With the new year opening up, doctors are making plans and goals for their practices. As I've said before, one of the best things you can do to build your practice is to do lectures to tell the chiropractic story, so people can see why they need to have a D.C. on their health care team for them and their family.

Many chiropractors would like to do this, but are not sure where to start, where to lecture or how to approach groups or businesses so they will be well received. In fact, the hardest part in expanding your practice through lecturing is landing the lecture! It appears that everyone wants great health information, but are conscious about solicitation.

Since I currently do these in my practice and have done them for years, I would like to offer some proven strategies that work and some other specific things to steer clear of.

The first thing to understand is, setting up lectures is time consuming. If you are just starting practice you will have time to make calls, send letters and do follow ups. Otherwise, you need to designate a C.A. or hire someone.

In any event, start out with a resource list of companies, clubs and groups in your area. Get lists from the chamber of commerce, library, and the Internet. Check with the National Speakers Association (whose main headquarters are in Phoenix, Arizona) and see if they have a local chapter in your area.

Establish titles for your talks and outlines. I use:

"The Secrets to Beating Stress and Living Healthier," "The Four Essentials of Health Your Doctor Never Tells You About," "Taking Care of Your Spine in the Workplace," "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is Not All in Your Wrist," and "Forward Head Posture -- The Most Common Postural Problem." (I've created training tapes, slides, transparencies, outlines, brochures, exercises, and back safety handouts through Certainty Practice Products if you don't want to go to the trouble of creating your own.

When your representative calls to talk to the HR person, he or she shouldn't say they are from a chiropractic office, but the local representative of a national (or local) group representing local doctors who offer their time to do lectures and screenings on important health topics (here your titles should be mentioned).

Your representative should explain: a) that all the association (HWA) requires is a donation to the charity they work with (we work with Compa Food Ministries); and b) there is no solicitation, but the people may ask personal questions -- or even visit the presenting doctor as a professional courtesy -- on behalf of their company and your association.

Have information available to send. We present a nice folder with tiered information and references on HWA stationary and include a HWA business card. This not only provides professionalism, it positions you as part of a group instead of a solitary office which will lessen your chances of getting in.

Although this strategy works well, it takes a lot of time and often requires a full time employee.

If you don't want the headaches involved in hiring, training, monitoring, payroll, taxes, etc., you can engage an outside agency to handle these for you. Outside agencies will do all the work and all you have to do is show up, do your lecture and get new patients.

I currently use an outside agency in my own practice and now am booked for a minimum of two lectures or screenings per month. In fact, we've been scheduled for up to eight! I don't have employee or C.A. hassles -- and it is drastically cheaper. My associate just shows up and does a powerful lecture and we get new patients. Easy. Affordable. You pay a monthly fee that's paid for by signing up just one new patient!

The big question is which company should you choose? I've tried several that promised a lot and charged a lot, then went out of business. Be particularly aware of a company out of New York, formerly MWR, now BMS. They are allegedly a boiler room rip off operation that reportedly takes your money and provides nothing. After several months, it's been claimed, they change their name, and start all over again.

I use a group named Integrity headed up by a former marketing C.A. named Bill Bonz. They've been around for several years and are great. In fact, their Health Awareness Foundation vehicle is so similar to Healthwise America, that we've combined materials and strategies to solidify a more powerful vehicle to help doctors get into companies to do all sorts of programs.

Mind you, I have no ownership here. I am simply sharing information with you and them to help expand chiropractic to the world. If you want more information, you can contact Certainty Practice Products for Integrity's number and a special Certainty rate, or mention this column and my name.