Tag Archive for: chiropractic

There’s an opportunity out there you don’t know about – and they don’t know about you 

Guess what percentage of the population has a favorable opinion of chiropractors.  

Seventy-five? Eighty? 

It’s more like 50 percent, according to a recent poll by the Gallup organization.  

Which may lead you to think, “50 percent doesn’t like us!” What a disaster! 

But that’s not what the poll said.  

The question was whether they agreed with this statement: Most chiropractors are trustworthy. 

Only 9 percent said they disagreed with the statement. That’s pretty good. 

Fifty-two percent said they agreed with the statement. That’s not terrible, though we’d like it be better. 

But think about this: Thirty-nine percent of the people polled said they didn’t know or were neutral on the question.  

Almost four out of ten.  

That’s a huge opportunity for chiropractors.  

They need to hear our story. How we reach these people? Marketing. Branding. Advertising.  

Yes. But what works? You can throw money at the opportunity and never move the needle.  

We’ve distilled the foundational principles of marketing in our book, “Chrome.”  

“Chrome” is a concise guide to the basics of achieving affluence with your chiropractic practice by building a shiny brand. At the core are the twin pillars of the right marketing and designing a memorable patient experience. 

Let’s go back to the poll for a moment. 

These are the people who’ve never been to a chiropractor. They have no opinion on trustworthiness. But many of them have an impression. They are frightened or distrustful of anything new, or just don’t have the information. This is where we can shine. 

But we know this. You don’t start with spending a bunch of money on advertising.  

Radio, TV, print, online – they all have their place at the end of the process. Not the beginning. 

As we discuss in Chrome and reinforce in SIDECAR’s training, there a prescribed order to marketing.  

It starts with operations. The systems and procedures in your practice must be tight. Your teams must understand how they fit into the whole process. What are the expectations for them? What does that look like in your practice?  

That lays the foundation for designing memorable patient experiences. When you deliver on that promise, it leads to more and better referrals from your happy and enthusiastic patients. Those steps, properly executed, create your shiny brand.  

Only then is it time to use traditional advertising. Then you’re adding fuel to the fire.  

Without that shiny brand, you’re just burning money.  

Marketing Services
/by

The story behind Chrome

The SIDECAR founders wrote Chrome a couple years ago to distill our principals on branding and marketing.

In reviewing the book, I had that flashback moment to the early days of my practice. It’s the experience I wrote about in the introduction. It’s always humbling and gratifying to rea

d it because it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come at SIDECAR and how fortunate I’ve been. 

At any rate, I wanted

 to share that experience with you from the introduction.  

Here you go: 

I wrote Chrome because I believe that your business can shine without advertising. Really shine. 

I know what you’re thinking: ‘That’s easy for you to say. You already have a successful practice.’ Trust me, it wasn

’t always that way. 

I can still remember the internal struggle I felt trying to convince myself to get out of the shower in the mornings. Faced with the challenge of piecing back together the mess I had made in my business and the struggles it placed on my personal life. 

I remember lying in bed at night and not sleeping, for days. The constant dialogue going on between my ears as I tried to find solutions to all the daily problems. 

I remember having an office full of billing staff; not making any money and being constantly barraged with problems we created. 

I remember thinking that the answer was an influx of new patients, and trying everything to accomplish that: doing spinal screenings, hosting dinners with the doctor, and pedaling every community event trying to spread my business. And while those new patients made me work harder – a lot harder – things didn’t get any better. 

I’ll never forget my wake-up call. 

I was confronted by the person I had abdicated my financial operations to with alarming news. He alerted me to the fact that we weren’t going to make payroll that week. I looked at him, a little bewildered, and told him that we would be ok, just let the line of credit take care of the short fall for the week. 

He told me the line of credit was maxed. 

My $200,000 line of credit was maxed out! 

After all the hard work – all the hours I had put into my business – I was $200,000 in the wrong direction. 

I realized at that moment that I had to change. Nothing was going to get better until I got better. That defining moment led to where we are today. 

The concepts are simple but that doesn’t mean the process is easy! The steps to build your brand and a world-class patient experience are simple, but the time and the hustle it takes to accomplish it isn’t easy! 

The steps to improve your communication skills with patients is simple, but the process of changing your behavior, leaving your agenda at the door, and connecting on an individual basis isn’t easy! 

But what I discovered is that doing it on your own is impossible. Chrome contains everything I’ve learned about branding, marketing, and advertising a chiropractic business. It’s the road map I followed to pay off my student loans, climb out of debt, impact my community, and enterprise my business to include several office locations. In short, it’s how I resurrected my chiropractic dream. 

I know it can do the same for you. 

 

Chrome

 

 

/by

Keep on Defending Your Castle

When we say control the controllables – it is important to stay Expanded!   Think of trying to unfurl a sail when are knots in the rope. It cannot be done! 

Use every area of your life to make sure you are defending your Castle in every way you can think of. Stay strong using the three H’s – Heart, Humility and Hustle. 

Financial:  Look for ways to protect yourself, your family and your business. Trim the fat. Use the Crisis Survival Kit. 

Family: Protect them and keep them safe. Help them manage THEIR fears. Communicate to them.  Ask them questions and most of all love them. 

Spiritual:  Create or enhance your rituals, praying, meditating, and pay attention to you — breathe. Look for positives in your life daily (there is always a silver lining). Have unrelenting faith! 

Social:  Stay connected through social media, share jokes, use facetime, what’s app, send videos, listen to music, sing your heart out and dance like no one is watching. (Because they aren’t). 

Physical: Get outside, work out, practice self-love, eat right, limit your sugar, smile and if all else fails — as Dr. Frank used to say – do naked jumping jacks. 

Intellectual:  Program your brain. Write three things you are grateful for every morning. Stop whining and blaming. Read something to reinforce a growth mindset.  Speak with like-minded people. OWN why what I do matters. Be mindful of your words! Adjust them accordingly (I want to vs. I have to). 

Career: Stay connected, study, increase your commitment level, train every day.  Stay creative together. Share ideas! CALL THE HOTLINE! 

Pray like it all depends on GOD! 

Work like it all depends on YOU! 

Your Sidecar Team. 

/by

Fill your sails with good wind

Set sail. 

There is nothing more beautiful than a sailboat on the open water.  As the wind catches the sail, the boat moves effortlessly across the water. As long as wind fills the sail, forward momentum continues.    

No wind, no sail, no progress. 

The boat also needs a sailor to maneuver the sail, catch the wind and head in the right direction. 

We can use the boat as a metaphor for our lives.  We need to fill our sails with wind and not get entangled with things that don’t create momentum.    

We need wind that includes people who make us better. It includes the books we read, the training we do, and a mindset that expands for more opportunities.    

Our sails get entangled by a contracted mindset, toxic relationships, bad attitudes, lack of action, and not accepting accountability for our decisions.    

We are the sailors of our own lives!   

Guide your boat toward the life we desire, one of  affluence filled with rich relationships, a reputation to be proud of, a vocation we love, a vision that ignites our days, and the resources to experience life on our terms.   

Set sail. 

/by

The Business Survival Kit 

Daily life has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic.  

At SIDECAR we’ve been gathering all the information we can to help chiropractors through this crisis.  

What I keep coming back to is this singular message: Control the controllables.  

I’m sure you’ve probably seen or heard that phrase in other communication from us. But that’s not enough. This is the time to not only make sure you get through the pandemic – and it will end – but also prepare to grow your business when the stress eases.  

We changed the focus of this month’s Fuel Tank to “Business Survival Kit: How to stay proactive during a crisis.” That session is Thursday at noon central. You can still sign up here.  

It’s also available in replay afterward. Watch for that link soon.  

Our guests on the webinar are Dr. Ray Foxworth, Bill Esteb and Dr. Shahana Alibhai.

Dr. Foxworth’s participation, and other efforts by CHUSA, was highlighted this week by Chiropractic Economics on their website, chiroeco.com. Read that here.

We’ve also created the Coronavirus Business Survival Kit for download. You can get that here.   

The kit includes: 

  • Ten activities you and your staff can do now to not only survive but prepare to grow. 
  • A two-week email campaign to stay connected to send to your patients.  
  • Images that match the emails to use on social media. 
  • A Power Point presentation you can use to educate patients or other groups.  

These are two resources we hope you’ll take advantage of in the near term. The SIDECAR crew is committed to serving you during difficult times as well as good.  

We will ride alongside you through coronavirus… and beyond. 

 

/by

Your billing boat may be leaking money

There’s an old saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” 

It’s more than a clever turn of a phrase. There are real world applications when it comes to the billing system in your chiropractic business.  

That’s one of the things we’ll be talking about during the next SIDECAR Fuel Tank at noon central time on Thursday, March 19. 

The session is called the “Slay the Dragons of Billing to Rescue Your Bottom Line.” Register now to save your spot in this informative – and potentially money saving – webinar.  

Going back to what we don’t know. That’s the rub isn’t it?  

The world of reimbursements grows more complex each year. Do you feel like you are keeping up? Or have you turned your financial future over to one staff member, charged with tracking all the rules and regulations? 

As well-meaning as that financial staffer may be, they may not be able to decipher insurance regulations and obligations either.  

Or, and isn’t this possible, your trusted employee also doesn’t know what they don’t know. 

In preparation for our discussion on March 19, we’ve prepared a one-pager: “Six questions to find Out if your billing system is leaking money.” Download it here. 

We hope that it helps you at least get an idea of what you don’t know and put you on a firmer footing when it comes to billing and, ultimately, your business.  

Then we’ll dive deeper in the Fuel Tank on March 19.  

Remember, even if you have a conflict and can’t make the live version, sign up anyway. That way you’ll get links to watch the replay when you’ve got more time. 

/by

Test before you hire – it’s worth it

Finding and hiring good people. 

How many times have you heard that? It’s one of the main pain points for chiropractors and business in general. Historically low unemployment – and changing career goals – have made it more difficult than ever to assemble a world-class team.  

You can’t use that as an excuse, however. You need that team to create the patient experience that will lead to referrals and patient retention.  

Not to mention the significant cost of hiring a new team member. 

Dr. Tony Alessandra

It’s one of the points we’ll cover in our Fuel Tank this month with Dr. Tony Alessandra, an expert in behavior assessment and communication.  The session is Feb. 20. Sign up here.

I was going through some of Dr. Tony’s materials this week and ran across a one-sheet he put together on hiring and the importance of assessments in the hiring process. You can download that sheet here.  

Here are a few statistics I thought were interesting. 

  • Seventy-five percent of all hiring is due to turnover.  
  • Average churn rates have increased by more than 14 percent in the last decade and it’s going up. 
  • Eighty percent of all Fortune 500 companies rely on selection assessments in their hiring process.  
  • The average cost of a bad hire for a salaried position is $7,000. It goes up as the level of the position rises. Regardless of the job, it’s going to cost a significant amount of money when you make a bad hiring decision.  

There’s a lot more information in Dr. Tony’s one-sheet. And you can learn all about it at noon central time on Thursday, Feb. 20.  

It’s free. Just sign up here.  

/by

Client Story: Mountain View Chiropractic

Two years ago I decided I needed to create my new practice. I wanted to create a new practice that was fun, systems based, stress free, sustainable in all markets, and patient oriented. One of the biggest weakness that I had in my prior practice was not having systems in place, and the biggest system that was not in place was our billing department. Our patients were voting with their feet and leaving because of billing issues. They were not telling us. Patients just didn’t show up anymore.

Like many chiropractors, our “Billing Lady” was a former C.A. that I trained to do our billing and post payments. She was in charge of our revenue cycle in the office. After all, what did I know about billing, coding, ICD 10, or E.H.R? Like most offices, when collections were up, I thought she was doing great! When collections were down, I would come to her and ask what was wrong. I would inevitably get a blank look back at me; as she was not equipped to answer that question!

Since hiring SIDECAR, that has all changed. From past experience with outside billing, I was not excited about the prospect of hiring an outside billing company. Prior companies would take a percentage of collections, so the harder I worked, the more I had to pay. It also seemed that they liked to work on the bigger accounts, collect the low hanging fruit and not be very detail oriented. SIDECAR is different, as they have a flat fee that is roughly the cost of a monthly employee, which allows me to have a budget in place.

SIDECAR’s team is very professional. All of their employees are certified, well-trained, true billing professionals. I can now say that I have a full-time billing team that never comes to me and asks for a day off, never needs maternity leave and I don’t have to manage.

There are so many intangibles about SIDECAR. Their I.T. component interfaces with my software vendor on my behalf. If something is not working with computers or my software I simply call them, they log in, trouble shoot the problem and fix the issue. Software problem? Hardware problem? With SIDECAR’s IT Team in play, I say “NO Problem.” SIDECAR has a full tool box that helps to train my team and to systematize my entire practice. Not only with billing but things such as how to schedule, phone etiquette, in office patient flow, and how to make me the best version of myself to be able to communicate to patients.

The best thing I can say about SIDECAR is that I don’t ever think of them. With their help and their systems in place, I can truly say I have not only a dream employee but my dream practice. I show up for 25 clinical hours per week and perform my sole purpose of adjusting people and “Saving Lives.” I leave every night from my practice knowing that my documentation is complete, the insurance is billed and my practice is working based on interlocking systems that SIDECAR has helped me develop. My practice is so stress free that I can’t imagine ever practicing without SIDECAR.

Josh Biberdorf, DC
Rapid City, SD

Learn more about Dr. Biberdorf and Mt. View Chiropractic
/by

Competence-Confidence-Conscientious

As a young boy, I watched my grandmother as she lay in a dark room in the middle of the day. I listened to her faint moans as she suffered with yet another piercing migraine. As I passed through her kitchen, I could see the bottles of medication lined up like soldiers ready for a war they would never win. A few years later pain hit closer to home. When I left for college my father was a proud, strong policeman, and in just two years, he had become a humbled combatant, losing the fight against rheumatoid arthritis.

How could we have all these advances in medicine, yet my family suffered with simple curable conditions? Their pain turned all of our lives inside out. I was frustrated and at times angered that nobody had a solution. Well meaning doctors could only prescribe pain relievers, not pain eliminators. These pills eventually created other conditions that led to more prescriptions and an early death for my father. So I began my search, and hundreds of books later, I realized that the disease is too weak to notice until it’s too strong to beat.

I was determined to feed this new belief. I was determined to take massive action and to become a Chiropractor. I wanted to give people a choice, chance and confidence. I shared words of encouragement, outlined logical strategies, and most importantly I gave them a place to begin.

It really doesn’t matter that our entire planet is in a health care crisis. Rising costs of medical care wipe out savings accounts and bury dreams every day. What matters to me is that people in your town need your perspective and you are the only one they may listen to.

Nothing is everything. No one person or profession has all the answers to what ails us. Yet many of the solutions are right in front of us if we can teach our people to ask the right questions. Pain can be debilitating, but failing to address its cause is devastating.

Your WHY can become a powerful personal message. It’s about you teaching people to take the lead in their own play. It’s about arming them with strategies that work in the real world. We live in a high-tech medical world with amazing breakthroughs, yet many of the life-wrenching symptoms patients may be suffering with defy high-tech solutions.

Dr. Frank Sovinsky
Co-Author of the E-Myth Chiropractor and Co-founder of SIDECAR

/by

There’s Just Not Enough Time!

Have you ever felt like there just wasn’t enough time in the day to accomplish everything you set out to do?

Everyone has the same amount of time. Barring any event that reduces or ends the amount of life someone experiences, time is constant.

Let’s do the math:

  • 24 hours per day
  • 168 hours per week
  • 8,760 hours per year

As long as you and I are both alive, we’ve got the same amount of time.

The Truth

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person spends three hours per day watching T.V. Three hours per day equates to 21 hours per week. This ultimately adds up to 1,095 hours per year!

12.5% of an entire year spent watching T.V.

You may be thinking, “That’s not me, I don’t watch that much T.V.!”

What about time spent on your cell phone? Social Media, Messaging, Internet usage… Most reports done show that the average person spends around four hours per day on their phone!

The point that I’m trying to make here is this: You have plenty of time to accomplish what you truly want to accomplish.

Television

The average person spends 12.5% of each year watching television.

Subtraction

If you are feeling pressed for time and constantly find yourself “running out”; re-examine exactly where you are allocating your time. The key to improving your efficiency and ultimately growing is through subtraction. Success is never about adding; it’s always about subtracting! Subtract anything that is not aligning you closer to your vision. Eliminate the wasteful screen time spent on TV or your cell phone.

You might be thinking, “I don’t waste time!” My response? Business does not equal productivity.

If you feel you are being efficient with your time but still don’t have enough, examine the tasks you are performing.  

A great principle that we teach at SIDECAR is the one-minute principle. This principle helps to identify exactly how much time you may be wasting in your day. Taking inventory of your time will help to expose growth areas.

Here’s some perspective: every great idea, product, event, or thing that has ever occurred on this Earth stemmed from a person who had the same amount of time that you do!

You have plenty of time. Start making the most of it.

Let’s Ride!

Dr. Nathan UnruhDr. Nathan Unruh, CXO SIDECAR

To find out more about the one-minute principle and how to apply it to your business give us a call at 1-877-727-2705.

/by