Whenever I want to enjoy a good laugh, I take a few moments to read some of the advertisements in those chiropractic newspapers that we receive. They all seem to promise that they have the one and only secret to building a practice. I recently read one for a seminar that promised 50 new patients the first week after attending. I saw another that claimed by ordering their material, you would have an unlimited supply of new patients who would have a total understanding of chiropractic philosophy -- before they walked in your door. Doctor, if you believe that there is any one “miraculous secret” to building your practice, I have a bridge that I would like to sell you. Isn’t it sad that in order to entice you to part with your money, they are willing to make such wild claims? Sadder still, there are many Doctors who are so desperate to find an answer, they believe those claims.

Well, keep your credit card in your wallet, because right now, for no charge, I am going to share with you the real secret of practice success. Lean close as you read this, and make sure that no one is looking over your shoulder. After all, we want to continue to keep this a secret. Are you ready? Here it is…

CONSISTENCY

Is that too simple for you? I know you were looking for me to wave my wand and give you the magic advertisement or office procedure that would, without any effort on your part, transform your practice into the healthy profitable business that you now only dream about. The problem is that there is no such advertisement or office procedure, at least not the way you might be hoping. You see the real secret is most often not the procedure, it’s the consistency with which you apply the procedure.

I used to play softball with an extremely talented team, but we only won about half of our games. The reason for this was that we had a tendency to try for home runs and, although we did hit some, we also hit many fly balls that were caught for outs. The teams that beat us did not swing for the fence, but instead would punch out base hits making fewer outs and, therefore, scoring more runs. In softball, as in Chiropractic, it’s doing the little things consistently that wins the day.

One of my lifelong goals has been to learn to play the banjo. When I first decided that I really wanted to play, I began to take lessons and would go once a week for instruction and assignments. I practiced a minimum of 30 minutes per day because I didn’t want to waste the money that I was paying for the lessons, and more importantly, I didn’t want to face my instructor having done nothing the previous week. I took the lessons for about a year before I found that I had become too busy to continue. During that first year, I became a fairly good banjo player. However, in the 10 years since, I have practiced a total of maybe 20 hours, and have actually lost much of the ability that I had. How did I learn to play? With consistent practice. Why am I now embarrassed to play in front of anyone? I stopped practicing.

Having a successful practice is like learning to play a musical instrument. You need to be consistent with the details. For example, it doesn’t make sense to panic and begin to market like crazy, only to stop when the marketing starts to work. Yet that is what so many Doctors do, which is why those practices tend to grow and shrink in predictable cycles. Instead you should develop a marketing plan that encompasses the entire year, and then follow that plan regardless of whether new patients are up or down.

I have two clients who are terrific examples of consistency, Dr. Bob and Dr. Carl. Dr. Bob started a new practice about 6 years ago. One of my first recommendations was for him to contact local medical doctors. Dr. Bob didn’t contact a few and then quit. He contacted a total of 5 per week for about 8 months, and now receives between 5 – 10 referrals per month from those medical doctors. Further, one of them has ended up practicing with Dr. Bob, thereby providing a steady flow of internal referrals.

Dr. Carl has been in practice for about 23 years. When I first began working with him I noticed that he really didn’t have an office recall system. I brought this to his attention and he told me that he always did his own recalls from home in the evening. I expressed some surprise, because I’d never known a Doctor who did his own recalls. He told me he found it only took him a few moments each evening, and he had more success getting patients to follow through with their care. Now, I’m not recommending that you do your own recalls, but what I am pointing out is that for 23 years Dr. Carl has followed the same consistent procedure, and his reward is a practice that collects over $800,000 per year, with an overhead of less than $270,000.

There are two steps required for you to become more consistent in your practice. The first is to know what procedures to follow. You may be able to learn this from several sources. The first place that I would look is in all of the dusty notes and tapes that you have acquired over the years. Often I find that there is not a shortage of good information, instead there is a shortage of implementation. If you can’t or won’t find the information in the material that you already have, then find a coach or a mentor. Much like my example of learning to play the banjo, sometimes we need someone to not only give us the information, but also someone to push us to use the information. After you have determined which procedures to plug in, the second step is to create the system that will force you to be consistent. For example, if you want to start making a first adjustment call to every new patient, have your staff put the new patients’ name and telephone number on an index card at the same time that the rest of the file is assembled. Then on the day of the first adjustment, have the staff person glue the card to your hand as you leave, making it extremely difficult for you to forget to make the call. (OK, perhaps not literally glue it to your hand, but at least put it in your hand.)

Don’t be the Doctor who is always looking for the home run or you’ll end up hitting too many fly balls. Instead be the Doctor who keeps plugging away with the consistent base hits and ultimately has the more successful practice. Follow the correct office procedures all of the time and not just when you come back from a seminar. Have a marketing program year round, rather then only thinking about it after you’ve had a low new patient month. If you want to have a great practice, you have to be consistent with good procedures every day until you retire.