April 2004

Six common blunders in acquiring patients from lectures

by Dr. Dennis Nikitow

Doing outside lectures is a proven method of building and maintaining a successful practice. Explaining the principle of chiropractic makes for easier conversion and retention because an educated patient is a better patient.

Unfortunately, many hard‑working, well‑ meaning D.C.s who want to get the chiropractic message out to the masses bungle these great opportunities and as a result get a bad taste for doing lectures and never reap the full benefits they provide.

My objective is to point out the most common blunders doctors make along the path of acquiring, processing, and managing a patient from outside lectures. If you avoid these, you will not only produce successful lectures and acquire a lot of new patients, they will bring their families and establish you as part of their health care team for wellness. This means less stress and a more successful practice.

1. Lecture is on back pain instead of wellness. Lectures that position chiropractic for back pain instead of wellness are limiting to your practice and a disservice to patients. While you can emphasize any problem in a lecture (back pain, headache, arthritis, etc.), the key is to always incorporate the core philosophy and principles of chiropractic so patients see that spinal maintenance is essential to prevent many problems related to overall health and wellness and back pain is just one of them.

2. Lecture lacks a step‑by‑step system for repositioning. The key is starting the lecture with patients' beliefs, asking the right questions so they challenge their current beliefs, and then repositioning those beliefs to include you ‑‑ the chiropractor ‑‑ as an integral part of their health care team.

A lecture needs a step‑by‑step system of repositioning people from thinking chiropractic is a back pain treatment to a part of wellness care. It must move them gracefully enough so they see chiropractic is a practical part of health care for their entire family. That's why my system has been so successful with D.C.s. It moves from point to point easily and is practical to people so they want to get their family checked even before the close is reached!

3. Low impact during the lecture. If you want to bore people out of their minds, fill your lecture with a lot of statistics, graphs and percentages. It's okay to incorporate one or two points but lectures should emphasize heart.

I've always said people buy your belief in what you do before they buy what you do; they buy your heart. Your heart represents what you love to do, your passion. The philosophy and principles of chiropractic hold the passion of your talk, because they're the wellspring, the lifeblood. Without passion, you have no impact. Remember, you're talking to people not palm pilots and computers.

4. No visuals, research or testimonials. Let's face it. People want to see it to believe it ‑‑ so, SHOW it. People buy what they see. Posters enable people to visualize the chiropractic message. Over the years, I've spent countless hours accumulating medical research that supports our core philosophy. I've put these in poster and pamphlet form and presented to D.Cs and M.D.s all over the world. When people see a poster, a chain of rumors instantly disappears and they reach a higher level of certainty.

Lastly, when patients see testimonials of other patients' improvements, chiropractic skyrockets in value for them because they can relate to similar experiences. I actually show posters of before and after x‑rays with the patients' testimonial and picture to really bring the person and his or her chiropractic experience to life. Testimonials are still the number one marketing tool worldwide.

5. Pushy sales close instead of an impacting offer and withdraw. When the lecture's done with impact to reposition people so they understand the dynamics of subluxations, followed by research and testimonials, their natural inclination is to want to get their spine checked. Your close should use the "principle of withdraw," which gives them the impression that it doesn't matter to you whether or not they get checked... you'll do them a "favor" and allow them to get checked in your clinic... and you've made "special arrangements" with the lecture coordinator to have this done. This gives your delivery certainty and impact.

6. Scheduling procedure does not secure maximum sign‑ups and shows. First of all, don't give people cards or coupons to come in. Mention that you'll allow them to come in at a special rate, but they need to make appointments after the lecture today. This also applies to their family. Ask, "What if your kids are subluxated? They don't only look like you from the outside" (we have a new kids poster that reflects this message).

When the C.A. makes the appointments, she should say, "What's a good time for you and your family to come in?" If they question you about the family, simply tell them, "Your exam fee covers the entire family, whether you bring them in or not. Plus, what if your kids are subluxated? They don't only look like you from the outside."

Also mention that they need to make a deposit to secure their appointment time. This will ensure the patient is serious and shows up.

Once the patients come in, you need to have a good system of processing them so they develop a strong value for chiropractic. Make sure to have a family payment plan and a strong technique for spinal correction so people can see the results on pre‑ and post‑ x‑rays. This gives uniqueness and impact to the correction and increases retention.

Remember, the more people you touch with the message of principled chiropractic, the more families will embrace chiropractic ‑‑ and make you part of their health care team.

(To learn more about Certainty Practice Products and Dr. Dennis Nikitow's upcoming seminar schedule, call 800/544‑3884 ‑‑ outside the U.S., 303/721‑6202. Support tapes are available on the strategies mentioned in this month's column. SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM DR. NIKITOW: "If you would like to take the easy road to getting into companies, I work with a group called Integrity. They set up lectures in your area and you just show up! It's very affordable and takes no work on the doctor's part. Call Certainty Practice Products and we will tell you how to get in touch with them and get a Certainty discount for their service.")