The DC Practice Growth Show

Recently I held a competition in my group, Inner Circle Hall Of Fame, where my most elite members presented their story so far, their struggles, their success and what they've learnt along the way. The top prize, a $10,000 trip to America and the first person in my Inner Circle Hall Of Fame. After hearing all their amazing stories I knew I needed to get them on the podcast so over the next couple of weeks I will be bringing their stories to you. Up next is Ana, here's her story in her own words: I opened my practice right after graduation. Opening the doors in March 2008 and I grew it to 100/ week in 6 months and feel quite quick into the “comfortable” category. It took me about 3 years to break the 150 barrier and got stuck for many years at 200. Being involved with the Spanish Chiropractic Association, teaching at the BCC and trying to do too many things was definitely part of it, but to be completely honest, the word “comfort” and thinking I knew what I was doing seems about right. I wanted to grow but have no clue HOW. I tried many coaches in the past and all I could think of was: “there is a problem in ME”. In my second year I had a major accident and I survived... only stronger. They told me I would never walk again and I did. Five years ago, I decided to test again if I couldn't manage my epilepsy naturally, without my meds. Year and a half of strict dieting and habits, new associate “just in case” (we have schedule for seizures... mine were always in the morning) and for a year and a half I struggled with two seizures a month. Practice survived and actually we touched the 300 adjustments/week. There was more capacity with 2 CA's and 2 DCs (I was only missing work on seizure day). I was lucky enough not to have any seizures while patients where there... but I had a lot of issues with my team. Not fun. Welcome vulnerability. First major problem showed up: For the first time we were a team of 4 with no systems and no structure. Now I know, but I did not know at that time. There was no leadership, no structure, nothing. And then... the unimaginable happened. My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he was GONE in two months. I honestly asked myself this question more times than what I would like to share: “Do I really want to keep doing this? Is this worth it?” This is the context I connected with Ryan. I didn't need too many patients. My PVA was already above 70; I needed help trusting myself again. I needed structure, systems, a little bit of order. I needed HELP. I am a smart and strong person. Medical School, Summa Cum Laude in Chiropractic School... I am not used to feeling “desperate”, “useless” and so lonely. I was “coaching” 5 DCs starting their practices and I felt like a complete fraud. How could I help anyone if I can't even help myself?

Recently I held a competition in my group, Inner Circle Hall Of Fame, where my most elite members presented their story so far, their struggles, their success and what they've learnt along the way. The top prize, a $10,000 trip to America and the first person in my Inner Circle Hall Of Fame. After hearing all their amazing stories I knew I needed to get them on the podcast so over the next couple of weeks I will be bringing their stories to you. Up first is Patrick, here's his story in his own words - I started in a clinic in Eastbourne as I had family located in the town. I worked here for about 5 months as my first job outside of school. It was terrible; I was making so little money and serving so few people I couldn't pay my rent or insurance fees. This is when I applied for another job in Brighton and it was an amazing learning curve and I got so much of my certainty from this clinic. During that job I eventually got an offer to run the old clinic I had been working roughly 2 years prior. I spoke to several people about this decision, my partner who wasn't sure how good a deal it was but would support my decision. Ironically despite everyone being unsure something told me not to doubt the opportunity I had attracted and so I packed up my stuff in Brighton and moved back to Eastbourne to pursue my new life running my own clinic my way. This is where my story of a practice owner began, after 2 ½ years in practice, no idea how to run a clinic but a huge amount of hunger and energy I took the shot and still I don't look back. I was meant to get mentoring from the clinic owner before as he was meant to teach me marketing strategies, clinic running and patient handling. There was literally none of that so I had signed a contract, paid my money and then got left to my own devices. Now having been doing it for 2 years and being in the Inner Circle for most of it I took a practice that saw on average 150 visits to over 350 in this time, more than 2.5x the turnover and drastically increased our profit. The number of chiros has increased with a constant thirst for more we will continue to expand permitted that we can continue to find more chiropractors. I now run probably the busiest and most sought-after clinic in Eastbourne and have now started to build the reputation of the go-to clinic. We are the first to now be mentioned on Facebook if locals search. Our page appears at top of Google. The other 2 clinics in town were very well established and old running clinics which we now give a serious run for their money. My life and my partner's live have been transformed by the amazing changes that my growth has brought in. The most amazing thing is I am still only 29 which tells me there is still so much time for me to continue to not only grow this practice but potentially expand to a second or third and increase my passive incomes through the property and other investments I am already making.

It's staggering just how much "dread" fills a chiropractor when I say these three words... "RAISE YOUR PRICES" The psychology around raising prices has everything to do with your understanding of just how irrational and powerful the FEAR OF LOSS is within a human being! Fear is often overcome by understanding some facts, and some in the field real life scenarios ... of how this really plays out ... well here goes! EXCUSES EXCUSES Three of the biggest objections I get about raising prices are.... "I've just raised them in the last 12 months" "But I'm already the most expensive" "But nobody in the area charges more than ....." When a chiropractor first joins my group, normally the very first piece of advice I have is RAISE YOUR PRICES! Check out Episode 113 of my DC Practice Growth Podcast and listen to me explain exactly why you need to raise your prices immediately and delve deep into a six figure price rise strategy. Ep 4. 9 Things To Help Your Website Get To The Next Level - https://apple.co/3j0uT5S

This is not something I learnt from a book but from my own personal experience of growing to 9 practices. If you want to scale then the worst number is 2, listen to this episode and it will all make sense!

The only reason people aren't doing this strategy is because they don't know the money math in their business. Knowing your money math opens up so many new opportunities to take your practice to the next level.

Chiropractors, here's 4 immediate steps to reduce neediness when selling. So many of us come across desperate when selling because we often do 'need' it but this often repels the other person!

No shows have become more and more common during lockdown BUT there are a few things that we can do right now to improve this. Check out this extract from my recent 'Marketing Bootcamp' about how to deal with not shows.

Has your practice stopped growing? Maybe it's time to take a step back and see if you are saying these sentences because they may just be the reason why you've stopped growing!

All chiropractors are the same, they only seem to celebrate when they get 30 new patients! What about the 5? I built my business, $7 million on just getting 5 new patients a time, trust me it works!

The fundamentals to a reactivation campaign are where you truly win. If you simply do these things right you will beat out high level marketers. With every campaign just email, text, call and send something in the post and you will win.

This is my list of 11 things that you can do to tip the scales in your favour prior to day 1. I truly believe that if you even do half of this list properly you'll be in a much better place prior to your day 1.

I believe this is real reason behind why all chiropractors suck at selling. Selling something that people can't see or touch is tough! Selling a brand new car is easy, they can test drive, they get the new car smell but chiropractic is completely different, it's tough to sell something on talk of results!

Core values are heart of any business and need to be done right. The common misconception with core values is that they are an outwards facing tool but in reality they should be inwards facing and there to keep you and your team accountable. The tighter the context the higher the performance of the team.

Chiropractors do you know your cost per lead or cost per client? You need to know these numbers, people say they only got 3 clients from a Facebook ad but broke even on the front end! Who else would be okay with 3 FREE new clients?

This is a mixture of and offline and online strategy that we've fused together during lockdown. This strategy has produced 50 new patients in a single dat for some people.

I often tell the story of the travelling dentist and this story alone helped me reactivate over 1360 patients and make one of my students well over $100,000. The idea behind the story is that we all have old patient files laying around, these files can still be used, upload them into your server and contact them now!!!

Recently I purchased a peloton and boy what an experience but the other day when I was riding I stopped one second short of the line and dropped 100 places and this really made me think of how true this is in life and business, sometimes if we just keep going for that extra second then we will get so much further. So just keep pedalling!

Keeping your clients engaged during lockdown is the key to surviving and coming out the other side stronger. A way which has seen my students have records during a covid year is sending daily emails, yes daily emails. These emails are called Seinfeld emails and are basically emails about nothing but they keep you and your business front of mind for all of your client base.

New patient show up rates have always been tough but no there's 'permission' in the market place to allow us to double if not triple show up rates new for new clients. So many places now ask for deposits or full payment up front because time slots are so limited so why can't we, as chiropractors do the same? The market right now is allowing us this opportunity, I've tried this in my practices and it's tripled our show up rates for new patients.

We're all in a bit of yo yo at the moment whether it's entering different 'tiers' in the UK, coming in and out of lockdown around Europe or state by state changes in the US but here's a few tips that can help when rescheduling or reactivating patients throughout this time. Here's a quick sneak peak, make sure you have someone on the phones at all times!

I truly believe that this is one of the most important stats that every chiropractors needs to know and that that's your future visit stat. How many people have you got booked in the diary 4 weeks from now? Register for my FREE webinar, 16&17th January 2021 - dcpgwebinars.com

When I sat down with Tony Ebel for my practice growth summit one of the biggest things we both agreed on that every chiropractor needs to get better at is follow up. Follow up is the difference of someone coming into your practice or not, by simply giving someone a call or a text you can increase your new patients tenfold.

2020 was tough on the world and tough on business owners but I think we all learnt a lot through these hard times. Here are a few of my learnings from the year and what I think we all need to focus on in 2021.

Chiropractors can use marketing to position themselves as the expert in that local area. In this interview Billy Sticker spoke about how to use social media to spread your message and how every chiropractor should be a published author.

Good times create bad businessmen, it's only when times are tough when you are truly tested. As the saying goes rising tides raise all ships, it's only when the tide goes out you see who laying naked on the beach.

In this interview with Ross McDonald we talked about everything from his time working with the South African Rugby team to how important it is to simply just get the basics right, in everything it's the simple things that matter, taking the time to send a birthday card, make a call remember an important date, that matters.

I have 11 foundational rules that I believe all practice owners can learn from and take there businesses to the next level. They are points I have learned from owning 9 practices and over 10 years of chiropractic experience.

Paul Reed joined me on my practice growth summit and we discovered some gold. We talked about the idea of visualising your goals but not putting a timeframe on them because they will happen when they want to not when you want them too. We also discussed that there are no home runs in chiropractic, there is no one thing that's going to get you to the top, it's just a series of hard work and getting to the next step

Do you know the money math in your practice? If you don't it could be a $100,000 mistake, knowing which is more important leads or conversions and how to make either one work in your favour will change your business forever.

There is no silver bullet in chiropractic, there is no one thing that will save you when you are struggling, the sooner people realise this and start to diversify the things they do the sooner they will be more successful.

Core values should be at the centre of every business. Core values can help you keep your team and yourself accountable within the business. To create your core values you need to know what your business is like when it's rocking and then what p****s you off and then they become your core values.

Last year I sat down with Jim Chester and we discussed everything chiropractic marketing. The need for multiple forms and marketing and new patient sources, the strategies to follow to grow your practice, the disease we currently have in marketing and the one phrase that created a billion dollar industry - "Would you like fries with that".

One of the guests on my practice growth summit was Dr.Tabor Smith who spoke some gold about going after new patients yourself, don't wait around and how they'll see your sign, put some effort in and go and find them. We talked about screening, dinner with the doc, using social media, email sequences and so much more!

I really believe that marketing is a super power, it can fix any problem in a business short term. This doesn't mean that you can forget about everything else because getting everything else right is what takes you to the next level.

At my practice growth summit myself and Dr.Ron Oberstein sat down to discuss his journey through chiropractic and the main thing we kept coming back to was health talks. The importance of them, how they can help you form a bond with your clients and how they were the most effective thing to help Dr.Ron's practices grow.

This is something I was taught by one of my mentors, you will never outgrow your self concept. You will always be limited by your ideals, your self image and your self esteem.

Last year Dr.Dan Brown joined me on my practice growth summit and we discussed the things that have helped him become a successful practice owner. The interview took a main focus on being omni present when it comes to market, the power of being everywhere really does work!

I believe there are 4 fundamentals in a business that you need to focus on in order to grow. Sales, marketing, team culture and leadership.

On this episode of the podcast we take a listen back to an interview I did with Daniel Knowles for my practice growth summit. In the interview Daniel tells chiropractors some of things that have helped grown his practice of the years and how they can implement these into their own practices!

Content has easily been one of things that has propelled my business forward in a short amount of time but even in my short amount of time I've learnt so many lessons when it comes to creating content, especially on a daily basis.

Last year I hosted a practice growth summit with some of the biggest people within chiropractic. On this episode on the podcast it is a replay of my interview with Dr. Fab Mancini where we discuss how chiropractors can play to a higher level.

Imagine opening a new practice and then being shut because of a worldwide pandemic, that's exactly what one of my inner circle members did and here's how he's come through the other side!

After being involved with Chiropractic for 10 years and counting and currently over 50 million dollars worth of sales, I've discovered some harsh truths...

Something that I learned from Robert Kiyosaki was his cash flow quadrant and how to transform from employed to self employed, to business owner, to investor. Which way do you want to take your business?

Not having successful meetings? Are your 'to do's' not being done? Watch this for a great tip that will change your meetings forever.

The idea behind knowing your numbers is huge when it comes to corporate talks. If you know your numbers well enough then you know exactly how much you can afford to spend to acquire new customers.

Facebook is great for marketing but are you using it effectively? On a trip to St.Louis last year I talked over the different Facebook Ad's I use to advertise my business and which ones are effective in different situations!

Business is all about information first, people always want more information before they do business with you. So make sure there is enough ways for them to access the information, often when the information is there people just skip it all together!

We all want to be perfectionist now days but often that prevents us from even starting anything as we don't want to get things wrong. What people don't understand is that if you just do anything then you're in a better position that before.

Check out this small segment from my Talks Bootcamp event where I discuss why the patients we get from doing talks are such good new patients!

Holiday campaigns are golden in businesses, there are endless amounts of holidays in a year from Halloween, Christmas, Back to School to National Ice Cream Day. These present the opportunity and permission in the market place for you to be able to create hype around your offer or promotion and create another new patient avenue.