Are we really impacting the world with our chiropractic message? I guess we really cannot be sure. But one thing I am sure of, we cannot say we are by the number of people coming into our offices or the type of people coming in the offices. I recently surveyed some straight chiropractors to see if their offices were any different than mine. They were relatively the same in respect to the fact that about 50% of the new people coming into our offices have already been to a chiropractor before. So if you are seeing 500 new practice members every year, you are probably only introducing 250 people to chiropractic. (Although with the education system of most chiropractors, you, in reality, may be introducing the other 250 to chiropractic for the first time!) Why those 250 previous practice members are coming to you is a subject for an interesting discussion. More than likely they have worse than no understanding of chiropractic. They may be “practice jumpers,” those people who move from chiropractor to chiropractor, looking for something that chiropractic cannot give them. They are more than likely looking for a medical result. Despite their previous experience with chiropractic, which most of the time seems to be positive, they usually do not make good practice members.
Yet those I am really interested in are those who have never been to a chiropractor before. Of our hypothetical 250 people, if you subtract children and spouses who have been brought in by someone who may or may not have been to a chiropractor before, you are left with very few adults in the course of a year who are seeing a chiropractor for the first time. Even a busy practice may only be truly introducing 150 new people a year to chiropractic, people who have never been to a chiropractor before. That’s not very many, and it is not likely it will change the world. The problem is that with 500 new practice members each year, if even half of them are just being swapped with other chiropractors, you can make a good living. So we go along building our practices, being successful, believing we are doing our part to change the world. I am not belittling our efforts. What I am saying is, can we be doing more? If we did not count “rotating chiropractic practice members,” would we be embarrassed as to how few people are learning about and availing themselves of chiropractic care? What are we doing to reach the unreached? What are we doing to educate those people who have never been to a chiropractor, whose spouse has never been to a chiropractor, who’s best friend or neighbor has never been to a chiropractor, or why they may be neglecting to share with their friend or neighbor about the benefits of regular, lifetime chiropractic care?
There are tools, programs, and ideas out there to reach this unreached segment of the population with chiropractic. It should not be entirely up to us, but unfortunately we cannot always count on our practice members to go out and reach the world with our message. We have to do it. It takes time, effort and it will probably cost a few dollars for you to do it. Sure, it will build your practice and you probably will recoup your financial investment. But even if it does not, the fact that people need to and deserve to have an opportunity to learn about chiropractic so that they can avail themselves of it, is reason enough that all of us should be doing more to reach the millions who know nothing about chiropractic. Get out and educate them! V20n1