Celebrate the Holidays

Celebrate the Fourth and Get More New Patients

Everybody likes to be around people with lots of energy.  I'm not talking about spazzy hyper people, but rather the kind of passionate, inspirational people that make things happen.  Psychologists have shown that people are attracted to others with a higher vibration or energy level than their own.  People want to know what is so exciting that they are missing out on.

10 Ways To Make Your Event Interesting And Exciting

There are plenty of ways that you can make an event interesting and exciting. You will need to let your creativity flow and not hinder you. The way that you do this is simply by brainstorming. Every time that you come up with an idea you should write it down. At this point you don't want to judge the idea. Some of the worst ideas can turn into being a blessing. Even if your ideas seem silly and outrageous you should still write it down. At the brainstorming stage you don't judge your ideas. This process will help you come up with hundreds of ideas and then later narrowed to a few good ideas.

BE INTERESTING & ENTERTAINING

The first tip to coming up with making your event interesting and exciting has to deal with the point of the event. If you can, you should have famous entertainers to help out with the cause. This way you can bring people in with your celebrities, but then you are able to save some money on the interesting aspects of the event. You should always make sure that they are willing to donate their time so that you don't end up paying, making this tip one of the most interesting concepts of the event. You should also think about what kind of person you would like to help with the event, rather it be a singer, actor, or dancer.

FOOD

You should also think about the food. When it comes to the food you can do a lot for an event. You can make it exciting and interesting easily by adding some exotic foods. You may also want to blend your ability to offer some foods that are traditional for an event of this kind and some food that is wild and new.  When it comes to planning an event ahead of time, you will find that your ideas will be pouring in, however, it comes a time when you hit a wall. You don't know what to do or how to present an aspect of the event. This is when you have to do some things to generate the ideas

CELEBS

Another way you may be able to generate some interest is not just by having high celebrities, but some of the local celebrities as well. This way you can get the community to back your guest and to open them to the event with open arms. You will find that most of the local TV personalities are more than willing to offer some help in the name of charity. However, if you aren't a charity you may want to think about other things that don't cost a lot of money and you don't have to fuss over. Once of these things would be some interesting facts.

FUN FACTS

If you do a lot of research, you are able to entertain your audience with facts. You can celebrate your numbers and you will find it to be a rush. However, you should make sure that the facts are true. The last thing that you need is to read in the newspaper tomorrow about how you lied. You don't have to stretch the truth to have interesting facts.

ENTERTAINMENT

If education isn't the thing then entertainment is. If you would like to have some examples of entertainment you can go with dancers, singers, and actors. This way you can entertain your guests and be able to celebrate how well your wallet is doing. Basically if you are able to find some local school to help you out with the entertainment, you can cut your costs in half.

BE OUTRAGEOUS

Do something outrageous as well. Hire someone to set off fireworks or have sky divers. This will make your party unique and special.

LOOK ONLINE

You may also want to go online and help with your entertainment. You never know who you might be able to book to make the party out of this site. If you have your people call their people, this will work out great.   Another way to add some excitement is by adding some animals to the mix. The animals will make the party wild and crazy. Everyone will love this outrageous party.

MUSIC

You may also want to add some excitement with the music. Make the music go with the theme of the party and go wild.

MULTI-TASK

Finally, you may want to have several things going on at once. This way you can have everyone entertained to keep things interesting and entertaining.

We incorporate a giveaway at big events such as a Beach Cruiser Bike for the July 4th Festival and little things with our office info on it such as pens, flashlights, and keychains.  High energy and excitement is what is going to draw people in to your booth.  Make it an entertaining experience... entertaining but educational as well.

Contact your local chamber of commerce to find out the event schedule for the year.  Pick events that are within 5 miles of your office and jump in with both feet!  Get creative in the financing of the event.  Maybe a patient has a connection with some celebrity or party planning company?  You never know until you ask.

Be entertaining and energetic and you will be the firework that gets people inspired about chirorpactic!

Be well.

Simple Chiro Marketing Part 2

Part 2

So here is a continued list of even more sources of new patients in your community.

COMMUNITY SERVICE.

Nothing brings you to the attention of the people faster-or more favorably-than community service. Ask yourself how your enterprise can be a "good neighbor" to your community. If you're running a lawn care and gardening service, perhaps you can offer one season's services at no charge to a needy charitable organization or nursing home in your area. Hundreds of people will hear about your work in the process. Volunteer for various community causes. If appropriate, you can step in during community emergency, offering products and services to help an organization or individuals in need.

COUPONING.

Americans are very coupon-conscious. Test the market: at what level will coupons increase the volume of various product or service lines? When you get some tentative answers, start distributing coupons that offer a discount on your services. Distribute them to area newspapers, on store counters, in door-to-door- mail packets (which can often be quite inexpensive), at the public library, at laundromats, at any location where people congregate.  Groupon, BuyWithMe and Living Social are some of the newer online coupon sites that offer great deals to hundreds of thousands of people in their email lists at absolutely NO COST TO YOU!  Offering a unique product is key to get featured with these services.  We offer a copy of their X-rays on CD for free.  You could offer massage, yoga or acupuncture sessions to sweeten the deal.  Simply go to their respective websites to sign up and get the process going.  Do it NOW! Taking action is the key to success.  Don’t suffer from analysis paralysis.

BADGES AND NOVELTIES.

You can easily and inexpensively produce badges, bumper stickers, book covers, and other novelty items for distribution in your area. You can imprint your business name and the first names of the customers on many of these products at little cost and distribute them for free. Or you can tie your novelty program into a contest: once a month, you can offer a prize to any individual whose car happens to carry one of your bumper stickers or badges with peel-off coupons, redeemable at your place of business.  I know this sounds cheesy, but that is what gets people’s attention!  I hate to be the one to tell you but you are going to have to be a salesman to a certain extent if you want patients to know who you are.

CELEBRITY VISITS.

With a bit of persistence, you may be able to arrange to have a local media celebrity, public official, or entertainment personally-even a fictitious cartoon character or clown-visit your service. The celebrity can sign autographs, read stories to children, perform cooking demonstrations, or perform any one of a hundred other traffic-building activities.  One chiropractor got patients by renting an elephant and offering elephant rides at a local festival.  He went on to become the most successful chiropractor in that community.

CELEBRATE HOLIDAYS.

You'll probably want to celebrate major public holidays with special sales. But celebrate some of the offbeat holidays as well. Almost every business has a few little-known holidays. Ever hear of National Pickle Day, for instance? Or Cat Lovers Month? Once you find the "right" holiday, you can sponsor a special sale or special product arrange special media coverage of a holiday event.  You can even make up some holidays like Joke Day or anatomy day.  Melissa And Doug Human Anatomy Double-Sided Floor Puzzle is a fun way to involve patients in education about how their bodies are put together.

GO WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE.

Can you open sales information booths at community fairs and festivals? This promotional technique can work for gift retailers, craftspeople, and personal service firms. If you have the people and the time, can you handle regional fairs or even trade shows?  This is one of the areas that I specialize in at our office.  Look for an extensive explanation of how to do this in a future entry.

MAILING LISTS.

Once you begin establishing a committed clientele, gather their names and emails on a mailing list. Save the names from your screenings and telephone inquiries. Eventually, you'll be able to send educational follow up materials to the folks on your list and you'll be able to promise your products by email.  There are numerous companies that will do all this for a fee. I’ll cover the benefits of that in another entry.

SCAVENGER HUNTS.

If you want people to buy NOW, offer them an unbeatable deal. If they bring an old product-a small appliance, a book, whatever-to you, you'll give them a worthwhile discount on a comparable new item. Or stage a general purpose scavenger hunt. Customers who bring in three canned goods for your community's food bank will receive a discount on products purchased that day.

PARTIES.

Everyone loves a party. Why not celebrate the anniversary of your business or some special holiday by offering healthy snacks and beverages? If you're running a service business, perhaps you can offer an open house or obtain a small banquet room in your community. Besides refreshments, be sure the place is brightly decorated.

GREETING CARDS.

Do you send out greeting cards to major customers or clients? Holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries make nice greeting card occasions. Greeting cards create enormous goodwill and keep your name in front of people.  CashPractice, is a great company that offers an email drip campaign that acts as an auto responder to send out Birthday emails automatically to patients as well as educational materials on the dangers of subluxation and what new patients can expect during their care in a series of automatically generated emails.  I highly recommend them. Click the blue link above and enter the referral code JDDC50 to get $50 off your signup fee! We have been working with them for years and their service has helped us to reach 800+ patient visits a week.

SEMINARS.

In this information hungry age, people love to receive advice, especially about their personal needs and hobbies. If you sell health foods or run fitness classes, perhaps you can offer "wellness" seminars during lunchtime to your area's business community. If you're an interior decorator, perhaps you can offer one-hour decorating workshops to any group of ten people who will gather in someone's home. If you're running a printing business, perhaps you can offer tours and layout seminars at your plant.

Chiropractors are often told to do health talks in their offices but many don't.  Not only are these crucial for your patients to get a better understanding of what it is that you are doing but it also helps you get experience speaking in front of a group.

Epson PowerLite 8350 1080p 3LCD Projector V11H373120 

Epson EX5210 Portable Multimedia Projector - Projectors 

Epson EX5210 XGA 3LCD Projector V11H429120 

The list above are excellent projectors that I have tried in the past.  Their prices range from $400-$1400 so it just depends on what you are looking to spend.  There are many online courses as well to help you learn how to perfect your powerpoint presentations.  Our office is a little different than some in that we cover a wide range of topics from AIDS to Mens Health to Vegetable Juicing but we ALWAYS bring every presentation back to the vital importance of having a nervous system free of subluxations.  

If you're not pleased with your promotional efforts today or if you simply must increase your exposure among customers and prospects-it's probably time to increase your publicity efforts.

By all means, advertise in the media if you can or must. But don't neglect your greatest promotional asset-your mind. Ponder the products, services, and events you can offer the community and devise a creative promotional strategy around them. You'll have to invest a bit of time and energy in the project, but the payoff will be worth it. You'll save hundreds-or even thousands-of advertising dollars and, better yet, you'll travel a well-worn shortcut to profit.

The secret is to Take Action!  Don’t just stay in a fearful state.  Look the reality of your situation in the eye and Take Steps to correct it. You will learn that Simple Chiro Marketing is simple...but not easy.  It’s your business, handle it!

Don't Believe Guaranteed Success Claims

SIMPLE CHIRO MARKETING

Promotion and advertising can be a heavy expense, especially for a new business that wants to make itself known in a community. There is no shortage of marketing companies and products that will “guarantee success” if you just sign up for their service or product.  I have fallen prey to such programs and they cost me dearly. My first year out of chiropractic school, I had no specific business plan, no excess cash, and a room I was renting from a doc that was over a million dollars in debt! I knew he was not the person to learn the ropes of how to financially succeed as a chiropractor but I had to start working somewhere.  He was a great guy but I didn’t want to end up in the financial situation that he was experiencing. 

Here is a list of purchases I made (via several credit cards) 

to “guarantee success”:

1.     Swiss balls for rehab

2.     Mats for stretches

3.     Cervical pillows to use as giveaways for people who signed up for the “platinum plan”

4.     A new flat screen TV (OK that was a splurge!)

5.     A set of golf tees and divot keys ( I was golf injury certified)

6.     Plaques on the tee boxes of an area golf course with a logo, tag-line and contact info

7.     One on One coaching for over $1000/mo (I really thought this would make my success a given)

8.     Brochures and pamphlets discussing golf injuries and chiropractic

9.     Chamber of Commerce Membership

10. ToastMasters international membership at Callaway golf (I even got voted President of the group!)

11.  Business Networking International (BNI) for even more networking

12.  Marketing software with email drip campaigns that set up autoresponders for patients (this would have been great if I knew how to get patients to send them to)


The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success - New Products for Classification.Claiming Your Self Esteem By Ball,  

I am a huge “Self-Improvement” junkie.  All the books I had read recommended finding someone that was successful in the same industry as me and do what they did.  My biggest expense was my one on one coaching that I started during my last trimester of Chiropractic School.  He was a great coach and has even gone on to work with some of the biggest Practice Management companies out there.  I even ran into him at a seminar recently and discovered he is doing his own coaching again with a focus on the family and what everyone involved in a chiropractic student’s life had to expect in the future from wife, kids to parents.

So why didn’t it work for me?  

Plain and simple…

Focus and Self-awareness  

Success at anything in life is greatly determined by a person's ability to focus on a goal with so much intensity that time literally stands still.  Everyday distractions, the latest popular TV show or sports event come along but they do not sway the focused individual.  When you get tunnel vision on the finish line, the obstacles blur in your peripheral vision.

Patient’s don’t “buy” chiropractic, they buy the doctor. 

“So how do you make them “buy” you?  Very good question.  People go through life and are constantly told that they are “too passive” or “to aggressive” or “a people person”.  These comments we all get throughout our lives are hints as to what people perceive us to be regardless of what we think we are.  Once again, I’ll use myself as an example.

I played professional football for over twelve years in a plethora of different leagues.  My coaches always told me, even during college, that I was “too nice” and that nobody could stop me when I got mad.  I heard this so often that I would expect it whenever I went to another team and coaching staff.  The key for me was to realize that being “nice” is an asset as long as it is not perceived as a weakness.  This could be interpreted as a lack of confidence by a patient which would make them doubt my recommendations.  That is why the coaching I received did not work very well.  It was more of a “do what I say or you’re going to die” hard sell type of approach that was completely against my nature. 

How does that effect you?  I use this example to impress upon you the need to do some real self analysis.  Are you outgoing or more introspective? Are you strong willed or more of a “go with the flow” type?  The answers to these questions will help determine the type of chiropractor you should be and maybe even what techniques you should study.

Back to Marketing

So how do you get patients when you are a brand new solo practitioner?  First of all, let me assure you that depending on friends and family is more often than not a MISTAKE.  Well meaning relatives easily agree to be your first patients but when a financial transaction is involved, they suddenly become less agreeable.  Following are some examples of how to “think outside the box” to make your office stand out.

There are many ways. A pet breeder in a large city was struggling for several years-until he came up with a novel idea. He started giving away customized "birth certificates" for the pets he sold. Almost immediately, his sales rose more than 10 percent. Often people refer to this as a Unique Selling Proposition or USP.

The owner of a new home cleaning service was trying to attract clients. She couldn't afford much advertising, so she began offering "home cleaning seminars" to civic groups. After two months of seminars, she was swamped with inquiries and clients. As a chiropractor, get over your fear of public speaking and go to some community centers, libraries and anywhere people will listen, and educate people on the benefits of chiropractic care.  Ensure you have a compelling third party testimonial (even if it’s your own story) and have a strong, emotional call to action at the closing.  I will cover more on strong closings and presentations in another entry. 

Promotion often makes the crucial difference between business success and failure. Customers or clients must know about a business before they'll buy and they must have a reason to buy.

If you are trying to promote your business now, you can move in one of two directions: 1) You can take the conventional route to promotion and mount an elaborate media campaign, spending a considerable amount of money (I think I’ve shown that isn’t the best way)or 2) You can let your creative juices flow and mount a low-cost promotion effort, using a potpourri of attention-getting gimmicks to bring your message to the buying local community.

If money is tight, however, or you're not sure you can amortize the heavy cost of a media campaign over a period of time, the following is a assortment of low-cost techniques you can try. Not all may be appropriate for your chiropractic business, and certainly it would be costly to try them all. But you're sure to find some ideas that will work for you.  Let these examples get you thinking outside the box.  Write down any idea that comes to your head as you read these regardless of how silly they may seem.  You never know when the golden nuggets will appear.

GIVEAWAYS.

People love to receive "free" items, especially items they can use to gain knowledge or improve their lives. You can base an entire promotional campaign on this desire. If you're running a furniture repair business, for instance, you could give away a furniture repair brochure, free furniture planning guides, or color swatches. Once you begin giving away authoritative information customers will begin to perceive you as an expert in your field.

NEWS CREATION.

Want to get names and news from your business in the local newspaper? It may be easier that you think. If you don't have any news to report to the local media, create some. Maybe you've taken on a new associate. Or maybe you're selling an unusual product line. Or maybe you've opened a free advice center for the community. Or maybe you've received an award from a civic or professional group. Local Pennysavers and weekly ads are often quite interested in business news of this sort and can help you attract the attention of thousands of people.

EVENTS.

You may be able to attract the attention of the media or a crowd by staging a special promotional event. If you run fitness classes, for instance, you could stage a celebrity instructor day. If you're promoting a new real estate business, you can offer tours of a model home in the area. Dr. Robert Martines in Santa Clarita, CA holds an annual 5K Charity run to stop subluxations.  Talk about community education! If you're selling children's products and it's springtime, you can offer lunch with the Easter bunny. Get the idea?

CHARITY TIE-INS.

Are you launching a new product? Trying to increase visibility among a particular segment of your community? Offer your product to one or more local charities as a raffle prize or for use at a fund raising event. You'll receive lots of exposure among people who buy tickets or attend the event. Offer a complimentary New Patient Package with Xrays or Massage for the silent auction of these charities.  It costs you almost nothing and gets your name out there in affluent circles.

CONTESTS.

Offer a desirable or unique item-or even several items-as contest prizes. First, find a contest theme that ties into your business. A caterer might offer a quiche-eating contest. A photographer might offer a young model contest. A mail order craft firm might offer an "Early American" handicrafts contest. Invite contest submissions and offer prizes to the winners. Do contests attract attention? You bet. All it takes is a few signs, a small press announcement or two, and the word will spread throughout the community grapevine.

None of this information will be of any benefit to you if you don’t Take Action!  Stop waffling, analyzing the information, trying to decide and DO SOMETHING.  You are only beginning to see how Simple Chiro Marketing can be.