Have you noticed that there always seems to be one spot along the highway that collects trash? Have you ever wondered how it got started or why that particular spot is the trash magnet?

When the former Mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, confronted the trash and crime magnet called Times Square he set out to solve the problem and restore his beleaguered city. It took two criminologists to figure out exactly what human behavioral quirk contributes to this phenomenon and how to stop it.

The “Broken Window Theory,” conceived by James Wilson and George Kelling, argues that minor nuisances, if left unchecked, turn into major nuisances. That is, if someone breaks a window and sees that it isn’t fixed immediately, he gets the signal that it’s alright to break the rest of the windows and maybe set the building on fire!

By now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with growing a thriving Chiropractic business. Well your office has ‘structural integrity’ similar to any building. What are your broken windows? What are you attracting? Let’s look at a few examples and see what we can glean.

Identifying Your “Broken Windows”

Have you gotten into the habit of arriving at the office a few minutes late each morning? Have you become so complacent that you no longer need to prepare for the new patient or report of findings? Does the Team see these minor infractions as acceptable behavior and begin to follow the leader? How about patients? Do they begin to arrive late or not at all? Come on, it’s only one window.

What minor nuisance is created when you change the financial policy on yet another patient? Does this breach, add, or detract from the structural integrity of your practice? Come on, it’s only one window.

What kind of minor nuisance is created when your attire has become so casual that your patients say, “You look so comfortable doc, I wish I could get away with that in my office.” Come on, it’s only a window.

Has the scuff mark on the wall been there for a while? Is it inviting others to add to the graffiti? How about behind the front desk? Has it been collecting a few piles of meaningless paperwork and personal items? Have you been invaded by “dust bunnies” breeding under the tables and in the corners?

Selective Perception

Remember, patients have ‘selective perception radar’ that continually scans their environment and dramatically affects all of their decisions. Their senses are highly tuned and demanding. Selective perception refers to the fact that people, once they form a good or bad impression about something or someone, become sensitized and more alert to information that supports the initial impression.

For instance, if the patient has had a bad impression in the beginning of care they will be attracted to studies, or other authorities who questioned their decision to become a chiropractic patient. You might hear things like, “My friend says that coming here will make all of my joints loose,” or “I heard that once you start coming to a chiropractor you can’t stop,” or “I read that getting your neck cracked causes strokes.”

Conversely, if their experience leaves them with a positive emotional impression you will have 1- 3 referrals within the first couple of weeks. At the very least you will hear statements like, “I didn’t realize so many different kinds of people go to a Chiropractor,” or “Doc, I wish I had heard about you before.”

Naturally human beings look for conscious reasons to justify their gut feelings. If their gut says you, your staff or your office is lackadaisical about one thing it must mean it applies to the care plan as well. They might ask, “Am I really that special here or am I just another body?”

Take a look at yourself, your staff and the office aesthetics. Fix all the ‘broken windows’ and service nuisances immediately and set a higher standard of service. Company is coming!

Your SIDECAR Team

For too many years in practice I labored under an illusion that cost me relationships, reputation, and a ton of money. The pervasive feeling I had was that patients really didn’t want to be in my office. Sure, I had reason to feel this way. They complained, they were non-compliant and they resisted education. I concluded that most patients were irresponsible and didn’t care about their health.

Maybe you had the same premise or maybe you still do.

Armed with what I thought was ‘real world awareness’ I approached each new patient with considerable anxiety. I played the ‘passive aggressive’ game trying to jockey for a position of control. I had to outsmart them and dazzle them with stats, studies and technology. I was so sure that they didn’t want to be there that everything I said and everything I did centered on getting them to want chiropractic. I became product focused not patient focused.

My passionate chiropractic career had turned into a sales job.

My scripts, posters and props did what they were designed to do, sell the doctor! My sales managers, the purveyors of these sales tools, fed my fear and thinned my pocketbook.

And then one day I turned my frustration into fascination. I imagined my life without adjustments. I wondered how I would feel if I could no longer get adjusted. My answers flowed: tired, hurting, sad, mud headed, and frustrated. Then it hit me, I wanted to be adjusted even before I knew what being adjusted was. I wanted to feel great, think clearly and look good. How about you? How would you feel if you could never get another adjustment? Ask your staff the same question.

You SEE what you BELIEVE!

Patients are people and just like you, people want the benefits of chiropractic. Instead of looking for reasons to convince yourself that patients don’t want to be there, catch people wanting to be there. A missed appointment is just that. Imagine your practice filled with patients who want to be there. It’s easy, because it’s true.

Your SIDECAR Team

Why do some Chiropractic Entrepreneurs make it look so eeeeasy? And why do so many Chiropractors look as if they were baptized in lemon juice? There is a simple explanation, so simple you may be tempted to dismiss it. It all begins and ends with the doctor’s core leadership style.

Your Core Leadership Style

Your core leadership system determines your happiness. Your style either brings joy and fulfillment or stress and anxiety regardless of the numbers. The Chiropractic Entrepreneur who makes it look effortless is able to have thousands of relationships simultaneously because their focus is on serving those who are aware, willing and able to accept their leadership. They “serve their patients through Chiropractic.”

The struggling Chiropractor is always stressed because they have a personal agenda that is played out in the office under the guise of serving. They “serve Chiropractic through their patients.” When a patient quits, this doctor takes it personally and begins the agonizing torture of the “what ifs”. They hold on emotionally to the experience and slowly adopt a pervasive feeling that they are failures. They either avoid running into these patients or wait for the opportunity to pounce on them.

Now the control game is in full stride. With one hand and leg the doctor holds onto the past while simultaneously stretching the other arm and leg toward acquiring new followers. Can you feel the tension build? Someone is going to snap. Who will be first? Will it be you, your staff, your patients, your marriage, or your kids?

Comfort & Control

Now, I am not measuring success by numbers alone, yet the smaller the practice the bigger the COMFORT/CONTROL ZONE. The smaller the practice the more stress the doctor experiences when patients quit and leave the practice. Busier doctors simply don’t “spend time and energy” holding onto the patients who left, they are concerned about “investing time and energy” into those in front of them and not playing the “How do I get them to stay, pay, and refer game?” How can you learn to think and act like a busier Chiropractic Entrepreneur? SIDECAR offers Brain Spa which is crafted in order to experience a higher order of thinking as attendees strip away their limiting beliefs and behaviors.

So why do so many doctors continue to carry their patients? It all begins with a harmless phrase that represents the “Old Practice” approach used by hard sale management systems. The phrase is “New Patient Acquisition.” Acquisition is defined as the act of acquiring or gaining possession. It sounds more like a territorial game of building a fiefdom of “true believers” than building a thriving service business, doesn’t it? What a waste of energy! It is the fast track to burnout and relationship conflicts.

What kind of leader are you?

This practice building myth or leadership style assumes that once we ACQUIRE/POSSESS these “new ones” (Objects) then all we need to do in order to guarantee our success is to retain them. No, the truth is when we approach practice with this leadership perspective we restrain them! The front door to the practice continues to shrink, letting in just the right people for the right reason, while the back door remains locked as we grow ever vigilant in protecting any and all escape routes.

What kind of a leader are you? Is it time for a change? SIDECAR’s Leadership Assessment can pinpoint exactly how you are getting in your way and help you develop a plan of behavioral change. There are nearly as many books on leadership as there are diet books. The best definition I have heard comes from Michael Gerber, “A leader is a person who others follow.” Leaders have power or a right to direct the actions and thoughts of others. And there is a huge difference between influencing others and controlling others. A leader can choose to INFLUENCE their followers or attempt to CONTROL them. Both work in the real world and your choice has consequences physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Your SIDECAR Team

“Some of us learn from our experiences and some of us never recover.”
                                                                                                                  –Anonymous

The problem

As chiropractors, I think we can agree that our greatest enjoyment follows the experience we have when we witness firsthand the difference we make in a patient’s life. This is one of those positive experiences. Yet the reality is taking care of more people exposes us to even more potentially frustrating experiences. Over the life span of your career, it can either expand you or drown you in a cortisol swamp.

A new patient cancels her appointment after her first adjustment because she felt sore afterwards. You can shrug it off and say to yourself, “She doesn’t care about her health” or that “She doesn’t get it” or you could call her and try to convince her to give you another chance… Yuck!

A better, more honest approach, is to process this moment by getting feedback from a skilled mentor. This will help you respond to this emotional disabler instead of reacting to it, so that you can tune into the next patient with a clear head and open heart.

The key to your success is NOT outside. Our profession, while noble, is plagued by dangerous half-truths and total nonsense when it comes to the advice we get about being successful in practice. From new patient marketing gimmicks to hard sale scare tactics we are being seduced by charismatic snake oil salesman. This is killing our chances to fix a broken health care system and your chance to build that dream practice.

So, stop looking for the short cuts and just say no to the predators circling the troubled waters. The truth is that your ability to build healthy relationships with a diverse population will help you tell the story of your practice, a story that will set your patients free, emotionally and physically. No scan, x-ray or brochure will impact another human being the way authentic communication can. That ability is sitting inside, ready to be tapped. We call it EQ.

What is EQ?

EQ stands for Emotional Quotient. It is an assessment of your emotional intelligence. EQ is the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power of emotions.

EQ is NOT a theoretical concept. It IS a physiological reality.

Emotions flood your brain and body with strong mind-altering drugs. They affect your decision making, the actions you take and the results you are getting. As chiropractors and business owners we know the pressure you face. We know how it feels when patients reject your care plan or drop out of care before they get the results they want. We have felt the anxiety that a lack of new patients brings. We know what it is like to have staff mentally quit, but never physically leave, or to be held hostage in your own office because you don’t know how to do the things they do.

We understand your frustration with insurance companies, your stress over taxes, student loans, potential litigation and mortgage payments. We get that a challenging and unforgiving economy leaves you no room for error.
That’s what our company, SIDECAR, is all about. It’s about hope, growth and establishing a real plan. And that’s why I am inviting you to take a tour of your mind, a look inside to see how emotionally prepared you are for going to the next level in practice.

Whether you are hitting it out of the park or you haven’t a clue where the park is, our assessment will give you the honest feedback you need.

There is no tenure and no formal security for Chiropractic Entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter if you have been in practice 18 months or 18 years. Length of service is not rewarded in the real world. Your chances for success in the next few years will be determined by your level of EQ. Your security rests solely upon your ability to shoulder challenges and to learn from them. The key to success is you!

EQ defines YOU!

Clearly the fast track to explosive growth in your practice is right in front of you. It’s not out there on a billboard, in a spinal screening or in a “not-working” meeting (aka networking).  It is bringing your “A-game” to the adjustment.  You have the power to take a stalled practice and kick it into a higher gear or take a growing practice and make it legendary.

Nowhere else in patient care does the mirror of reality show up so patently. The adjusting experience highlights your systems, staff training and your soft skill prowess.

While it is true that health and healing are processes that require time, planning and effort, the truth for the patient is that the moment on the adjusting table is all that matters. The patient is looking for a distinctive marker that will reinforce his belief that his decision to proceed with care was the right one. This marker can be a physical release, an emotional connection or an intellectual shift in perspective. Simple, focused attention produces these distinctive markers.

You have, through personal experience and study, arrived at some very profound conclusions concerning the nature of health, healing and dis-ease, yet most of your patients have reached other conclusions.  So you will need to be patient with them and provide tangible platforms to help them reach new, more useful conclusions.

You did not come to these conclusions in a vacuum of self study and reflection. Someone or some event influenced you and shifted your perspective. Look with a “beginners mind” and get back in touch with your “A-HA” moments. Strive to find new ways to demonstrate and explain to other beginners the logical reasons and experiences that helped you arrive at your conclusion.

Instead of doing paperwork, do people work:

1. Go through the files of your active patients. Research their physical history and get a clear understanding and appreciation of their motivations.
2. Look at the person in the patient file.
3. Who are they?
4. Why are they in your care?
5. What is your promise to that particular patient?
6. What are the chances you can help them?

Remember, hard work doesn’t pay off. It’s working hard on the right things that pay off.

 Dr. Frank Sovinsky, “The E-Myth Chiropractor”, written January 2010