The Importance of Your Brand

When a patient thinks of you, what do they feel? What kind of emotional response comes over them?

What about when a regular consumer thinks of you? Someone who isn't your patient...what do they think of you? What kind of response are they feeling?

Are they?

When you establish yourself in your community, and begin marketing your practice and chiropractic to those people, there are a few truths you should keep in mind regarding how you are branding:

• Your brand is your promise. You are promoting who you are, what you're about, what you stand for, and the unique products and services you are delivering. How you show up in your community speaks volumes about your brand. From being active in community events to just how you look in public establishes your brand image. Did you know that 65% of the people in your community will make their judgment of you just on your appearance. Without ever meeting you. That's part of your brand.
• You build that brand by living up to that promise. Every single time someone in your community comes into contact with you, you need to deliver on that brand promise. Whether its meeting someone in the grocery store, your advertising campaign, billings, email communications...every touchpoint someone has with you, you must deliver on your promise to enhance your brand.
• You strengthen your brand through integrity. By keeping your promise. If you don't...if you falter and let things slide or get misaligned with your promise, your practice will suffer. You are essentially breaking your promise.

This takes focus, determination, attention, money and persistence. But the payoffs of establishing, building and strengthening your brand are huge.

Just ask Coca-Cola, Apple, and Intel...

Brands make selling easier, build equity for your business, unlock profitability, and build name awareness. When someone in your community asks, "is there a good Chiropractor in town?" who in your community is on the top of the list in the response? Is there anyone?

Time to start building your brand bigger!

Doubt Marketing

A thought occurred to me yesterday (the only one for quite some time!), about the way we position Chiropractic in the marketplace.

Perusing facebook essentially encapsulates how we brand ourselves and what intent we use to draw people to Chiropractic.

When research was being gathered regarding the harmful effects of cigarette smoke and data became overwhelmingly evident that smoking could kill you, the tobacco industry responded. Not with large amounts of research of their own to contradict what had been brought to the public, but with clever marketing designed to instill doubt in the public perceptions.

They couldn't argue with the evidence. What they could do was find holes in how the research was conducted. And by doing so and publicizing it, they instilled doubt in the public eye.

And you see this kind of marketing everywhere...every four years, all political parties try to instill doubt in our minds about the opposition...Verizon casts doubt that AT&T has the coverage to effectively provide us phone service...and on and on...

I don't think it's congruent with Chiropractic. It's fear-based and offers no solutions.

All over facebook I see postings about the harmful effects of medications, vaccinations, the medical establishment in general...instead of the incredible possibilities of health and life enhancement that Chiropractic provides mankind.

What do you think? Do you think doubt marketing is the best way for the profession to go? Or do you think we ought to instill some positivity into our efforts?

The Cost of an Adjustment

Have you ever done a break-even analysis for your practice? How much revenue needs to come in per month so that you can keep your doors open? Easy to compute right? Take the total expenses per month and for simplicity sake, the number of office visits needed at your average fee per visit (never your published fee, but that's another discussion) to match that.

We've all done this...all fretted about paying the bills to keep the doors open...

But have you ever broken it down further and calculate the actual cost to you in performing an adjustment in your office. That's right, how much does it cost you to deliver the adjustic thrust?

No idea?

Thought so.

I'm gonna ask you to include some things in the calculation most businesses wouldn't, because we're a distinct crowd, us Chiropractors.

Take your total office overhead for the month, then add your personal expenses to it. I include this because I know you. If you're like most DC's in startup mode, you probably don't actually pay yourself a set salary per month...you take what's left over (if anything!) and are happy with that. Something has to finance your personal expenses, therefore the need to include both business and personal expenses in this equation. Then take the total number of office visits that month and divide that number into the total business and personal expense.

Let's say your personal expenses were $2,500 per month (I hope you're living on organic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the start-up phase, it's a good idea to keep ALL overheads low!) and your office expenses were a fairly hefty $8,500 per month.

Break-even analysis says that if you charge $40 per visit, you need to see 275 people that month. ($11,000/$40 = 275)

Let's say you're in your fourth month of practice and have done some savvy marketing, along with providing wow service and your referral rate is high, and you saw 325 visits that month. The cost of providing care per person is $11,000/325 = $33.85.

Good news and bad for that number...good news is that it puts you in the black...bad news is the margin is less than 20%. Couple of things you can do to enhance the margin, increase the volume (which you will), increase the fee, or decrease the overhead.

I'd love you to be closer to a 40% margin, meaning in the above example your volume would have to be about 390 visits per month, bringing your cost down to around $28.50 per patient.

This can put some perspective on your budgeting process, on your marketing efforts, and on your educational systems to help you fine tune your strategy to accomplish your vision for a better world.

CTK and ITK...

I like to think I'm fairly tapped in to the latest trends in technology, culture, etc...certainly not to the extent that some people (creators or influencers) are, but enough to be fairly savvy in conversations with like-minded people.

Call it ITK...in the know.

And there are different tiers of knowing...let's subdivide into categories for clarity:

CTK - creators of the know - as a business owner, you have a tremendous opportunity to create the know, to establish the knowledge base in your community of Chiropractic and health, how they fit together and WHY people would want to engage and participate in the process with you. You have a responsibility to do this...it's up to you. Engage your creative right brain, use technology to get your message out (facebook, twitter, blogs). This builds your tribe and creates a forum for people to get connected to you as the leader, to each other as a family and to the BIG idea of Chiropractic and health.

Some industry models to learn from: Steve Jobs - Apple, James Cameron - filmmaker, Lady Gaga - pop artist, Jamie Oliver - chef, Ryan Murphy - TV producer, Soraya Darabi - Drop.io Find out what makes people tick, study creativity, branding, decision-making processes, influence and change. Then take action!

Then there's the ITK...people in the know that need something and/or someone to follow.

You.

There is a massive group of people out there that know our current sick care system is not working and need a new paradigm of healthcare, a group that is willing to embrace a new way of thinking and acting on their health. And they are looking for you.

You have a responsibility to be the CTK for your community...to create a knowledge base in your community that moves people toward health instead of away from sickness and disease.

It's time you position yourself and your practice as the leader for health and wholeness in your community, where people aren't just getting through the day, but giving to the day. You can and need to teach them how to do this for themselves, for their families, for their friends and co-workers.

So create the know...tap into the population of early adopters and influencers, teach them how to spread the message to others and watch your practice grow while enhancing the health and wholeness of your community.

Big stuff!!

Logotypes...Establishing Your Brand Image

What image do you present to your community? Is it one that sticks in their mind? Something that is easily recognizable, that can be identified and associated with your business? An image that conjures an emotional response in their minds, whether they've been to your practice or not?

Here's a quiz. See if you can recognize these logos and associate them with their company. It's not hard, but I also want you to think about what emotion this draws out of you...











I bet you even recognize a color as a logo, one that certainly stirs strong emotion...










Your logo is a big piece of your business identity...it helps establish who you are.

Here's some standard hints on what to do to pick a logo that will work:

1. Horizontal is the rule - ideal sizes are 2.25 units horizontal and 1 unit vertical. Why? Your potential customers are seeing it out of their eyes, which are mounted in your head on the horizontal plane. It should be the same shape as a windshield. Vertical logotypes are too difficult to read.
   
2. Must have a legible typeface - if words are what communicate the power of the brand, the typeface used enhances or hinders that power.
3. Who are you trying to attract? - use fonts appropriately. Sans serif typefaces are modern, serif typefaces are old-fashioned, bold connotes masculinity, and light typefaces look feminine.
4. Hire someone to design it for you - you are a master at adjusting and communicating, not in design (most likely!). Meet with a branding strategist to establish your brand properly. They will go through a detailed interview with you to ascertain your vision and then magically will identify several images to create it for you.

Maybe it's time you updated your logo. Is the one you're using now outdated? Is it aligned with the vision you have established?

If so, use these strategies to help your company be more identifiable.

Enjoy!!

Checking Your Commitment...

There are two levels of commitment:

• doing what you know
• doing whatever it takes

What level are you at?

What strategies, projects and tactics do you need to take action on to get the the next one?

Happy trails!

How Much Are You Willing to Gamble?

Read a neat little article in USA Today this morning about Domino's Pizza and the recent changes they've made.

It was a bold move...changing their entire recipe. Promoting it with a huge ad campaign most of you have probably seen. In a sense, the article was right...Domino's bet the farm on this massive change to their company. They took a risk, knowing that their former product was still generating sales for them with costs kept very low, allowing them to operate very efficiently.

But they did the right thing. It's been awhile since I've had Domino's, and I distinctly remember why...it was bad. Really bad.

The change proved successful for them. Quarterly sales up over 14% (especially when the industry fell 3%). When you're dealing with billions in sales, that's incredible. Stockholders were also quite pleased, with stock prices rising over 70%.

The point is that Domino's saw something they could do better, even though they were already doing well (#2 in the industry at $3B in sales in 2009). They created an opportunity to take their business to the next level, and even though there were risks aplenty, doing the right thing prevailed...and paid off. Big difference between doing things right (which they already were), and doing the right thing.

I'm not asking you to bet the farm with your business, I am asking you to create changes that will take your business to the next level.

Stagnation kills many businesses, innovation lifts them to new levels.

What innovation have you implemented in your business lately?

Get going!!