Putting Your Right Foot Forward

Sunday nights tend to have a somber mood to them. For most people, Sunday evening marks the end of a fun, stress-free weekend and the beginning of a dreaded work week. This is especially true for someone who doesn’t love his/her job.

Guess what? Most people don’t “love” their job. In fact, one study found 70% of people are unsatisfied with their career choice.

Whether you love your job or not, it’s important that you put the right foot forward.

The First Step

In basketball, the first step dictates whether a player gets past the defense or not. During the work week, the first step is also the most important. To make the most out of your first step it needs to come from the right emotion — gratitude.

What’s great about your job? If you can’t find an answer to that question, try this one: what’s positive about your job? Do you get paid? Do you enjoy any relationships you have with those around you?

What impact does your job afford you to have?

We’ve found that the best direction to take your first step is usually backwards! 

Take time to think, pray, reflect, and love. The beginning of the day carries so much weight for the rest of the week.

Only you can control your attitude.

It doesn’t matter what you do, carry a great attitude through it… no matter what!

Your SIDECAR Team

 

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It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

When is it over? It’s over when you say it is. The only failure in life is quitting on your dream and/or deciding that the work required to reach it is too overwhelming. We all hear the same inner voice when we face adversity. When your perceptions are clouded with negative emotions the self-deceptive, survival voice tells you that you need, even deserve, a break. The fact is that if you want to excel you have to work smarter, play harder, sharpen your skills and be more disciplined than your competition. It’s not over ‘til it’s over.

“Think Outside the Box”

Have you heard the tired bromide that in order to be successful you have to “think outside the box?” Well, that’s half right. Actually, it’s just as important to “think inside the box.” If we equate “outside the box” as right brain thinking and “inside the box” as left brain thinking, we get the whole view. Inside the box is working on the strategic organizational aspects of your practice and outside the box is working on your leadership skills.

Most Chiropractors think outside the box when it comes to revolutionary health care strategies but when it comes to their businesses they tend to resort to ‘OLD-practice’ thinking and entrenched beliefs. One of the most costly is the belief that the strategic work of a practice can be fixed once and for all. This strictly linear thinking leads to practice distress and personal frustration. The result is a process of decline, beginning with stagnation, followed by mediocrity, roller coaster numbers, free fall and eventual extinction. Business remains a work in process and it’s not over until it’s over. It simply is not possible nor is it desirable to attempt to fix the practice once and for all. All attempts to eliminate innovation and creativity will lead to boredom and failure.

A prime example of this “fixing the practice mentality” is how many doctors deal with the challenges associated with recruiting, hiring and training staff. Too many doctors fly by the seat of their pants or on the wind of their emotions and avoid the rigors of leadership. Once they finally wake up and terminate the employee, or wait for him/her to quit, they go on a search to find the perfect assistant and assume this will solve the problem for good. This assumption is a costly repetition of a systemic (whole brain) flaw in thinking. Leadership requires consistent vigilance and investment of your time, energy and money for training.

What is Excellence?

Another common example of this fixer mentality occurs when the doctor puts all of his/her attention on the task of organizing the systems of the business and neglects the human aspect of patient care. As in life, being a Chiropractic Entrepreneur is a cyclical process, not a linear event. Just when you have attended to one aspect, another one is calling for your attention. You must develop the mental agility to hold the entire Business of Chiropractic in your head at once. This includes the Clinical Department, the Financial Department and all the systems involved in each. Excellence means performing at your peak every day, all day.

An example of a manmade cyclical process is the care and maintenance of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Anyone who has seen this inspired mega structure close up will notice that it is always in a state of repair and maintenance. As a matter of fact, before the painting crew finishes one end of the bridge, they set up the scaffolding on the opposite end and the painting cycle is started again. In business we call this consistency and innovation.

The reality is that you must work on your business and on yourself simultaneously. That’s why SIDECAR is designed with coaching accountability, not feel good, pat-on-the-back chats.

It’s not over till you say it is.

Your SIDECAR Team

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Perfection & Grace

This message was inspired by a talk given by Eric McDonald, CEO of DocuTap during a presentation he gave at BRAINSPA 2017. If you’d like to hear his full presentation (trust us, you do) you can check it out here.

As a business leader, you dictate exactly how your team behaves. You set the standards and are responsible for holding your team to them.

How high do you set your standards? Perfection.

What happens when your team doesn’t meet them? Grace.

Perfection

Setting standards that are anything less than perfection is a mistake. Standards need to be set in an “ideal world” environment. In business, the standards you set are one of the few things that you can control and remain largely unchanged.

Here’s the kicker – you’ll never reach perfection; but you have to shoot for it. The second you lower your standards you send a message to your team that it’s okay to be average. Lowering the standard and achieving it with minimal effort never creates growth or improvement.

So, you set perfect standards and your team fails to meets them. What now?

Grace

First and foremost, understand that you are working with people. Flawed, complex, unique, wonderful people. Every single person on your team is completely different. No person should ever be capable of meeting your perfect standards; but every person on your team should be in a constant pursuit of them.

What happens when they fall short?

The questions you need to ask are:

“Was the shortcoming a product of good faith done in pursuit of a perfect (unachieveable) standard?”

“Where is there room for improvement and growth?”

“What leadership does this employee need from me?”

Perfect employees don’t exist. Perfect standards must. Navigating this dichotomy is where you as a business leader need to live and thrive every day.

Press for excellence, give grace.

Your SIDECAR Team

 

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Thriving Through The “Holi-Daze”

Here we are once again in the mass consciousness called the holidays. Several years ago Tom Grisham wrote a delightful book entitled “Skipping Christmas” and it was made into a fun comedy starring Tim Allen. In the movie, Tim Allen talks his wife into leaving the cold weather and the holiday hassle to head for the islands. Skipping Christmas meant leaving the holi-daze brought on by parties, presents, decorations and the rest. Read the book or see the movie I won’t spoil the fun for you!

Our point is this, regardless your personal beliefs about the season, you will be swept into it because you touch the lives of so many people and they leave a mark on you. As the leader in your family and your business you need a personal and professional plan to thrive this year and to set the tone for an affluent next year. We know your plate is filling up with family fun and social events. Your personal memories of this season flood your brain with good and sad.

So,‘tis the season for you to be VERY focused, VERY serving, VERY energetic!

Start with good sELF care. Get your rest, eat well (cheat a little too), make sure you exercise (you can cut back 40% and still be good).

Then, take care of your staff. Remember, they have families and their plates are really full, so no practice building rants or office meetings! A party outside of the office is always a good idea.

Take special care of your patients. They will show up with a seasonal syndrome that was coined by Dr. Douglas Sea as the “ING Syndrome”. Too much wrappING, partyING, spendING, shoppING, eatING and visitING!

And remember to take care of the college kids who are back in town, they need it!

How about opening your door and allowing the visitors who are in your community to get in for an adjustment. Make your new patient process hassle free and only do the essentials. I’ll bet you can refine and define the new patient exam and report to accommodate them.

And finally enjoy yourself! End on a high note and you will begin the next year on a high-ER note!

Your SIDECAR Team

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Leaders are Learners!

Powerful leaders have several characteristics and attributes that contribute to their success. They are great communicators, experienced go-getters, and have high emotional intelligence. However, one of the most attractive traits a leader can have is also the simplest — getting excited about learning. A great leader is no less excited about learning a new skill than a child on the first day of kindergarten. This desire to learn guarantees a leader stays on the forefront of his/her profession and keeps the mind open to fresh ideas.

Conversely, the struggles experienced when trying to grow personally or professionally can many times point to one dangerous fixed mindset characteristic, the know-it-all mentality. It’s not easy to admit you don’t have all the answers. However, carrying this weight on your shoulders creates a burden that will severely bottleneck your ability to improve and grow.

So how can we embrace the love of learning?

You Can Become a Learner

First, realize there are millions of new ideas generated every day. You’ll never be the source of them all. To grow you’ll have to expose yourself and soak up as much of them as you can!

The easiest exercise to embrace this concept is to think of the best leader you know or have ever been around. Envision how that person conducts themselves. Regardless of who you’re thinking of I’m willing to bet the following:

  • That leader brings enthusiasm and creativity to every meeting and relationship they are involved in
  • That leader leads by example in their organization
  • That leader reads books and takes advantage of training opportunities
  • That leader never stops asking questions and engaging others to share their thoughts and ideas

Powerful leaders understand that growth, both personally and professionally, is a requisite to living a full and impacting life. The second you stop growing, you start dying. Momentum is a powerful thing that begins to fade the second complacency and comfort set in.

Let go the burden of thinking you must know it all. Embrace a beginner’s mindset and open yourself up to the possibility that their may be a better way than how you’re currently living.

Leaders are learners, and you can be too!

 

Your SIDECAR Team

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It’s Not What You Are Born With, It’s What You Have in You to Be!

If you want to reach your personal business best whether that’s 100 patient visits a day or 100 patient visits a week, you need to let go of the “myths of success” that most management systems perpetuate and embrace evidence-based management.

The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. Successful Chiropractic Entrepreneurs are experts in three key areas:

  1. Clinical expertise
  2. Leadership charisma
  3. Managerial acumen

Decades of research by University of Florida’s Andres Ericsson proves that exceptional performance doesn’t happen overnight, nor is it determined by innate talent. Here are the cliff notes:

  1. Ten year rule
    It takes approximately 10 years of daily, deliberate practice, about four hours a day, to become an expert.
  2. Training trumps talent.
    Experts train effectively and efficiently and have direct access to the best techniques through coaching, skilled peers, books and seminars. They never miss an opportunity to train.
  3. Relentless pursuit for excellence
    Once achieved, exceptional performance can’t be maintained without continued effort.
  4. More effort, not more success
    Exceptional performers do not have a higher success rate, they simply do more.
  5. Effortful study
    Challenging yourself beyond your present competencies makes room for growth. Jim Collins says, “Comfort and complacency are the enemies of greatness.”
  6. Successful people don’t have hot streaks.
    The period when they produce the most successes are also the times when they produce the most failures.
  7. A higher source of motivation
    Experts are intrinsically motivated to be the best they can be. They are not motivated by fear of failure or by greed.

I can only imagine how incredible it will be for you when the person you are today meets the person you are destined to be!

Remember, it’s not what you are born with, it’s what you have in you to become!

Your SIDECAR Team

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Just Like You, Patients Buy What’s Familiar.

So how do we become familiar? 

How many times has a patient asked you for the name of another D.C., either because they were moving, traveling or wanted to refer a friend? How do you find that D.C.? If you’re like me you first check to see if you have any friends or acquaintances in that city or one close by. Referrals are personal. Chiropractic is not familiar to most people, so you, the Chiropractor, must become the familiar gateway. There are three components to becoming familiar: contactability, interpersonal skills, and image.

Contactability

Contactability is how approachable you are in your community. Do you go to the gym and put a force field up around you? When you go to church do you bolt out the side door as soon as services are over? When you attend your child’s athletic or school events are you one of the untouchables? If we attached a monitoring device to you and followed your activities throughout the week what would we see? Home to office and back again? You know it’s really tough to meet people when you don’t even give yourself the chance.

Interpersonal Skills

How do you behave at a restaurant? Do you tip appropriately? Do you treat the wait staff with respect? You see; wherever you go there you are. You are your message! Are you willing to discuss subjects outside of your interests? In other words, are you boring? Are you always talking about health and healing? The number one complaint that spouses have is that the doctor (technician) never leaves the office and has cloistered his self/herself in a protective cocoon from the world of allopathy. Now I don’t want to get off on a rant or anything but get a life outside of adjusting. Learn to be interested in others and they will be interested in you and your message.

Image

Like it or not you have 7 seconds to make an impression with a stranger. Do you look like a professional? Do you dress with pride for yourself and respect for others, or have you decided that comfort means “I don’t care what others think?” Do you realize that people respond to what you feel and think more than what you say? When you say to yourself, “I don’t care what people think about my image,” they only hear I don’t care. Remember, every one of us has an unconscious attraction or repulsion that impacts our choices. What are you sending out?

Successful Chiropractic Entrepreneurs like you have one thing in common: a single- minded dedication to their patients. They have a passionate commitment to understanding everything they can about the people they serve. They have an innate sense that patients are to be served not converted, served not needed, and served not controlled.

Your SIDECAR Team

 

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My Life Would Be So Much Better If Only…

For most Chiropractors the completion of this “if only” sentence is quite predictable. Can you hear the strident voices shouting in unison, “If only. . . I had more new patients?” It is a striking contradiction that a profession that espouses the benefits of an inside-out approach to health is addicted to an outside –in philosophy when it comes to growing a business. We routinely take the path of least resistance looking for the quick fix event and shun the hard work of building through process.

It is a fact that all businesses need to promote their services to potential customers if they are to succeed. As small business owners we must do the same. How you promote your business determines whether or not you build a flash in the pan practice or a solid profitable self sustaining business.

While everyone can benefit form Chiropractic care, the brutal fact is that unless you are a non- profit organization (by design that is) you have a limited market. Now before you judge that statement consider what constitutes a viable Chiropractic patient. First they must be aware of their need and made aware that your services could help solve their problem. Second, they must be willing to do something about it and accept your solution. And third they must have the ability to follow through with care. The word I chose is limited, not limiting. The fact is that there is an ample supply of patients who fit these criteria.

When most Chiropractors think of marketing they think advertising. The two are quite different.

Advertising

Advertising is the promotion through public announcements on Facebook, radio, television, and the internet of something in order to attract interest to it. The game of buying patients is costly, risky, and less profitable. Most importantly it requires more selling on your part. Advertising, by its nature, adds more steps in the decision making process. Purchasing a series of Chiropractic care is nothing like buying a vitamin or paying for a massage because Chiropractic is a high impact and risky venture for people. The decision process is already demanding, so more steps equals more stress. You will have to make the potential patient aware and then eager to buy. More selling is needed because you have to create urgency and attempt to convince them to buy your Chiropractic solution and your brand of Chiropractic. It’s inefficient and requires a huge personal energy expenditure that eventually leads to burnout.

“Marketing is an Attitude not a Department” – Phil Wexler

Marketing

Marketing, on the other hand, is the business activity of presenting products or services to potential customers in such a way as to make them eager to buy. Marketing is everything you do to attract and retain patients. It is how your business is perceived by your staff, your patients, your bank, your accountant, your attorney, your church and, of course, your business advisors/coaches. Marketing creates referrals. Everyone agrees that a referral practice is the ultimate goal. These patients are already interested and therefore aware and eager for a solution. A recent Chiropractic survey asked the question, “Where do most of your new patients come from?” 68.4 % of those surveyed answered, “from existing patient referrals.” Why then are we so obsessed with spending most of our time, energy and money outside looking in?

Chiropractors will buy just about anything and they line up with credit cards in hand for the next “killer gimmick.” Do they work? Yes and No. Yes, a flush of new patients come in. No, because 90 days later the numbers are pretty much the same and you need the next “fix” because nothing has changed in the way you do business. Well, that’s not entirely true, your image may have been tarnished by the type of promotional event, rushed exams, rushed reports, overburdened staff, system break downs, and lengthy office visits for the “regulars.”

If the foundational work is skipped and systems are anemic the results are always the same; an influx of new patient euphoria that dulls your logic while your inside voice screams “Finally, I am on my way,” sadly followed by the cold gray reality of a practice plateau. Foundational work is so critical. The Chiropractor who is a skilled entrepreneur never abdicates the responsibility for growing his/her business to others. He/She embraces the leadership challenge of marketing without resentment or hesitation.

Join us next week as we continue this conversation and dive further into how you can improve your marketing ability!

Your SIDECAR Team

 

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Your Choices Shape Your Chances

Things will go wrong, they always do. Can you handle distractions or setbacks without folding like a lawn chair? To get to the next level you will need exceptional mental agility and decisiveness.

Decisiveness is the ability to make decisions quickly, firmly and clearly.

I watched another ‘aha’ interview with the great Tiger Woods. He told the journalist that his father taught him how to discipline his mind and stay focused on the next shot regardless the circumstance. Apparently his dad would harass him while preparing and making his swing. He made loud noises, dropped clubs, and got in his face, anything to knock him out of the zone. Tiger’s living legacy is proof that mental training pays off.

Flat out Wrong!

Many of your decisions will be flat out wrong. So what! Successful people are faith driven, they know that eventually they will hit on the things that work. Accuracy comes with practice. Extraordinary performances in your career demand rigorous training and a Zen –like resolve. The discipline to separate what you want now, from what you want to have eventually keeps your mind’s eye in the moment where you can have the greatest impact.

Fear driven behavior leads to panic and paralysis. Choices made in this emotional climate are short-term fixes that attract long-term suffering. And even more devastating is the emotional lockdown, indecision. Indecisiveness builds plaques of self doubt and eventually clogs the arteries of creativity.

Thoughts alone do not move the universe but your thoughts move you to speak, to act and to be attracted to resources and opportunities that will get you to the next step in your career. While it is clear that we do not have control over the thoughts that pop into our head; we can take charge once we are aware of them. We choose to feed or starve them. That’s power.

Simple Questions

When deciding on a course of action whether it is hiring a staff, a coach, or attending a seminar. Ask yourself the following profoundly simple questions and then act:

  • Is my dream worth the effort?
  • Does it really make a difference one way or another with the people in my life? (My spouse, my family, my staff and our patients)
  • Is this a part of my problem or a piece of the solution?
  • Will doing this move me closer or further away from my longer term goal?

Now hear this. Evidence from every success story I know about can be summarized by the following statement.

If you are not willing to put your personal savings and time into your dream, you really don’t want what you say you do.

Your SIDECAR Team

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