All right, maybe you don’t want to admit it but none of us really like having new people walk into our office. When we’re struggling to build a practice, we realize that we need new people, so we want them. We may even advertise to get them and ask practice members to refer them to us but when it comes down to it, we really aren’t anxious for them. Why is that? I think there are a number of reasons. Let’s face it, they’re time consuming. If you are in a rhythm of adjusting, “in the zone” as they say, it definitely disrupts that rhythm to stop and process a new person. You can schedule them for specific times and that helps, however it will also reduce the number of new people you’re able see. If you really want new people, why would you set up barriers, like special times in which they must come? We also know that despite the time and effort we put into a new practice member, a certain percentage, perhaps a high percentage are not going to get the big idea. It has to be discouraging when you know that half or more of all the new people you see are not going to follow through with your recommendations (i.e., regular lifetime care).
Medical doctors don’t always need to see new patients. They can stop accepting them at a certain point. We never seem to reach that point unless we are semi-retiring. It just doesn’t seem fair that we constantly need to see new people and they don’t. It means that the people who are coming in the office are not understanding what we tell them. Every new member is a sad reminder of that fact. It’s either because we have not been clear which reflects negatively on us, or even worse, they understand what we said but don’t accept it. That reflects negatively on them. If that is the case, it is not too pleasant to think that many or most of the people coming in your office are stupid. Who wants to deal with stupid people? The regular, lifetime practice members are intelligent and enjoyable to see on an ongoing basis compared with new people. That brings us to another problem. Often new people come to the office in pain or with some kind of medical complaint. Our regular people are happy healthy and feeling good for the most part. No one likes taking care of hurting people, not compared with regular maintenance-type people. When all is said and done, most of us are going to have to see new people for as long as we are in practice. So you can either grudgingly resign yourself to that fact, or you can make it a positive thing.
Here are some suggestions:
Set a goal for the number of new people you want to see in a week, a month and a year. That way you have a mindset of wanting/needing to see new people to reach your goals.
Have a budget that includes money set aside for acquiring new people. If you’re spending hard-earned money to get them, you’ll likely be more anxious for new people to come in.
View them as people who know nothing about chiropractic and need to hear your message of life and health, people who are going to live less of a life and die sooner if they do not understand about chiropractic. You can view them as such because they are!
Realize that new people aren’t just to build your practice or increase you income. They are part of the unreached multitudes in your community who need to learn about chiropractic. We’re not just building practices. We’re conveying to the world, a message that is a matter of life and death. That should be enough to motivate us to see dozens and dozens of new people every week. Every time you see a new person and explain chiropractic to them, you are to some small degree changing the consciousness of your community at least as it relates to chiropractic. That is no small thing.
Turning Inactives into Actives
I’m amazed at how few chiropractors use reactivation cards. Somehow we seem to think that if they didn’t get it on the first go round, they’ll never get it. That simply is not true. Some of our best practice members are people who went through the active/inactive cycle a number of times before they became good, regular lifetime practice members. It’s easy to get away from good habits like getting adjusted regularly. I think for some people they don’t think they are welcome back if they don’t come regularly, especially if your practice is geared toward regular lifetime people. (Perhaps, for some of you, those people are not welcome back in your office but that’s a topic for another discussion). In our office we want people back. We want one more opportunity to get the big idea across to them.
We use a lot of recall postcards. If a practice member has not been in for four weeks or more, we send them a postcard. It takes time. It costs a few pennies (actually only 42.5 pennies for the card and stamp). I’m of the opinion though that anything sent to a practice member’s home is worth it. If it helps educate them, get them back in the office or serves to remind them to refer family and friends to your office, it’s worth the expense. Our postcards do just that. The Foundation has some of the most reasonably priced postcards on the market, and in my opinion some of the best. Commit yourself to sending out cards each week first to all the people you haven’t seen recently, people who have missed their regular care, and then to at least a certain number of the many who have been sitting around collecting dust in your back files for a long time. I think you will be pleasantly surprised how many people come back in and how many of those people also refer someone to you.v2