In recent coaching conversations with Rosen Coaching clients, as well as in our Wellness Practice Blueprint program, it’s becoming more and more clear to me a key distinction in communication in the chiropractic profession.

Most of us were taught to communicate by telling, teaching, and downloading information with a one-way monologue.  This method can be frustrating as people don’t seem to ‘get’ what we are trying to get across, therefore the chiropractic practice results we are seeking (retention, referrals etc.) don’t seem to follow.  Eventually we start to doubt our ability and our certainty waivers.

Instead, how about opening up a human-to-human, two-way dialogue?  It will take time to learn to communicate this way, to literally re-wire your chiropractic brain to ask instead of tell, but it is worth it.  The dialogue instead of the download is the way to help people really understand your message, and also be empowered to take action from it.  It will generate the practice results you desire when you master your communication starting with Visit 1, and Visit 2 all the way through your Daily Interactions, Re-exams, Re-reports and how you handle Difficult Questions.

Rather than just downloading and telling them what you think and getting them to ‘YES’ you, how about having a conversational dialogue so that you can also find out what they think, what they want and find ways to show them how to have it?

This dialogue approach leads to greater practice success and being able to help more people, as well as less frustration and less burnout.  Do you want to master the dialogue?  Check out our training materials or send us an email for a free 30 minute consult.

Tags: Ask vs. Tell, Certainty, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Practice Success, communication, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, wellness practice blueprint

Ask anyone on the street if they’ve ever heard of chiropractic.  Most of the people say, ‘yes’, while they grab their neck or low back.  When it comes to educating the public what it is that we really do, we’ve failed as a profession.

At Rosen Coaching we feel that the public needs to understand is that they have a health problem, not a back problem, and that you can help them get healthy and stay healthy for a lifetime!

My kick-in-the-groin question is, “Are you the epitome of health”?

Some of us are. We are in great physical shape, we do cardio and weight training regularly.  We have great nutrition. And fabulous strategies to deal with mental and emotional stress. We are well balanced in your overall life, showing up 100% in our practice and in your personal life.

But many of us aren’t.  We don’t exercise regularly and are overweight. Some by a lot, some by a little. We eat crappy food on a regular basis. We’re too stressed out, in fight-flight response for hours a day to think straight, let alone show up with focus and presence for the people we serve. How are we ever going to deliver a congruent Report of Findings where we talk about reaching optimal health and wellness, if we aren’t?

What are you going to commit to this year to lead by example, to be a true picture of health?  If you’d like to share your action steps to get there, to help get support and accountability, post them here.

If you want to find out more how to truly THRIVE in a Care vs. Scare, True Wellness Model, join Dr. Rosen TODAY for a webinar! Click here to register. We hope you’ll join us!

Tags: chiropractic wellness, Goals, Health, New Year's Resolutions, rosen coaching, True Wellness Practice, wellness

2010 has come and gone and we’ve moved into the next decade.  Perhaps you achieved all your goals for 2010, or perhaps you didn’t.  But it’s time to set our sights on how we can make this our best year yet.  Let’s start the decade off with a blast, set good goals and take massive action to really make this your best year yet!

Start with your success!  What did you achieve, do great and accomplish this year, both personally and professionally?  Be sure to take inventory of small and big things!

What did you learn this year, from both your challenges and wins?  About yourself and your character?  What worked? What was your winning formula to reach those goals? What didn’t work? What won’t you repeat again?

Get clear on what you want to accomplish in each of the key areas of your life and practice by the end of 2011.  Set a 1 big goal for each sector of your life. Then set a few smaller goals in each area as desired.

The trick to achieving your goals is taking consistent action on the small steps required to reach the big goal!  Massive and repetitive action.  Reverse engineer the steps required to reach your goal. Plan them out month-by-month in sequential order, then break it down week by week. Each day, look at your weekly action steps and do THE most impactful thing that you can do each day to make your goal a reality.

We prefer to look at the goals for the next 90 days and clarify what is the most important, bang for the buck action that you can take to reach that goal.  Each person on your team needs to clarify what they can do to contribute to that goal.

As a New Year’s gift, we’ve included a link to a 30 minute recording on Goals and the New Year.  Please enjoy and let us know if we can help you have the practice of your dreams in 2011!

We invite you to join Dr. Rosen for a webinar titled Goals: A Love/Hate Relationship!  Click here to join us!

Tags: 2011, Achievements, Goals, New Year, New Year's Resolutions, rosen coaching, Success

For those of you who think Facebook is going to go away, I’m not so sure.  They are big with over 5 million users worldwide, and want to be bigger. They want to give Google a run for it.

By now, I hope you’ve realized the power of Facebook for your chiropractic practice and you have a Personal Profile (that you may or may not use for your close family and friends) and a Facebook Page for your chiropractic practice.  It can be a great way to build your chiropractic community, spread health and wellness messages to your patient base, promote both internal and external office events and really lead a TRIBE of people in your community!  If done correctly, it could also be used to showcase your office and be a way to draw new people into your office.  Want to know how to do it?  See our Wellness Marketing package for more!

Now released on Facebook is Facebook Places.  It is an iphone application (or touch.facebook.com) that allows you to add your chiropractic practice as a Facebook Place (good for search engine optimization).  AND the best part about it is to have your patients ‘check in’ with their friends while they are in your office, spreading the word and buzz about your office to their friends!  We’d suggest hyping it up for a few weeks and getting your patients with smartphones to ‘check in’ while they are in your reception area.  For more on how to set this up see:

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=418175202130

To watch the Facebook video on why you would want to do this:

Facebook Places

Time to use technology and social media to grow your practice!

Tags: Add new tag, chiropractic practice, Chiropractic Practice Growth, Facebook, Facebook Places, Success, Tri

At Rosen Coaching, we speak with chiropractors around the world, day in and day out, about how to improve their communication so that people ‘get’ the chiropractic message.  Initially this concept arose out of a conversation with one of my doctors who was working on the ‘Whole Story‘, one of the most powerful parts of our visit 1 and visit 2. But it’s become a theme as of late and I’ve distilled three important pillars of communication that I’d like to share with you.  They are, what I have been calling, the 3 C’s of communication:

1. Clear

2. Concise

3. Concrete

None of this is going to appear like rocket science, but it’s important to look at each one closely and realize the bigness of small things.

If we are going to convey or transmit communication, it is essential that it is clear. We need to be 100% clear on what we are trying to accomplish, what we want to say, and be sure we articulate it with clarity. No fair having a communication subluxation when you’re trying to transmit your message!

Next we need to be sure it is concise.  If a Ph.D in biochemistry was trying to explain a concept to you, it is important that he doesn’t go into a 30 minute monologue about many different aspects of biochem. It is essential that he  keep it not only clear (so that you can follow), but also concise (so that your brain does not go into overwhelm).  Many chiropractors, when I ask them to tell me what they can offer, they give me a 30 minute lay lecture, sidetracking with research, vaccinations, health care stats etc.  We need to keep it concise, especially if we are going to ask them to repeat back to you what they understand so far!  Set them up to succeed, not to fail.

Lastly, but not least importantly, is making our communication concrete.  This means making it real for people! It is not to your benefit to use big latin words and appear ‘smart’ to the patient, at the expense of  not being able to articulate or understand what you are talking about.  It is to your benefit to use concrete examples and real world analogies, so that they can understand and share their new understanding with others. Chiropractic itself is an abstract concept, so let’s help them understand a paradigm shift by integrating new concepts within their current framework of how the world works.  For example, a great analogy to describe a subluxation is ‘static on a cell phone’.  Everyone has experienced this, or could at least imagine it.  So I challenge you to use real, concrete analogies at every step of your communications.

If you have any questions about the 3 C’s of communication, please comment below or join our global community on Facebook where we are happy to answer any and all of your questions!

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Consultant, Chiropractic Practice Success, communication, Leadership, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, rosen coaching

Do you remember the Chiropractic Safety Pin Cycle from philosophy class 101? You know, Brain Cell (B.C.) has efferent transmission to Tissue Cell (T.C) and it has afferent transmission back to brain cell?  If not, I’ve included a diagram from The Chiropractic Textbook by R.W. Stephenson from 1927.  (If you don’t own it, I highly recommend it)!

However, when it comes to most chiropractor’s communication, they usually have a monologue or just the ‘efferent’ part of transmission, telling people their chiropractic story and wonder why they don’t stay, pay and refer?  Why don’t people ‘GET IT’?

With our Rosen Coaching clients and group coaching programs, we look at our communication from both the efferent and afferent sides.  As a profession, what if we could communicate in a way that was more congruent (inside-out) by asking questions and getting their input, as opposed to outside-in education?

How most of us communicate is merely the ‘efferent’ part, we never check in with the person and say, “Just to make sure we’re on the same page, what do you get so far?”  We never ask them questions, we just tell people what we think and leave it at that.   Our profession doesn’t, as a rule, close the safety pin cycle of our communication. No wonder we’re not shifting consciousness yet… It’s time we closed the safety pin on every communication we have! It’s time people really understood what we have to offer them and it’s time for chiropractors to start leading the wellness revolution, becoming the recognized leaders of true health care!

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Practice Success, communication, Leadership, rosen coaching, Safety Pin Cycle

Both Dr. Rosen and I have both run highly successful vitalistic family wellness practices and sat in the coach’s box helping others to do the same.  At Rosen Coaching, we are so thrilled to be helping other chiropractors around the world looking to THRIVE in a Care vs. Scare True Wellness Model!

Speaking with chiropractors day in and out, whether for one-on-one coaching, group coaching or consults with those looking for guidance, I wanted to share a perspective from the Chiropractic Coach’s Box that may help you with the challenges you face in your personal life or your practice.

Sometimes our job is to help our clients see a Wide Angle perspective.  Perhaps they are stuck on a detail or issue and can’t see the big picture. So we ask questions to help them pull back and see the ‘forest for the trees’.  For example, if a chiropractor is having trouble with their Chiropractic Assistant doing recalls, there could be an underlying cause that we can’t see until we use the Wide Angle lens.  It could be that we’re not setting clear expectations with the patient on the Report of Findings about keeping appointments, leading them to miss and the recalls are just the symptom of this fact. But without the pulling back to get a wide angle view, we could never see this as a possible solution.

And sometimes we need to zoom in, using a telephoto lens, to really clarify what is going on, and what we are trying to accomplish.  Often times we will hear someone breeze over something that is very important and could be the major piece that is holding them back.  From the coaches box we zoom in and look at the underlying cause or details of the situation.  For example, a chiropractor may have a low sign up rate or see poor follow through with their care recommendations, and we need to zoom in on a need to be liked that is holding them back from speaking their truth.

Your ability to adapt as a chiropractor to different challenges, situations, questions and conversations with your staff or your patients is part of what will make you a masterful communicator.  You adaptability is based on sitting in a ‘coaches box’ as well, and listening for whether you need to help someone gain perspective or whether you need to help someone zoom in on the details and underlying cause. Each perspective is very different and often looks entirely different than the one we were in.

We want to help you be a wellness coach to your practice!  We want you to lead your team so they truly become a Dream Team!  We want to help you communicate in a congruent Care vs. Scare model to have the practice success you desire.

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Consultant, Chiropractic Practice Management, perspective, rosen coaching, telephoto, wide angle, zoom

Can a famous rock star perform the best show to his fans without the support of his road crew and managers?  Imagine if a rock star had to lug and set up his own equipment, do all the sound checks and then expected to perform at a high level and give his fans 100% of his creativity, music and performance.  Seems unrealistic, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s what most chiropractors do!  As a chiropractic coach I see it day in and day out.  They do all the details of running the office, cleaning it, micromanaging their team and then wonder why their practice isn’t at the level they’d like it to be! Like it or not, as a chiropractor you have to have a strong team to support you, ones you can rely on to do everything that isn’t what only you can do: serve people through the chiropractic adjustment.  We need roadies (our team) to have all the details handled, AND we need to trust that they will!

Many chiropractors I speak with don’t have any structured team training or team management, past the initial hiring.  We need to be creating an environment, AND leading by example, of always refining and striving to be better at every interaction with a patient.  Ongoing training and continuous learning is the key to having a Dream Team you can rely on.  Next is outlining performance expectations and creating weekly action plans to take performance to the next level and reviewed at a weekly staff meeting.

Lastly, ask yourself, “Do I really want a Dream Team”?  If so, we need to understand our team’s behavioral style and values and motivate them in an appropriate way!  Bonuses and rewards are key to having a team be on board to growing a practice.  Why?  Well, let me ask you…”Would you want to work twice as hard for the same pay”?

It’s time to get the right people in place, to get them well trained, to get them motivated to serve more people in your community.  We want your team to help you grow your practice so that you can really have a Dream Team and serve the masses. You are the rock star, they are the roadies.  I would argue that the roadies are more important than the rock star in the grand scheme of things, and it’s important that they know this!

At Rosen Coaching we are dedicated to chiropractors leading true health care and the wellness revolution.  If you want to THRIVE in a TRUE Wellness Practice, we’d love to see if we can help!

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Consultant, Dream Team, Health Care, Rock Stars, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, Success, Team Management, Training, True Wellness Practice

Tags: excellence, high performance, Leadership, olympics, Rosen Chiropractic Coachin g, vancouver 2010

As Valentine’s Day has just passed, many of our clients did Valentine’s internal referral promotions where they ask their clients, “What Do You LOVE About Chiropractic”? and gave them an opportunity to refer family and friends.

Coaching chiropractors and interviewing many who are struggling, I have seen that there is a huge portion of our profession who are burnt out, unmotivated and off purpose.

So I am asking you to contemplate what you LOVE about being a chiropractor? Please post it as a comment to this blog and let’s help clarify our purpose of why we do what we do.  Without this purpose, it is easy to be drained and burnt out with the ins and outs of running a practice and hard to stay motivated to do so.

At Rosen Coaching we want you to LOVE what you do! If you find yourself a little off purpose, a little unmotivated or a little out of love with being a chiropractor, we’d love to offer you a FREE 30 minute consult to see if we can help!

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Consultant, Chiropractic Practice Management, chiropractor, Leadership, Love, Passion, Purpose, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, Success, Valentine's Day