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

In the book, Change or Die by Alan Deutschman he studies the 3 keys of change, and what works and doesn’t work.

In a recent blog post, Ask vs. Tell, I explored the power of asking questions to shift consciousness, beliefs and therefore behaviours.   This follow-up post is meant to look at the two types of questions we can ask: Scare Questions or Care Questions. What do I mean?

A good portion of our profession and practice management companies uses scare tactics and fear to manipulate people to do what we want.  Our perspective, at Rosen Chiropractic Coaching is that fear and manipulation have no place in a chiropractic wellness model.  We stand for clean communication with compassion.

In Change or Die, Alan Deutschman explores the three “F” words: Force, Facts and Fear and why they don’t work. When the three “F” words become too much, people go into denial as a protective mechanism. They make irrational decisions that could cost them their life (only 10% of heart attack patients changed their lifestyle despite the fear and threats).  In contrast, Dr. Dean Ornish had 75% of heart attack patients change their lifestyle with the three “R” words: Relate, Reframe, Repeat.

So we need to relate to the people we care for. We need to build rapport, bond, connect, offer hope and relieve their fears.  We need to reframe their consciousness and beliefs about health, and ask questions to shift their current paradigm, to plant seeds and teach under the radar. And we need to repeat these questions in our daily interactions, our Touch-Tell-Ask-Teach and find ways for people to become successful every visit, working towards a new goal. We as their doctor, need to lead them, inspire them and empower them.  And we need to create a culture in our office creates a supportive community.

Because making changes in life can be challenging and these new behaviours need to be reinforced with love and support, not fear and commitment. This is exactly what we do at Rosen Coaching to help you have a thriving wellness practice! We address the 3 R’s in the LAASR Mastery process. If you want a communication system based on the 3 R’s then give us a call!

Tags: Alan Deutschman, Ask vs. Tell, care tactics, Change or Die, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, Chiropractic Practice Management, Chiropractic Wellness Model, communication, Denial, Facts, Fear, Fear Tactics, Force, Leadership, Reframe, Relate, Repeat, scare tactics, Scare vs. Care, True Wellness Model, wellness chiropractic practice management

It’s easy to be mediocre.  A mediocre person, a mediocre mother, a mediocre friend, and certainly it is easy to be a mediocre chiropractor.  Look around, most everyone is doing it.  Mastery however is difficult.  Mastery takes hard work, dedication and keeping a big vision in the forefront of your mind and the stamina to follow through.  To be an overnight success takes 10,000 hours of work.  It means you have to push through The Dip. 

What does it take to be a master in the art, science, and philosophy of chiropractic? Even more importantly is what does it take to be a master of communication about our truth of health, healing and chiropractic?  As a start you need to understand personality types and communicaiton/behavioural styles of people. You need to LAASR your Visit 1, Visit 2, Daily Interactions, ReAssessments & ReReports communication to lead people forward.

Do you know what the common denominator of all successful chiropractic practices have? Chiropractors with certainty.  They are clear on their vision and how they are going to achieve it.  They know what they bring to the table.  And they speak their truth boldly and in a way that people can hear them.

Are you the best chiropractor you can be?  Are you communicating chiropractic to the people in your office and community so that they ‘get it’?  Can you turn people on to a healthy lifestyle that includes chiropractic care for them and their families for a lifetime?  Write down what having mastery in your chiropractic career would look like. Then write down the things that would need to change or improve to get there. What support do you need?  A coach?  A consultant?  Practice management tips?   An action plan? Accountability?

Most people get successful ‘enough’ and help ‘enough’ people.  They hit a plateau and get comfortable.  Are you pushing yourself towards mastery?  It’s your life. It’s your practice.  You get to choose. Let us know if we can help. There are too many people sick and dying in your community because they don’t know what you know.

Tags: 10000 hours, Chiropractic Coach, Chiropractic Coaching, chiropractic profession, coach, communication, consultant, LAASR, Leadership, mastery, mediocre, mediocrity, Motivation, Practice Management, Success, The Dip, wellness chiropractic practice management

“Look at ever path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question: ‘Does this path have a heart’?”  ~Carlos Cataneda~

What is the essence of your practice?  What matters most?  If you have passion.  If you are ‘on purpose’.  If you love what you do.  The truth is, everything comes down to your focus, your enthusiasm and the energy you bring to your practice and the people you serve.  

In my chiropractic coaching, I work with chiropractors more about their head space and mindset than on their procedures.  I can easily consult you with typical practice management style and tell you a script to say for your Report of Findings/ Recommended Action Plan.  But if you don’t have passion, or certainty, or value yourself as a chiropractor and the care you provide, it won’t help. We have to coach through these intangibles before we can move forward.

At the time of death, the ancient Egyptians removed all the meaningless organs and discarded them. One that they kept – the heart.  I myself have been in ancient Egyptian temples and tombs and am intrigued by their understanding of the human experience.  When an Egyptian dies and goes to receive judgement by Anubis, their heart is weighed on a set of scales against a feather.  If their heart is lighter than the feather, they have lived a good life and move to the afterlife.  How light is your heart?  When do we let ourselves over-think our practice and ignore our true knowing, our intuition and what is in our heart?

Most chiropractors I know or have coached, who have done the ‘scare tactic’ model of communication tell me deep down it didn’t’ feel right. They went to bed with a pit in their stomach and their heart knowing the incongruency.  But it sounded like a good idea to use fear for patient compliance and to get the promised results.  It might work for short term compliance, but to get long term follow through our job is to have passion, tell people our truth, show them the consequences of their choices and build human relationships through hope and loving communication. 

Here are the steps to help you regain heart in your practice:

1.Truly discover your heart, passion and certainty for chiropractic

2. Bring it to your practice in every aspect: communication, marketing, team building etc.

3. Love people where they are and show them there is another way ~ lead them!

4. Make your systems and communications congruent with what is true to your heart

5. Have the practice and life of your dreams

Tags: care tactics, Chiropractic Coaching, communication, Egyptian, Heart, Passion, scare tactics, wellness chiropractic practice management

As chiropractors, hopefully most of us are communicating with the people we care for about the concept of health as a process vs. health as an event.  The accumulation of stress over time and the removal of such stress is the creator of health or disease.  Nothing from the outside. Nothing that just ‘happens’.

After a close family member had a heart attack this weekend I am deeply thankful for event/crisis care that our social medical system provides. It saved her life with incredible speed and skill.  And what I know so conceptually, I was reminded viscerally this weekend where they fall short. Medical care is not designed nor intended to keep you healthy. They view health as an event instead of a process. “This happened, we fixed it. Now take these drugs for life as our best approach to manage it”.  

True health care is the chiropractic understanding: Health is a process. In every moment you are either moving towards health or away from it with your choices. If you accumulate too much lifestyle stress in your nerve system, you will create dis-ease and disease.  We acknowledge this as the CAUSE and make new choices to create a different state of health.  Wellness care is acknowledging what the body needs (and doesn’t need) to be well and continue to take care of yourself with the same level of care, whether you are sick or whether you are well.

But a process takes TIME you say! Ah yes, heart disease didn’t happen overnight. Nor will it disappear with a medical miracle.  They can reactively stop the acute pain of an MI and reestablish blood flow – but the proactive process is just beginning!  But we are a quick-fix society wanting results NOW!  

Even wellness chiropractors, who understand the ‘process vs. event’ concept and communicate this way to the people they serve about symptoms, healing, and chiropractic care can be impatient with their practice and their chiropractic coaching. But I want results NOW they say!  Ah yes, but changes in your practice don’t happen overnight!  Don’t fall into the quick-fix trap, it’s incongruent with our philosophy.

Know what you are trying to accomplish, have an action plan to work towards it, follow through with the actions and produce the results.  In every moment, your chiropractic practice is either moving towards success or away from it with your choices and actions.

Make sure that you are applying the same Process vs. Event principle to all aspects of your life: Your chiropractic practice, your chiropractic coaching, your nutrition, your exercise, your finances… it’s aligned with the laws of nature.  Life is a process, not an event.

Tags: Chiropractic Care, Chiropractic Coaching, Event, Health Care, Medicine, Proactive, Process, Reactive, Wellness Care, wellness practice management

Most people don’t want to know about their disappointed customers.  It scares them and it’s uncomfortable.  Especially if you are a chiropractor, serving with all your heart.  If you are taking care of people with world class excellence, doing your very best, it can really ruin your day to hear from someone who isn’t happy with your service.  In fact, it can start a downward spiral of self-abuse if you don’t get hold of your head space right away.

From the wise Seth Godin, a guru in marketing and leading tribes, he says these words about disappointed customers, “Don’t ignore them”.  

Find out if you can save the relationship and rectify the disappointment using LAASR communication we use in our coaching. Ask for more information to clarify the disappointment. Acknowledge their concerns/fears/feelings. Come up with a solution that works for both parties. And then knock their socks off! Really WOW them.

If they are out the door anyway and are the 10% of the population that will tell you they are disappointed (most will just disappear without a word), don’t hang your head in shame.  Have the guts to ask what they didn’t like about the service? What could we improve upon for next time? The more information you can extract from these people and then change your approach, the better your service will get.  Don’t hide from the hard stuff ~ get as much as you can get!

They key is to take their input not as criticism, but as feedback. It’s not a setback, but valuable information, a gift to evolve your practice, your procedures, your service.  Because we can’t always see how our service is perceived.  It is more important to extract this information from disappointed customers, than it is to ask why the happy ones like your service. Why? Because an unhappy customer tells 20, a happy customer tells 5.

Please share this blog with others if you are happy with it!  Please email me with feedback with what you’d like to see changed.  I value your input. Thank you for reading.

Tags: chiropractic, Chiropractic Coaching, Disappointed customers, Feedback, Happy customers, LAASR

  VS.   

If you are a chiropractor still practicing in a pain based model of symptom relief, I hope you will realize (soon) that the future of the profession lies in wellness care. Like dentistry realized fifty years ago that waiting to pull rotten teeth from people’s mouths with toothaches is antiquated, our chiropractic profession is starting to see the light.  Treating people’s backache’s and using adjustments like expensive aspirin isn’t keeping up with the times.  It’s time to think different. 

People want wellness, look around! From organic food, to fitness gyms people are looking to get well and stay well rather than wait for a crisis.  Our culture is in the middle of a wellness revolution ~ don’t get left behind!  It is time for the chiropractic profession to lead this wellness revolution.  It is up to each one of us.

At Rosen Coaching, we look at two key stats as a litmus test for a wellness practice: your retention or PVA (patient visit average) and the percentage of internal referrals.  You may think you are running a wellness chiropractic practice, but if your PVA is below 60 and your internal referrals are low ~ it tells us that the people in your practice don’t ‘get’ chiropractic like you think they do. If I sat in your reception room and asked the next 100 people through the door why they are there, what would they say?

So what are the symptoms of practice not succeeding and not congruent as a wellness practice?  Of course, low PVA/Retention and low internal referrals as mentioned above.  But what else?  A wellness philosophy for how you manage your practice is key. Do you have systems and a communication model that is reactive as opposed to proactive?  Do  you wait for the number of new people to drop down before you do any marketing or do you have a perpetual, balanced approach marketing calendar?  Do you wait to have staffing issues or do you spend time each week cultivating a Dream Team?  Do you wait for people to drop out of care before addressing their concerns, or do you listen between the words and identify the symptoms of when a person receiving your care is unhappy?  Are you afraid to address their concerns and sweep them under the rug with an assertive or non-assertive ‘brush off’, or do you address them right then and there?  Want some more examples? Disorganization, stress, lack of income, lack of new clients, people don’t ‘get it’, clients don’t follow your recommendations, they don’t sign up for care, they don’t keep their appointments. The list can go on…

Truly the biggest difficulty I see in the profession is the amount of scare tactics that are propagated by some of the biggest chiropractic practice management companies out there.  I truly believe that there is no place for fear and manipulation in a wellness practice, as it is completely incongruent with the very nature of a wellness philosophy.  It’s time to think different and start using trust, hope and truth to help people see what is possible for their well-being. If you are going to have a wellness chiropractic practice, leave the scare tactics at the door.  And start to use a proactive congruent wellness approach in your systems, communications, and practice management.

Tags: care tactics, Chiropractic Coaching, chiropractic profession, communication, future, pain based model, rosen coaching, scare tactics, wellness model, wellness practice management, wellness revolution