Have you seen patient visits decline over the past 90 days? If you’re like many business owners, you’re feeling the pinch as consumers pull back and tighten up.
With job losses at all time highs, and no sign of anything happening in Washington having any effect on the economy, are you worried about your practice?
I’m going to let you in on a conversation I had earlier in the day about building a chiropractic practice in rough economic waters.
I have a belief about life that says that no matter what the issue, everything has two sides. There’s the positive side, and then there is the negative side.
At times, one or the other will demand more attention, but at all times, both sides are active.
Right now, it’s evident that economic bad news is the dominant story. Yet, there are many bright spots too.
In fact, right now, if you look, you can indeed find businesses that are growing.
Take Amazon.com for instance. They grew and had record sales over the holiday season, and they continue to see growth now.
Internet Retailer magazine today reported that the top 500 Internet retailers, including Amazon.com, posted an average 15.16% GAIN in sales in 2008 over 2007.
What does that mean for your practice?
Here’s my take on the issue. There are many things you could be doing right now to encourage your existing patients to come back for an office visit. The challenge for many Doctors is that they seem to be frozen as they get wrapped up in all the economic turmoil.
But, is there a positive side to all of this? I believe there is and I also believe you should be using it to BUILD your practice right now.
Here’s what I would do. First, I’d make a list of all the reasons why a patient can benefit from an office visit as they are going through
these rough times.
Think about how they may be feeling. Maybe they are feeling additional financial stress, fear, and maybe that’s having an impact on their health and well-being.
Think about all the dozens of things you can do for that patient to help them deal with the stress and fear and help assure they remain
healthy in dealing with it all.
You might write them a letter and explain that you understand that they may be feeling additional stress and that skipping getting preventative chiropractic adjustments is simply not something they should be doing right now.
I’d go on to explain to them how their body deals with stress and what that additional stress load can end up causing in terms of new health issues if it’s not managed now.
In a very friendly and non-threatening way, encourage your patients to put themselves first, to take the time to manage their health, and to make the small investment now to avoid much larger medical expenses later when things get worse.
This is a great time to let your patients know you care. They are hurting, they are worried, they are scared. As a leader, it’s your role to step up to the plate right now and lead them on the right path.
I truly believe that we will get past these rough times and the people who will ultimately lead us out of this mess are people like you and I.
We’re the true leaders in our society, and although we get little credit for our work, we know who we are, and that’s more than enough for most of us.
The people we love need us to stand tall and stand strong and help guide the way to recovery.
We can’t sit back and wait and hope it all just goes away on its own and everybody makes it through without harm.
Reach out to your patients right now. Let them know that you care and that you have the skills, the tools, and the desire to help them
make it through.
Your patients are indeed counting on you.
Be Outstanding
Robert Imbriale
‘The Motivational Marketer’