to understand how the body does heal (and the many symptoms that must accompany healing) and the lies that society has brainwashed into us (talk #2).

*** Then – and only then – are they ready to accept and understand why one should begin a new lifestyle consisting of chiropractic care for themselves and their families.

If you can do this, your talks will be productive for you and you will begin to cultivate lifelong clients who actually understand what you and I find so sacred in chiropractic.