Positioning Chiropractic...We Need a Change

Read another great piece* today from Al Ries and Jack Trout...in it he talks about positioning your business to create massive success for it.

He said for us to position our businesses (and profession I'll add) successfully, we need to answer six key questions. Play along with me and let's start some crucial conversations about these questions in the realm of chiropractic, health care, and our identity.

1. What position do you own? Not in your head, but in the mind of the consumer...how does the consumer position you as part of their health care? For the majority, we are their back pain specialists. Something that needs to be altered for sure...so how do we go about altering that position in their heads? It seems the way we're educating our patients is stuck. By that I mean we are educating them in an allopathic model, wherein we state they have this problem (subluxation) and they need to come to us so the we can correct it. In other words, they have something that we can help them get rid of, not unlike them having an infection and a medical doctor prescribing a drug to get rid of that. It may sting a bit to hear that, but it's exactly what is happening, which in a vitalistically based paradigm, simply does not work. You cannot hold two conflicting paradigms simultaneously. We must change the way we educate our patients about their life, what subluxation is and how chiropractic fits into their regular life schedule.
2. What position do you want to own? Certainly not the allopathic model for treatment of disease. It's archaic and not working for us or for the health of the world. In the US we are spending more, but sicker than ever...the numbers just don't add up. People spend large amounts of money to be healthy, just not sick. They are dropping huge sums on gym memberships, organic foods, clean water, even on a good night's sleep because all of these things have been positioned by the companies involved as getting them healthier. Why isn't maintaining a healthy spine that allows a proper brain-body connection part of that regular consumption?
   
3. Whom must you outgun? The answer is kind of sad....ourselves! We have no direct competition in the vitalistic arena. Substitutes sure; diet, exercise, other forms of "alternative care", but most of those forms of care I contend still have an allopathic slant to them. This is ours for the taking, but settling for bellying-up to the bar with other professions has cost us dearly. We have got such an opportunity for this market, and we're fighting with each other. A friend made a comment yesterday that the "straights" arguse with the "mixers" about how they approach chiropractic, and then the "straights" argue among themselves to fight over who's "straighter." Egads...this activity will never get us anywhere.
   
4. Do you have enough money? It takes money to hold a position, and especially to alter a position in the consumer's mind. It's gotta start grass-level for us, maybe even roots-level. One spine at a time has to become one enhanced life at a time. We don't adjust someone to correct, remove, prevent or minimize subluxation or anything else; we adjust them to restore the neurological connection within their body and the normal flow of Life energy to allow a return of their naturally healthy and vibrant state in order to enhance their life! It's not about minimizing anything; it's about MAXIMIZING health and life. Whether we have lots of money, or very little it all starts with the word. But it's got to be the right words, the right message...
5. Can you stick it out? If there's one thing we're great at, it's this: we love Chiropractic more than anything, we have a Lasting Purpose to give, serve, love and do out of abundance and our level of commitment to take this message to the masses has never been stronger. Our technology has never been so advanced to mass communicate our word in an instant, yet all I see on facebook is the bashing of medicine, vaccines, etc...the stuff we DON'T want. Granted, people need to be aware of these things, but not to the point where we offer them no solutions. We know what we don't want for our patients, are we confident in what we DO want for them?? Have you defined that for yourself and your patients? For your community? Making the switch in messaging is difficult...it's so easy to bash the other side and warn our patients about the devastating effects of medicines and vaccines. But the public grows weary of it...plus they already know! What they're looking for is an entirely new way to think, an entirely new way of looking at their health and life, but very few of us are out there offering it.
   
6. Do you match your position? This is where we are hurting the most I think. We know that Chiropractic care enhances lives, in fact saves lives. Yet our advertising (the 7 conditions we take care of), our educating (outside-in and fear-based) doesn't match our vitalistically based vision. We got off-kilter some time ago, and it's time to lay down some new track. Possibilities based education, helping our patients understand that they don't have something that they need to get rid of, but rather they've lost something that is theirs by rite of birth, and that is something that we can help them get back is the key.
   

Boy, it's a lot of work to do, and will take some time, effort, money and resources that we may not all yet have. But we've got people, and we've got relationships and we've got passion and commitment aplenty. Let's make this change and serve the world...

Who's with us??

*Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout