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?

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!!

Wasting Time....It Costs You Dearly

Here's a typical office procedure too many get trapped in:

After you finish adjusting your patient, the patient gets off the table, puts their wallet, change, knife, gets their purse,(all their stuff!), etc, back into their pockets, looks in the mirror, checks their hair to make sure hair and face look presentable, gather themselves and leave the room with you accompanying them up to the front desk so that you can tell them and your CA when you want to see them again. You then call for the next patient, waiting for them to put down the magazine (probably not Chiropractic or vitalistic in its scope), gather their belongings they've set down (again the purse, cellphone, etc), wait for them to meet you and you walk them down the hall into the adjusting room, where they again empty their pockets....all over again and again, multiple times per day.

If you estimate the time that process takes between patients to be a VERY conservative two minutes (which it NEVER is!), imagine the amount of wasted time and money it costs you to do that.

Let's say you see 10 patient visits per hour at $50 per visit. $500 per hour you are making, a very nice living. Let's say now that a typical day has you seeing patients like this for 6 hours...a $3,000 day.

Wait a sec though....what could it be??

Remember, you're conservatively spending two minutes between every patient walking them up and down the hall, where really nothing goes on for any specific intent or purpose. That equals 2 hours of wasted time per day. Extrapolate that to money terms and you are missing out on potential revenues of $1000 per day. Further extended, let's say you're working 250 days per year. That equals $250,000 per year of lost revenue. Even more, extend it over the course of your typical 40 year practice career and you just lost $10,000,000.

Doing something as inefficient as walking up and down the hallway.

Time to check your systems for efficiencies...or lack thereof.

Getting rid of low-hanging fruit like this can make a huge difference for your practice and can mean the difference between a retirement of your dreams...or not.

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

Advertising vs. Publicity

Which form of marketing is best to create awareness for your brand? Advertising or publicity?

You may be asking...there's a difference?

Big difference...one that could make your business explode with committed followers excited to build it for you.

Simplified, advertising is a form of mass communication efforts designed to create awareness for your product or service in an effort to convince the consumer to purchase said product or service. It says "this is what we do and here's how it will benefit your life" all in 30 seconds on TV/radio or less as you're paging through a magazine. In a sense, it's throwing your service out there to as many people as possible and hoping there's some stickiness to it. In my opinion, a rather outside-in approach...fairly random, usually very expensive with returns that are hit or miss.

Publicity, on the other hand, is usually more focused, more inside out...targeted messages that are usually inexpensive, stickier and are farther reaching in establishing your brand identity. Publicity usually shows up as TV news interviews, op-ed pieces in the newspaper, articles done on your business for magazines and newspapers, testimonials given on your facebook, website, in public gatherings, in house and external presentations, etc.

Big businesses have been built by focusing almost exclusively on publicity over advertising. Starbucks, especially during its massive phase of growth, spent very little on advertising (only about $10M over 10 years) and The Body Shop, started by Anita Roddick, who spent years criss-crossing the country, promoting her natural products through TV interviews and newspaper articles. Wal-Mart and Sam's Club devote very little of their expenses to advertising, yet may be the first company to reach over a trillion dollars in revenues.

To me, publicity is more of a call to action, it's the story behind the service you're providing. It establishes you as the leader of a revolution in health. It's intriguing, and if done right, downright captivating.

And who has a better story for humanity than we do?

Go out and tell it.

Better Business Through Conflict...

You have to be able to disagree.

This concept is more important to your business than you can imagine. You cannot do everything you want for your practice alone. You need a team around you. Whether you pay the team members is a different story. In this case your team is not just you and your employees...it may consist of mentors, coaches, directors, employees, family members, patients, etc. These are your stakeholders; people who have a interest in you keeping your doors open.

One of the many things involved in building a great team is conflict. It HAS to happen. But there's a certain stigma attached to disagreement. We tend to think it has to involve uncomfortable confrontation, where negative emotion is invoked and expressed and things taken personally. This is something that should not be done. Little if nothing will happen to benefit your business when negative emotions are expressed.

The key to building a great team is to learn how to deal with the differences each team member brings to the table and harness those differences to grow.

Couple of things to watch for:

Expect to Disagree - you must get used to challenging people on the ideas they bring to the business. Not in a manner that inhibits their creativity, but in a way to explore the ideas they bring. Probe the idea so that it can be fleshed out. Make sure the idea you bring has facts and logic and you can back it up.

Put Emotion Away - everyone needs to see that different ideas aren't stifled by other people. Confronting differences isn't a personal attack, but rather an attempt to open up the thought process more...if things get heated, take a break and come back calm and collected.

When Conflicts Arise, Acknowledge Them - this is going to happen, the best thing to do is recognize the conflict out loud, make everyone aware that they need to be of the utmost professionalism, and work it out as a team.

The point: don't be afraid to disagree in the team environment, in fact encourage it! Your business will benefit, creativity and innovation will be enhanced and the team will be stronger, making your business better.

Time To Get To The Next Level...

Loosely speaking, to graduate means the above title...to move on, to take the next step in the process of your life. It's graduation at Life University today and the men and women who spent the last 4 years of their lives with countless hours of stress and study (and a bit of fun!) get to go to the next level. The graduation doesn't allow them success or significance, it simply offers them the opportunity to create it for themselves. Walking across the stage doesn't get them anything other than the privilege to serve humanity on a scale that they choose. High-volume, cash, low-volume, insurance, high or low overhead, associateship, independent contract, solo practice, somewhere in the US, somewhere abroad...you get to choose how much, how many, who they are, where, the results you expect, etc...you get to choose!! It's all up to you!

What a phenomenal opportunity!

I'd love to leave the post today with the last written words of B.J. Palmer, DC...they certainly ring true today as a group of new doctors enters our glorious and noble profession, but they also serve as a beautiful reminder to you warriors out there in the trenches who are giving, loving, serving and doing every single day for the betterment of humanity.

“Time always has and always will perpetuate those methods which better serve mankind. Chiropractic is no exception to that rule. My illustrious father placed that trust in my keeping, to keep it pure and unsullied or defamed. I pass it on to you unstained, to protect, as he would have you do. As he passed it on so will I. We admonish you to keep this principle and practice unadulterated and unmixed. Humanity needed then what he gave us. You need now what I give you. Out there in those great open spaces are multitudes seeking what you possess. The burdens are heavy; responsibilities are many; obligations are providential; but the satisfaction of traveling the populated highways and byways, relieving suffering and adding millions of years to millions of lives of millions of suffering people, will bring forth satisfaction and glories with greater blessings than you think. Time is of the essence. May God flow from above-down. His bounteous strengths, courage and understanding to carry on; and may your Innates receive and act on that free flow of Wisdom from above-down; inside-out ... for you have in your possession a Sacred Trust. Guard it well.”

Go forth and serve my fellow Chiropractors...

The world is waiting.

What Direction Are You Moving?

Wanted to share with you a concept that came up during some great conversation last night. Most people in the world, and I'm certainly guilty of this as well at times, tend to think from these three areas:

1. What's wrong?
2. What's missing?
3. What we don't want.

But drawing back and really doing some soul searching about this worldview, you can see what it does for us...what we put out to the universe is what we attract to us. We attract the things that we believe are wrong, we attract to us the things we don't want (even though we say we don't want them!)

Extrapolate that to your practice...are you focusing on the things that are wrong, about what's missing, and what you don't want? Are you thinking about the insurance companies that deny or limit your care? About the patient or staff members that "just aren't getting it!" About the tax bill coming up? About the new health care plan?

If so, these thoughts can be so distracting that it causes you to lose focus on growing your practice. You lose focus on serving people and helping create a better world. Your philosophic and clinical intent becomes diluted and unclear. All of these things lead to an undisciplined environment where the systems that were once running at top notch efficiency begin to get loose and sloppy.

You see the slippery slope right? Instead of focusing your thoughts in that arena, how about this:

1. What's right?
2. What do we have to be grateful for?
3. What we want.

You want to make it even more impactful? How about journaling? Kevin Donka suggests writing the answers to these questions down, every single day. He calls it a Focus Journal in which you answer what's right in your life a.) personally and b.) for the world. What's right in your personal life and what's right for the world? What do you have to be grateful for personally and what do you have to be grateful for in the world? What do you want personally and what do you want for the world?

There's something special about writing it down, it lends something tangible to the experience of creating what you want.

Now isn't that a better direction to be moving?

What To Pay Yourself...

Let me begin by saying I firmly believe when starting up you must pay yourself! The amount of work you are putting in to create a start-up is overwhelming and deserving of compensation.

How much, however, is a tougher question to answer especially in start-up mode...you feel the urge to not take a salary while the business is getting started, but you also have personal expenses that need to be covered...so here's some tidbits on how you can handle the situation:

1. Make a list of your expenses. Write down all your monthly, quarterly, semi-annual expenses (car insurance, magazine subscriptions, trash pickup, life insurance, cable, credit cards, student loans, etc). Add a cushion you think is appropriate for entertainment, personal and unforeseen things that may happen. Total these up for the year and divide by 12. This gets you your minimum monthly salary just to squeak by.
   
2. Now take a look at the open market value and comparable companies. What are other Chiropractors of similarly sized companies in the same region paying themselves?

Now based on the number you've come up with, can your cash flow statement match what you have? Based on the pro forma projections for you cash flow, can you provide yourself this salary while still keeping the business a going concern? Ideally, you'd love to have the ability to pay yourself your number, have some more money to reinvest in the business and leave a little extra for a rainy day.

A couple of things to watch out for is your tax situation and business structure. If you're a sole proprietor, the government considers you and your business a single entity. All profits from the business are taxed, regardless of whether you withdraw them for yourself or they stay in the business.

If you decide to incorporate (which I hope you do!), your business is a separate entity and must pay taxes on the profits it earns, but the salary you pay yourself and employees you may have are considered deductible expenses. In a corporation you can also pay yourself a dividend, but these are taxed twice, something I wouldn't do!

As your business grows, you will most certainly adjust your salary appropriately...a general guideline is to increase your salary along the lines of the percentage growth rate of the business. You'll want to review your compensation strategy every six-months, allowing you to act appropriately as the capital needs and cash-flow of your business changes.

Be smart with your money...don't go too crazy too soon with paying yourself and overly exorbitant salary, but don't be too conservative so that you go into the red with your personal expenses. Be conservative with your pro formas and with hard work and Lasting Purpose behind you, you will easily meet these projections and more!

Laws of Branding...Expansion

I recently read The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries...phenomenal book that I highly recommend. One of the laws he makes a case for is the Law of Expansion, noting that the more diluted your brand becomes (the more products or services you have assigned to that brand), the more confused the public gets. Take Chevrolet for example...multiple car lines all the way from the Corvette to the Cobalt. And in the example Ries gives, he offers the evidence that because Chevy has extended its product line from cost-conscious to high-end with multiple variations in between, it has diminished the Chevrolet brand. Over the short run, adding product lines and multiple revenue streams to your business may earn you more money in the next few months or years, but in the long run you risk losing market share and brand dilution in the minds of your potential customers.

Ries provides an interesting example from Levi Strauss. In an effort to establish a wider market, Levi's began producing different cuts like baggy, zippered and wide-leg jeans to the point in which they had 27 different cuts. But their efforts failed them, this dilution of their message caused them to lose 12% of the denim jeans market over a seven year period.

Ries also points out that as consumers, we tend to assign one name to each product, we don't worry about the megabrand (Chevrolet) and all the sub-brands that fall under it (Cobalt, Corvette, Equinox, Malibu...). Further, we don't assign names consistently, we also tend to use the name that best captures the essence of the product. The Cobalt owner will say "I drive a Chevy." The Corvette owner will say, "I drive a 'Vette."

Interesting isn't it?

This begs the question: What is the essence of the brand "Chiropractic?" And what are you doing with your business with that brand? Do you think how Chiropractic is being branded through individual offices throughout the world will set us up for long-term sustainability and increased market share? Would love to hear your thoughts...

Think Boards Are Important?

Today and over the course of the weekend, a few thousand of our Chiropractic brothers and sisters will be sweating it out taking their national board exams.

I have seen them put countless hours of study, record levels of stress and extremely hard work into these exams. And it is of critical import that they pass these tests so that they can go forth and serve humanity.

But I sometimes wonder if we put the same amount of effort into our businesses as we do (or did) to passing these exams. Does our business garner the same level of attention, hard work, levels of stress and anxiety that boards do? Should there be a "national board" covering the success of your business?

When you think about failing boards, you realize it costs a significant amount of money and time to do it over...

What does a failed business cost?

The Six Human Needs...

I had the opportunity to be part of a conference call last night in which this topic came up...the six essential human needs. Looking at them, there are four primal needs and two spiritual needs that when placed into a business context, speaks volumes.

If you can structure your systems and operations to meet these basic human needs, it will profoundly affect your bottom line.

The first is certainty. Your patients must have zero doubt about their decision to choose you as their Chiropractor. You must brim with confidence and be crystal clear with your philosophic and clinical intent. YOU must have absolute conviction and certainty about who you are and what services you are providing. People want a doctor to lead them back to health and you have a profound responsibility to be that leader.

The second is variety. Change, as difficult as you may perceive it to be, is critical. Physical, emotional, and spiritual variety adds uniqueness and distinction to you and your practice.

The third is a big part of Life University these days and that is significance. This is what Lasting Purpose is all about; giving, loving, serving and doing out of abundance will create a life for you of success and significance. It's WHY you do what you do. But how do you create significance for your patients? You recognize them and reward them...tell them how much you appreciate them, remind them that Chiropractic is not about getting rid of their pain or discomfort but rather about creating a better world for tomorrow. Significance for your patients is sharing with them the BIG Idea and asking them to actively participate in making that a reality.

The fourth is is love and connection. We need to be able to share similar thoughts, emotions and events with other people. Your patients need to know this...they need to know how much you care for and appreciate them. They need to be connected to you on an emotional level, after all, you are facilitating the enhancement of their health and life.

The fifth is growth, incidentally one of the five signs of life in Chiropractic. We all need continuous growth and development for our lives. Correcting subluxations facilitates that growth for your patient, it assists their ability to be whole and healthy. It allows them to expand their thoughts and actions to

Finally, there is contribution. We need to give. One of the components of LP again. Dr. William Harris often said the hole you give through is the hole you receive through. What makes the difference in your life is the legacy you leave behind. What impact are you having on your community?

You see it all the time with marketing campaigns...corporations focus their advertising and messaging with these six needs in mind. They want to get across to you that the products or services they are selling will meet and enhance one or more of these areas in your life. Next time you watch TV, watch the commercials and check them off when you see these needs being advertised to you.

The great thing about Chiropractic, is that we really can authentically meet these needs for our patients. When you do, your business will get to the next level and you will have created a life of success and significance.

Your success and significance...something the entire world needs.

In Search of Excellence...Lessons From a Business Classic...

Tom Peter's best-selling book In Search of Excellence is considered one of the most influential business books of all times. It is among the gold standards in business book lore. In it, he mentions eight basic principles that will lead you to the pinnacle of your industry. I'd like to share them with you and have you check in with yourself and your business and ask yourself: Am I providing high levels of excellence in these areas and, if not, what can I do to get there?

1. A bias for action: a preference for doing something - anything - rather than sending a question through cycles and cycles of analyses and committee reports. In other words, are you paralyzed by analysis? Are you letting opportunities pass you by hesitating too much. Be decisive. Take action. Don't be foolish or hazardous with your money, but fence sitting on a decision will never get you anything but a sore butt!! You're thinking about doing something with your marketing strategy right now...make the decision either way, take action and move on!
2. Staying close to the customer - learning his preferences and catering to them. We're all about this aren't we? In the health-care arena, it's been established that Chiropractors have the highest rankings in customer service. But that's not good enough! Service breeds loyalty which breeds referrals.
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - breaking the corporation into small companies and encouraging them to think independently and competitively. You may not have a business big enough to have different people, but you certainly have the departments. What are you doing with your staff? How are you inspiring them to serve more? Do your systems run flawlessly? Do you need more training? Does your technical expertise need enhancement? Is your marketing strategy planned at least 12-months in advance? Are your financial operations up to snuff? Collections at least 85% of billing? What metrics are you using to gauge future growth and needs? And as the leader are you orchestrating all of these things into a beautiful symphony or does it sound like Roseanne Barr singing The Star Spangled Banner?
4. Productivity through people - creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential and that they will share in the rewards of the company's success. Are you providing incentive packages to your employees based on performance? Do they get rewarded for their hard work in any way? Are you inspiring them consistently? Taking them to seminars? You know you've done a great job inspiring them in Chiropractic when they leave you to go to Chiropractic school...are you at that level with them?
5. Hands-on, value driven - insisting that executives keep in touch with the firm's essential business. No brainer, right? Watch those distractions though...anything not aligned with your vision and mission should be discarded.
6. Stick to the knitting - remaining with the business the company knows best. See above and remember the Hedgehog Concept? Keep it simple with fanatical adherence to your hedgehog concept.
7. Simple form, lean staff - few administrative layers, few people at the upper levels. Not as applicable in the small business arena, but it reminds us to be simple. Get rid of the bureaucracy and the time consuming tasks.
   
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - fostering a climate where there is dedication to the central values of the company combined with tolerance for all employees who accept those values. Is everyone on board with you and your vision? Have you completely explained the vision you have as well as your expectations for your employees to help you make that vision a reality? Unclear expectations are one of the major reasons why people leave...they hardly ever leave the company...they leave the manager.

There you have it...getting these eight core strategies to levels of excellence will ensure you a long and sustained career of success and significance...

See, Feel, Change...

How do we create change? Most people think the steps are: analyze, think, change. In other words, we need to take a look at a situation, analyze all the things wrong with it, figure out what components we need to add to enhance it, think about the pros and cons of implementing, whether or not the change we make will benefit us or not, and then after awhile we either get frustrated that it takes too long or we actually make the change. A very analytical way of looking at it.

Analyze, think, change is not the way it really works though. At a presentation I was lucky enough to get to this morning, Dan Heath, who along with his brother Chip wrote Made to Stick and Switch, explained that its not analyze, think, change but rather see, feel, change. He stated that in order to create change we must approach our intended change on an emotional level.

He made the argument that the emotional side of us often overpowers the rationale side of us and that change really isn't that hard to make happen.

So how do we get people to change? How do we get people to better understand the vitalistic point of view regarding their health? Just what Dan and Chip and change guru John Kotter tell us...our patients need to see the amazing benefits of chiropractic care for their lifetime, that it opens up the possibilities of their life and enhances their ability to LIVE. They must feel many things...they need to feel your tender touch, they need to feel a bond to you and your staff, they need to physically feel better, emotionally feel better, and need to feel that their needs are met above and beyond. These two things will lead to a massive change in their lives as well as a monumental shift to your practice.

If you get a chance to see Chip or Dan I highly recommend it...if nothing else, go get the book...and learn how to create the change you need to get to the next level. Just know, that its gonna take time...but well worth it!

Playing Not to Lose...

I love football. During the season, it's hard to remove me from the couch. I would consider myself a first-string Monday morning quarterback. I like breaking things down, seeing plays develop, watching the X's and O's...I'm fascinated by how complex the game can get and the intricacies of it all.

Here's something that irks me beyond belief though: the prevent defense. You know when your team is up towards the end of the game and they're trying to "preserve the win." Ugh. They're playing not to lose. Never understood it...the defense is giving up huge gains, the opponents are marching down the field into scoring position, and often end up scoring and tying or winning the game. Heartbreak ensues.

The difference is in the attitude of those playing and coaching the game...some coaches are aggressive and play to win, some too conservative and play not to lose.

Which one are you in your community? Are you playing to win? Are you aggressively seeking opportunities to speak at local events, clubs and businesses? Are you getting on the local TV and radio talk shows? Are you branching out in your marketing efforts to establish yourself as the premier health care provider in the area? Are you promoting yourself and your practice using social media and other avenues that build your brand? Are you the name everybody is talking about?

One suggestion...create a Chiropractic group in your area and band together to create an advertising campaign that raises the level of awareness and increases the pool of patients into all of your offices?

Cooperate and team up with like-minded brothers and sisters to win!

It's a game-changer.

Service at the Next Level...

When was the last time you looked outside your business at service models to learn from? And not just from service industries like ours, but from manufacturing, retail, automobile, etc?

Why do companies like Zappos, Amazon, Lexus and The Ritz-Carlton consistently rank in the top 10 among companies ranked as having the best customer service? What kind of culture have they developed that breeds this kind of success?

Here's some of my thoughts on the key's needed to create a highly successful customer service to be remarkable.

1. Be the model. Your business starts from you and is modeled after how you show up. You show up grumpy and distracted, your business suffers...you show up on fire and with Lasting Purpose, your business explodes. High levels of service starts with you...when you give this kind of service to your employees, they will follow with the same level of service to your customers.
2. Create the culture. First you must select the right people to provide extraordinary service. Then, you must systematize your its delivery. Like Ritz-Carlton,you need to have meetings with your staff before every shift talking about your customers and anticipating their every need. Ask yourselves, "what can we do in the next few hours that will create lifelong fans committed to this office and to Chiropractic?" Then do it.
   
3. Always follow up. How many times have we told a patient you'd research something for them and failed to follow through? How about calling after their first adjustment...have you stopped doing that? One of the things that distinguishes great service from good is that you always do what you say...and it might be something small, but it makes a huge difference to that person receiving it.
4. Deliver above and beyond. A few weeks ago, I ordered a shirt from Zappos after 3:00 pm on a Tuesday afternoon, thinking I would get it a few days later. Not only does Zappos never charge shipping fees, but they made sure I got my shirt the next day. Overnighted it to me...wow! Make your patients say wow! and watch the referrals light up.
5. Go to other sources. As mentioned above, learn what other companies are doing and incorporate it into your business. Take your staff to stay at The Ritz and then have a staff meeting centered around the things you learned from it and what things you can incorporate into your business.

Using these five strategies will get your service to the next level, incorporating them into your business will provide returns beyond your dreams. Enjoy!

Rinsing Your Cottage Cheese...

Jim Collins tells a great story about ultra-disciplined triathlete Dave Scott in his book Good to Great.

"In training, Scott would ride his bike 75 miles, swim 20,000 meters, and run 17 miles - on average, every single day. dave Scott did not have a weight problem! Yet he believed that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet would give him an extra edge. So, Dave Scott - a man who burned at least 5,000 calories a day in training - would literally rinse his cottage cheese to get the extra fat off."

Are you that disciplined? Are you doing rituals every morning as you start your day? Before every shift? Saying your affirmations, every single day? Putting your body and mind in a state to live extraordinarily?

Or do you just kind of go through your day letting life happen to you?

Being disciplined like this gets you to a new level, and even though rinsing his cottage cheese was a very small thing in the scope of winning 6 Hawaii Ironman's, it was a culmination of all those small things that he did every day that made him a champion.

Your choice.

AGAIN!!

One of my all-time favorite movies, Miracle, tells the story of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team and their stunning upset of the Soviet Union and eventual gold medal win.

One particular scene is extremely powerful for me, because it shows a pivotal moment in the teams effort to come together. After finishing with a tie in an exhibition game against Norway, which should have been an easy win, Coach Herb Brooks found his team unmotivated, undisciplined and downright lazy.

After the game, he made the team skate gassers until they vomited, forcing them to come together as a team and unite for the common goal.



You see, the test that is your life is the pain and struggle you have to endure to grow. The bumps and bruises we gather along the way...the issues and questions that come along, are answered based on our experiences, wisdom and awareness. We may get the answers right or wrong. Getting them wrong is okay, because growth comes from failure, but getting the same question(s) wrong over and over brings regrets and resents that invade your life.

Brooks states in the clip that his team can't be common men, because common men go nowhere, pleading with them to be uncommon.

Uncommon men and women like you live extraordinary lives. You choose to get out of bed every morning with Lasting Purpose. You work tirelessly for the principle. You make it happen despite all the obstacles that say it shouldn't be done. Uncommon men and women like you make a difference in your communities and in the world by the things you say and the actions you take.

Be uncommon today.

Time to Take Out the Trash...

I was sitting in Panera this morning enjoying a cup of coffee and a bagel, pondering the world around me. The meetings, the deadlines, the projects...all the stuff we just have to get done.

After awhile I found myself staring at the backrest of the booth across from me for what seemed like several minutes, and after I came to, I realized it was the first time in several weeks that I had just been "in the moment."

It's such a rare occurrence these days to just be present, at least for me...how about you? When you're not thinking about what you should have done or what you could do, but just being silent, just being present and embracing the now.

When was the last time you had total focus on the patient lying in front of you? Not thinking about the next one coming in, or what's going on at the front desk, or the event you're gong to later that night...

Just that one.

Distractions can be so powerful and when we let ourselves get consumed by these distractions, they indeed become a reality.

Get clear today, this week and this month. Be totally present with your patients, your family and loved ones.

I think you'll enjoy this clip from Peaceful Warrior, it brings a nice perspective on our discussion:




By the way, if you like what we've been doing here, let us hear your feedback...