New Practice Secrets

by William D. Esteb

As student doctors get closer and closer to graduation, focus on grades and technique slowly turn toward skills necessary to actually exchange chiropractic services with the paying public. With the light at the end of the tunnel now in sight, the disdain for practice management and new patient strategies is replaced by a keen interest in how to pay back school loans and make good on the promise to become a doctor.

It seems like a secret, but there are no secrets to success. In an attempt to demystify a seemingly difficult transition from college into practice, here are the deepest, darkest secrets to chiropractic success. Thousands have paid dearly for this information. Know the special handshake? Got the password? No? No problem. Here’s the truth as I see it.

You know enough about chiropractic.

It’s tempting to become afraid of what you don’t know. But by the time you graduate from here you will know enough about chiropractic to overwhelm virtually any patient or prospective patient that shows up in your life. You still may not be able to convince a relative or family member because, if it happens, takes years. Yes, there are some things you do not know, but it is not about chiropractic! It’s information freely available if you will ask.

Great grades are not an indicator of a successful practice.

The left-brain analytical skills that help you do well on tests will rarely serve you in the real world. Out here, we do not work in the realm of the absolute, rational, black and white. It is emotional, irrational and full of disorder and contradiction. Needs and wants get confused with shoulds and coulds. Dogmatic idealism makes late night arguments at the local off-campus greasy spoon interesting, but rarely plays in the volitional, idiosyncratic world of patients. Know the philosophy. Use it to guide your path. Just realize that most patients are not interested.

This is how the cliché got started that “A” students work for “C” students. Personality, charm, approachability, communication skills, authenticity and tableside manners are more attractive to patients than the ability to recite all 33 principles and detail the nerve transmission of the dorsal horn!

Your ability to communicate will dictate your success.

Like so many things, most students think communication is about using the right words to tell the chiropractic story in a persuasive way. And while the ability to do so is handy, more important is the ability to communicate. Which, contrary to popular belief is mostly about listening, not talking. It is about asking, not telling. It is about pulling out, not putting in.

Feeling disoriented yet? Great! Remember that patients have their own explanation about health, healing, germs, blood and drugs. Your subluxation model holds little sway unless you first help them see the folly of their mechanistic-socially-induced beliefs about health. And that means becoming a master at asking questions and listening so hard it makes your ears bleed.

You will make mistakes.

Virtually every field chiropractor you perceive as “successful,” on any basis you wish to judge success, will help you. If you ask. If you are too proud it will be your downfall. Ask and it will be given to you. The truly successful will share all their secrets because they see abundance, not scarcity.

Feel uncomfortable asking? No problem. (Being uncomfortable is a common feeling of the successful.) Want to remake chiropractic in your own image? Go for it. Want to cut a new path through the woods by yourself? Lead on! Just remember the objective is to make as many mistakes as possible, as quickly as possible—once. It is tragic how many chiropractors have three years of mistake-making experience that they have repeated for the last twenty years of their career. Make mistakes. Quickly. Just make them once!

New patients are everywhere.

There are literally millions of ways of getting new patients. They do not show up simply by putting up your rear lit “CHIROPRACTOR” sign above your freshly painted space at the local strip mall.

Instead, it will mean getting out of your office and encountering as many strangers as possible and having the courage and confidence to tell the truth. Most will reject your story. For others the seeds will germinate months, maybe years later. And a few will embrace the hope and confidence you project and begin care immediately. It is a numbers game. Try to conserve your efforts in an effort to ferret out only those open, accepting and ready for harvest and you will be frustrated. Tell your story! And then tell it again. If instead, glean the new patient “seeds” someone else has planted for too long and you will be attempting to circumvent the law of fair exchange. Sow, so you can reap—ideally before you actually open your practice.

Your license is merely an admission ticket.

Getting your license will be quite an accomplishment. And while I do not have one, I know from talking to thousands of chiropractors that it does not guarantee success. You need it to successfully practice, but it is merely the admission ticket into the center ring. With it you will be granted rights, privileges and responsibilities. Concentrate on giving, not getting. Focus on serving, not receiving. Dedicate your practice to patients and avoid the selfish posturing so common in the hallways at chiropractic conventions. Make chiropractic about patients, not you, chiropractic, your technique, third parties or being anti-medicine. Serve with abandonment, knowing that it is our highest calling.

Fear not.

Fear is not becoming of a chiropractor who knows the truth. Yet, many are in bondage to the fear of malpractice, bankruptcy, failure, success, approval, rejection, medical doctors and making a mistake. These self-indulgent luxuries distract you because you focus on yourself instead of patients. They germinate and take root from wanting to look good, instead of looking into how to spread the truth about chiropractic to those needlessly suffering.

Excerpted from
Connecting the Dots
Published in 2005
240 Pages
US $24.95

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