What is the one thing that successful chiropractors do at the Holiday Season? Yes, they have fun, regenerate and relax with family and friends.  But more importantly? There are some basic steps that the ones who are creating the life and practice of their dreams do routinely at year end. Here they are:

• Take some time to reflect on 2009.  What did you set out to accomplish? What was your intention for the year?  Did you accomplish those things? What were the wins? More importantly, what needs to be improved upon? What didn’t  you accomplish but you learned something about yourself? How did you deal with challenge and adversity? Overall, how did you show up this year? In life and practice?
• Set a theme or intention to 2010: Maybe it’s practice growth. Maybe it’s the year of leadership.  Have an idea how you want 2010 to end before it starts
• Define your mission for 2010. In a written paragraph and look at it every morning to remind yourself of this big picture thinking you’re starting the year off with
• What are the Top 5 goals that you have to accomplish to make 2010 your best year yet?
• Set time aside each day (preferably the morning) to review your Top 5 goals and write the 5 things you must do today to move you towards those big goals
• Lastly, be disciplined and committed. Take your success seriously.  Get a coach. Show up big. Get organized and focused on making your goals a reality.

Have a very Happy Holiday with your family and loved ones.  From us at Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, we’re wishing you a safe and happy New Year and that 2010 is your best year yet!

Tags: Chiropractic Practice Success, Goals, New Year's Resolutions, Success, Successful Chiropractors

Here is a post from one of my heros, Seth Godin, an author, marketer and thought-leader, on the lifetime value of a customer.  Too often when we’re coaching chiropractors or when chiropractors are considering coaching, marketing or any other ‘cost’ to growing a practice it is seen as just that – a cost vs. an investment.

At year end, have a look at your retention (Patient Visit Average) for the year of 2009.  We consider 60 PVA a bare minimum for a wellness practice.  Then calculate how much a new person is worth to you.  Not because we see people as dollar signs, but so that you can make good decisions on investments to grow your practice.  If a new person is worth on average $2000, don’t you think it’s important to have your systems and communications wired so you don’t blow it when they come in?  How about ROI and marketing decisions?  Without this knowledge, as Seth Godin states below, $50 investment can seem expensive.

Enjoy the read!

Embracing lifetime value

Tags: chiropractic, Chiropractic Coach, chiropractic communication, Chiropractic Consultant, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Practice Success, chiropractic systems, Chiropractic Wellness Model, Lifetime Value, PVA, Retention, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, rosen coaching, Seth Godin

In addition to the Ask. vs. Tell idea of asking people questions as opposed to telling them what we think, what about asking ourselves questions to get to our next level of success?

As we are approaching the end of the year, here are some questions to consider for what will change in your life and your chiropractic practice in 2010 to become more successful.  Who we are being starts the physical manifestation of the results you want to see in your life. Many of these questions come from my coach, Robin Sharma, and many of them come from coaching chiropractors myself:

1. The Unstuck Question: “Is this choice moving me towards or away from what I want”?

2. The Authenticity Question: “Who am I”?

3. The Clarity Question: “What am I trying to accomplish”?

4. The Intention Question: “Why am I trying to accomplish it”?

5. The Mastery Question: “How can I get better”?

6. The Growth Question: “What am I resisting’?

7. The Fearlessness Question: “What am I afraid of”?

8. The Gratitude Question: “What am I grateful for”?

9. The Impact Question: “What one thing can have the biggest impact”?

10. The Legacy Question: “What legacy do I want to leave, for my family, my practice and my community?

11. The Integrity Question: “Are my beliefs, thoughts and actions aligned”?

12. The Action Question: “What is the one thing I’m going to work on to get the results I desire”?

At Rosen Chiropractic Coaching we are committed to your success in your chiropractic practice and your life. We are here to help and would be honored to do so.

Tags: Ask vs. Tell, Chiropra, New Year, Questions, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, rosen coaching, Success

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. No gifts, no pressure. Just family, friends, and loved ones. The idea of just getting together to be together, being present, enjoying each other’s company and being grateful for what we have.  The most important thing in our lives are the relationships and love we have.

The first key to having the life and chiropractic practice of your dreams? Be grateful for what you have. What you focus on, expands.  So if you focus on what you don’t have… guess what?  It grows. So why not focus on what you are thankful you already have?  It will naturally expand. This mindset and feeling of gratefulness will bring you to an entire new level of attraction and success.

My suggestion? Write down 5 things you are grateful for in your personal life and 5 things you are grateful for in your chiropractic practice at the end of each day. This is the starting place for explosive growth and success in a TRUE Wellness Model. Have a mindset of abundance and satisfaction drive your decisions and actions, not from a place of lack and fear.

At Rosen Coaching, we are so grateful to have you be a part of our lives and to have you be a part of our mission to have chiropractors be the recognized leaders of TRUE healthcare and the wellness revolution!

Tags: Add new tag, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Practice Success, Gratefulness, Leadership, Success, Thanksgiving, True Wellness Model

Are you living the life of your dreams, as a chiropractor and personally?  If not, why not? Many people I speak with, as a chiropractic coach, who are not having the success they desire in their practice or personal life and I want to help you live the life of your dreams:

1. Know what the life of your dreams looks like. Imagine it, visualize it.  If we don’t know what the end is, how will we ever know we got there? Without knowing our vision, we are always unsatisfied.

2. What is your life about? As a human being and as a chiropractor? Write a mission statement that is clear and concise. Your mission outlines how will you achieve your vision. When we coach chiropractors to build a Dream Team with their CA’s, we ask that they read the mission together before each day.  We must keep the big perspective and the ‘why’ we do what we do in the forefront of our minds to not get caught in the mundane details of life and practice.

3. What do you stand for? What are your core values?  For yourself personally and for your chiropractic practice.  These are the foundations that you measure every decision against. If it’s aligned with your values, consider it. If it’s not, move on, even if it’s a good deal.

4. What is success to you?  What are the categories of success for you personally and your practice?  Discover these categories (hint: it’s not just financial wealth) and then grade yourself where you are today on a scale of 1-10. Then decide what ONE thing you need to do to move you more towards a 10 in each category.  Categories could include: Personal Fulfillment, Health, Finances, Practice, Lifestyle, and Family, for example.

5. Get organized and focused on what’s important!  Many people have great ideas and no organization to execute. Be diligent about managing yourself (notice I didn’t say your time) and each day work on what is most important or what will have the greatest impact on your life.  Move away from distractions and ADHD tendencies of a high-tech, high-noise world.

6. Take consistent action. Knowing what you want is one thing. The next is to actually create movement and action towards it. Craziness comes from doing the same thing and expecting different results. So do something different and take action!

There is a month and a half until the end of 2009. Have you achieved your goals? Maybe you didn’t set any.  Let’s see if you can generate some momentum and self-discipline to move towards the successful life of your dreams between now and New Year’s Eve. If you want support and coaching to have the life and practice of your dreams, at Rosen Coaching we’re here to help. It’s our specialty and expertise. Contact us for a Free Consult to get the ball rolling. Life is short, it’s time to make the most of it!

Tags: action, Chiropractic Coach, chiropractic practice, chiropractor, focus, life of dreams, mission, organization, Rosen Chiropractic Coaching, rosen coaching, Success, values, vision

Why haven’t chiropractors marketed chiropractic as well as ShamWOW has marketed a stupid sponge cloth? That thing is a global phenomenon in a microcentury and chiropractic is 1000x more amazing and has been around for 114 years! (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, click here).

One of my favourite leadership gurus is Robin Sharma who’s coined the term, Merchant of WOW.  And I think it’s time chiropractors started acting like Merchants of WOW.  It means obsessive attention to detail in every aspect of your office, it’s decor, the chiropractor’s healthy image, the “red carpet” service to every person that contacts or comes into the office. It means refining your technical skills, growing your understanding of our philosophy and taking your communication skills and procedures to the next level.

Every step of the way we want people to think and to say, “Wow”.

The trouble is, a lot of practice management companies teach chiropractors to make their patients say, “Wow, I had no idea things were so bad”.  And from our perspective, there is no place for Scare Tactics in a TRUE wellness chiropractic practice.  We feel people should say, “Wow, I had no idea chiropractic could help me in so many ways! Wow, I had no idea you could affect my nerve system and my entire body”!  We want to be motivating them by what they want, as opposed to motivating them with fear and what they don’t want. It’s subtle, but has huge ramifications on the relationship long term. Sure you might be short term compliance with fear, but it doesn’t last and the relationship is tainted.

So how do we do that? We teach them under the radar, planting seeds and asking questions to help stretch their consciousness with every interaction in the office: How the CA answers the phone, your First Visit Forms, the look and feel of your office, your communications and procedures of Visit 1, Visit 2, Daily Interactions, Re-Evaluations and Re-Reports, how you handle difficult questions and situations, and how you manage your team.

It’s time that people start saying ChiropracticWOW! The wellness revolution is upon us and it’s time we step up and lead it.  If you want to know more about our chiropractic coaching and how to THRIVE in a TRUE wellness model, let us know. We’re here to help.

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, chiropractic marketing, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Wellness Model, communication, LAASR, Leadership, merchant of WOW, Robin Sharma, scare tactics, Success, Wellness Chiropractic, Wellness Chiropractors, wellness revolution

What do successful chiropractic practices around the world all have in common? Chiropractic technique? Size and shape of the doctor? The politics of the area? Nope, none of those things.  We find, across the board, there are two things that make chiropractors successful and have the practices of their dreams.  What are they?

1. Certainty and Congruent Beliefs

2. Communication Skills

3. Congruent Procedures

I’ll get to the second point in a later post, but let’s start with the foundation of certainty and beliefs!  Recently, I spoke at Dr. Tedd Koren’s KST Seminar on this exact topic and felt like it was one I wanted to share with all of you.

As a chiropractor, you may have unshakeable certainty about who you are and what you do. Or, like many other chiropractors out there, might have some doubt and uncertainty about what you offer. Why?

Don’t you think that after years of education and practice that chiropractors would know who they are and what they offer? That they would be certain about what they deliver? Well across the board, day in and day out, we coach and speak with chiropractors on the phone who are not. And when we survey audiences around the world (with their eyes closed to keep it anonymous) most chiropractors have some uncertainty.

Why?  We believe the original sin in chiropractic is the rah-rah seminar that makes the audience yell out, “Chiropractic can help everything”! And then there is someone in your office who doesn’t get any response to your care. Then what? Either chiropractic failed or you did. So in creeps the doubt and uncertainty!  In our LAASR process, we help you make a promise to truly help people, and to keep your promise!

Here is our Rosen Chiropractic Coaching’s Formula for Certainty:

· Who are you as a chiropractor?

· What do you offer?

· What would you like to deliver?

· What are you certain you deliver?

· How do you monitor what you deliver?

· How do you communicate what you deliver?

· What is your vision and mission?

· Define your persona statement (and become it)!

We suggest sitting down with yourself and your complete honesty and completing the above sentences. Then we suggest that you sit down with your team and do the same. See what truths, insights (good or bad) or “ah-ha’s” that you get from doing this! Once we can get your beliefs congruent, then we install congruent procedures and communications to have the practice of your dreams!

We feel it is healthy to have a difference between what you would like to deliver and what you are certain you deliver. It is always a good thing to be striving to become better at your technique, to grow and evolve your skills as a chiropractor. The truth is, the more you do, the more certain you will be. Only a closed mind is 100% certain, so it is always important to keep growing!

Here are some resources to develop your life purpose, vision and mission.  For those of you who are interested in completing the entire Certainty program, click here.

It’s time to be the best chiropractor you can be, so that chiropractors can become the leaders of true health care!

It’s your choice! It’s either one or the other:

Tags: Beliefs, Certainty, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Practice Management, communication, Health Care, Leadership, Success, Wellness Chiropractic, wellness practice management

September 18th, 2009 is chiropractic’s 114th birthday!  On that day, Daniel David Palmer made the connection between the spine, nervous system and overall health and well-being. And the trusting deaf  cleaner Harvey Lillard allowed DD to adjust him, which resulted in his hearing being restored.

We’ve come a long way since then: chiropractic is a household name, from the original Palmer Chiropractic schools there are now dozens around the world including Australia, New Zealand, U.K and most recently Barcelona Spain! We’ve done a great job getting our name out there.

But where we’ve failed miserably in chiropractic is letting the public know what we do. I dare you to go outside your practice and ask 100 people what chiropractic is. What would they say? Neck pain? Back pain? Check out this video of someone who braved the streets and dared to ask:

What about inside your practice?  If Dr. Rosen and I sat in your reception area and asked the next 100 people who came in, “What are you hear for?  What is chiropractic?” What would they say?  If you don’t like the answers you are hearing, it means they don’t get the whole story.  You might be educating them, but they way you are educating them isn’t working. If they can’t articulate the whole story themselves, we’re in trouble. Our practice and our profession.

We feel there is a communication crisis in that the public does not know what we do. And our profession is stuck at a minimal percentage of the population utilizing our services. And the ones who do don’t really know that we are health and wellness doctors. They think we ‘crack bones’ to help back pain.

So what can you do to celebrate chiropractic’s birthday? How about commit to yourself to clearly define your Certainty as a chiropractor?  How about learning how to communicate the simple chiropractic truths in a way that people ‘get it’ and stay, pay and refer?  It is time for chiropractors to become the leaders of TRUE healthcare.  If you’re interested, we can help!  We are committed to helping the profession grow to lead the wellness revolution and transform the way the public perceives chiropractic care. We want you to THRIVE in a TRUE wellness model!

Tags: chiropractic, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Consultant, Chiropractic Practice Management, chiropractic profession, chiropractor, communication, Leadership, Wellness Chiropractic, wellness re

One of the biggest classic blunders chiropractors make is to forget they are human first and doctor second. What do I mean?  They are so quick to jump on ‘teaching or telling’ the person in front of them what they think (they are the doctor, aren’t they?), before they really find out what is going on and clarifying the person’s question or statement.

During the Daily Interactions in your office, my favourite question to ask someone who has a question or a concern is,”Why do you think that is”? Assuming we’ve nailed our Visit 1 and 2 communications, we can use this question to help make the picture bigger without lecturing people. The old Ask vs. Tell!

“Doc, my neck hurts more today”, is a good example. The assertive chiropractor comes out with both guns of blame and shame blazing, “What’d you do to wreck yourself”?  The non-assertive chiropractor doesn’t address the concern with a meek, “Okay” response.

We coach our chiropractors to not get caught up how they want to respond but to connect with the person in front of them and clarify what they mean. “Why do you think that is”, is a good start. This little question allows us to:

1. Check in with them and find out what is really going on

2. Help them come to the answer, by asking questions and without you lecturing them (which concurrently creates less resistance and more ownership)

3. Connect the dots for them so that they get it! For example, “Wow, Mr. So & So, your neck is bothering you more today?  Why do you think that is? The last time this was subluxated, do you remember what lifestyle stress you were having then? Yes, it was stress “X”. Have you been having stress “X” again? Interesting… What do you think about that? Can you see that this lifestyle stress is recreating this subluxation?

We need to ensure that every visit people feel valued, given a voice to speak their thoughts, feelings or concerns and that there is a chance for us to give specific feedback.  We are either going to Celebrate & Educate or Commiserate & Educate. And what do we want them to get from our education?

1. The way I live my life can either recreate subluxations or help me stop recreating subluxations

2.  If I have subluxations, there is limited life force getting to my cells, my body is not healing or  functioning at it’s optimum, and I am not living at my greatest potential

If the people in your office are not able to give you the “Whole Story“, give us a call and we’ll help figure out how to communicate this and THRIVE in a True Wellness Model of Chiropractic Practice!

Tags: Ask vs. Tell, Challenges, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Education, Chiropractic Practice Challenges, communication, wellness chiropractic practice management

Do you remember what finals week was like in chiropractic school?  Long hours, pushing through exhaustion, getting your studying done. Not that it was healthy, or how you would want to function long term, but sometimes we have to hear Dr. Sid’s voice saying, “Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether you like it or not”.

I find many chiropractors forget what it’s like to have the pedal to the metal. They are used to being on cruise control.  As chiropractic coaches and consultants, we work with our chiropractors to shift their communications and procedures to a TRUE Wellness Model of practice. And sometimes they get halfway through establishing a new (and stronger) foundation of Visit 1 and 2 and get stopped.  They feel overwhelmed and frustrated. And we have remember that, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

The truth is, having a successful chiropractic practice is simple, but not easy. If it was, everyone including you, would already be thriving.  Keep in mind your results in practice are directly proportionate to your communication skills and our level of certainty.  And if we want to change the results we are getting, we have to not only change our procedures and skills, we have to also change ourselves. Sometimes we have to push through with motivation like it’s finals week, to get to the next level. Without this push through The Dip, we’ll never get the results and changes we are looking for in a timely manner.  And we all want results yesterday!

Are you ready to take your practice to the next level? Do you want to thrive in a TRUE Wellness Model? If you’re ready to work, we’re ready to help!

Tags: Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Consultant, finals week, frustration, hard work, overwhelm, Results, The Dip