If you're like many D.C.s, you've stopped doing your patient lecture. You either did them for a while and they worked great, but then you tired of them. Or you tried to do them and nobody came.

Let's talk about the first scenario.

Why would you stop doing one of the key ingredients that made you successful in the first place? The answer is, that's just the way we are programmed as human beings. Once we learn a new skill we relegate it to the back burner and look for another new, easier skill to acquire.

Another example of this phenomenon is losing weight and then gaining it back again and saying, "I can lose this weight anytime I want to."

Your new patient lecture or orientation is the single most important factor in creating a large vertebral subluxation family wellness practice. It is the mightiest communication tool you have to take patients from what they think chiropractic is to what family chiropractic is really all about.

Without this introduction, you accept patients and their "prehistoric" belief system that a chiropractor is only good for bad backs – maybe. You can forget about the rest of the family coming in for VSC correction if you don't reposition or redirect their belief.

The beauty of the new patient presentation is that you don't force anyone to do anything. People feel your passion and want to participate in something bigger than just getting better from a current problem. They make their decision based on information, rather than taking the path of least resistance, which is of course the public perception of chiropractic.

Focus your attention on the D.C. who invited everyone in his or her community, had refreshments, yet nobody came. Can't you just feel the ache in that person's heart, the disappointment, and finally the resignation that wellness "doesn't work" in that town?

The chiropractor might try a few more times, even giving it when nobody's in the room. Realizing that doesn't work either, he or she retreats into a fear mode and becomes "soured" on any patient education. In fact, when anyone at a seminar or a state convention even mentions patient education, the D.C. loudly or inwardly rejects the idea and will never, never go back to those feelings of shame and helplessness again.

To avoid this unhappy result, the new patient orientation needs to be – literally – "the best show in town." The galactic, life-changing event it was designed to be, not some dry spinal hygienic class. If people give up an evening of their time, it had better be extra-ordinary. If it's only "good" or just plain boring, people will not come and refer in their loved ones.

How do you know your patient lecture is only good or boring? People don't sign up with their families, and you get responses like, "that was very interesting" or "that was very informative." Then there's this transparent response: "When I get home I'll talk to my wife about it." These are all signs that you didn't communicate to the heart, and you haven't honed your skills as a gifted storyteller.

People have a way of "sniffing out" someone else's burden and avoiding it like the plague.

So, you'll need to treat your new patient orientation like an elegant lady. Many D.C.s resent having to come back to their offices on their "day off" to make this presentation. If you approach it as some personal cross you have to bear, it will take on that persona and you can wave well-attended events and a big practice goodbye!

The people who come to your new patient lecture before they start their care are the best patients you'll ever have. They will have the highest patient visit average and referral activity of any patients in your practice. We call this the "pre-care lecture" concept. A great patient proud of chiropractic and of you have referred them in. They are already in effect pre-screened.

All they need is to hear your fire, your passion, your vision of a better world and they will join your practice. It doesn't matter if they have any problems or not, they want to participate in a cause bigger than simply symptoms. They want to have the most Innate expression in each family member for their whole lives.

The Japanese word "kaizen" means constant, continual improvement for life. When applied to your new patient orientation, this concept will reap benefits beyond your wildest dreams! Keep this in mind and you will never again have to utter the words, "Where did my patient lecture go?"