Sisyphus was the mythological Greek King of the city of Corinth. As the story goes, he displeased one of the gods and was forced to spend eternity rolling a large stone up a steep hill. The catch was, whenever he reached the top, the stone would roll down the hill and he would have to begin again.For many of us, building a practice is much the same. We struggle to get new people in the office. We ask for referrals almost to the point of being an annoyance…even to ourselves. We feel like we are begging people to send someone in and no one likes a beggar. We spend money on advertising and usually there is only a minimal return. Yet you feel you must do it because everyone else does. We do all sorts of things to get new people in, including lay lectures, meeting the public, buying F.A.C.E educational material (even though it is relatively inexpensive). Still many people don’t get the big idea and don’t stay after they feel better (or don’t feel better). Many become part of that great mass of humanity who come in only on an irregular basis. Others go off to college, move away and yes, even chiropractic practice members die! So we constantly need a stream of new people. Of course, there are exceptions. Some chiropractors are happy to see just a couple dozen people two or three days a week. Most of us though have resigned ourselves to the idea that we are going to have to push that practice rock up the hill everyday until we are ready to retire or at least cut back in our practice. We may be faced with the task of practice building for 30 to 40 years or more. Practicing chiropractic is easy and fun. Building a practice is tough work. If it were not, everyone would be doing it and there would be no need for practice consultants. Further, if just being a client would automatically do it, everyone who has ever utilized any practice consultant’s services would be successful and no one would go from consultant to consultant. In fact, I sometimes think the greatest services the practice-management consultant offer are to crack the whip and tell you to push that rock harder and to cheer you and tell you that you are getting close to the top. After a while you realize that the coaching (read encouraging), even if it gets you to the top, will have to start over when the rock rolls down again. I have never met anyone who really had a waiting list practice. Every chiropractor I know could always see more people. I have one of the largest practices around and I could see ten new practice members a day, every day for the next 10 years and still have room for more.
Without question, some of the problem is a lack in our ability to clearly communicate the real idea of chiropractic. That plays a role in the development of the revolving door practice. Another problem is the image of chiropractic that we as a profession have presented to the public as a quick, patch up, get-you-out-of pain therapy. Maybe the need for continual practice building is our punishment for angering the gods of truth. Another part of the problem is that human beings, by their very nature, seem to not take care of themselves until a crisis occurs. That may even be the greatest obstacle we have to overcome. Yet one thing is clear, until we overcome all of these problems we are going to have to keep pushing that rock up the hill.
Some versions of the Sisyphus story say that to get back at the gods’ punishment Sisyphus decided that he would derive pleasure from his work. He would not look at the end result of reaching the top, which he would never be able to do but he would take pleasure in the process and enjoy the work. Perhaps we need to view practice building in a different way. Perhaps we should stop viewing it as practice building and view it as educating the public. Let’s look at it as sharing an important, life-saving message with the people in our community. We should not think of our efforts as getting people into the office but as increasing people’s understanding. The results will be the same, people will come in and have their lives changed. However, there is joy and reward in sharing a vital message with people. It should not be viewed as something you need to do for your sake (or the practice) but as something you want to do because it changes lives and is rewarding in and of itself and because you have shared an important truth. We should stop focusing on the outcome (building the practice) and start focusing on the process, changing people’s thinking.
As a result, practice members and the public might have a different perception of what we are doing. That little change in our vision might cause our practice members to see our efforts not as a mercenary effort but as altruistic, that we want to inform and educate people. The tone of our “advertising” might change. We would sound less like salespeople and more like people trying to share an important message about life and health. I believe people will respond to that attitude in a positive manner, and that has to improve our image. It has to improve our attitude. We should resolve to “tell the story” for the rest of our careers, not to build or maintain a practice, but simply because the message is there and it has to be told. Who knows, it may have such an impact that one day we will not have to keep pushing the rock. I would imagine, though, that by that time we would ourselves have grasped the importance of what we are communicating to people. On that day, when you do your first lecture, not because you need new people; when you give out your first pamphlet with no thought of getting a practice member from it but merely for the purpose of educating someone; when you place an ad in the newspaper simply to increase the public’s understanding with no thought of reward, you will truly be able to identify with the King of Corinth with the funny name. V18n3