Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor • April 2018 • Business Talk

The longer I practice, the harder it is to give business practice advice because what works for one person doesn’t work for another. Additionally, very few people will discard their old failing ways in exchange for what you recommend for improvement. So, it is about time that I administer some tough love and tell you the truth about why chiropractors struggle in practice.

Let’s be frank – practices are businesses. And, chiropractic businesses that fail usually do so for one or all of these reasons:

Some contend that if you complete chiropractic college, then you shouldn’t need to improve yourself because that’s what you pay chiropractic colleges to do. If you follow that logic then everyone would be a chiropractic business superstar – that is clearly not the case.

However, if you aspire to achieve better clinical results, be prepared to learn from those who are doing it better than you. Through mentoring you can learn to attain outstanding clinical results yourself. This will help solve problem No. 1.

Think about how you present your product. If you subscribe to the philosophy – visit one, assessment; visit two, report of findings; visit three, first treatment – then do not be surprised if your patients start a mass exodus from your practice. In an internet- based world, patients are extremely well informed and they will find a chiropractor who meets their needs and wows them on the first visit.

With respect to problem No. 2, if you have personal issues, family conflict, or any type of extraneous stressor, no practice building course will help you. You need to seek counseling to help solve your issues or accept the situation you’re in. If you don’t, your business will never reach its potential. Back in 2012, I interviewed the author of Book Yourself Solid, Michael Port. Port stressed the importance of recognizing that in most cases, a perceived business problem is a personal issue in disguise.

Problem No. 3 is the toughest to overcome. If you are an introvert, a boring conversationalist who has problems answering questions about your product, or if you struggle with self-promoting your practice, then your battleship is sunk. The older we get, our ability to change our personalities becomes more impossible due to the decrease in the neural plasticity in our brains.

There are four basic business personality types based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: dominant, expressive, relational, introverted.

Based on this description of business personalities, a chiropractic business practice would be best suited for an expressive personality and least suited for an introvert. Why don’t chiropractic schools factor this information into the admissions process to reduce the number of candidates least likely to succeed in business practice?

In 2014, University of Guelph researcher Dr. Debora Powell identified a list of key personality traits that can predict a medical school student’s success during the clerkship year, where students directly interact with patients. These are: social confidence, achievement-focused, and tolerance.

The study demonstrated that grades and MCAT scores had weak relations to clinical performance.

Powell, also a psychology professor at the university, said the findings might mean medical schools should begin implementing personality testing for admissions. Powell reported that any kind of additional tools schools can use to improve selection of who’s going to help future patients should be considered.

Another study from the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2009 concluded that clinicians who were “open and extroverted” would be best doctors for their patients. Since chiropractors are clinicians and business people, would chiropractic schools think about doing this? Would they consider discouraging introverted personality candidates from entering their college? Or are they more concerned about their financial bottom-line and less concerned with the future success of their students?

My point is, the factors for business failure lie in your intrinsic genetic makeup, your personal lives, and your clinical outcomes. Chiropractic is a communication-based profession. This means in order to be successful we need to generate referrals from the patients we see on a regular basis. To do that we must be personable, clinically impressive, and adaptable to whatever life throws our way.

DR. ANTHONY LOMBARDI is consultant to athletes in the NFL, CFL and NHL, and founder of the Hamilton Back Clinic in Hamilton, Ont. He teaches his fundamental EXSTORE Assessment System and conducts practice-building workshops to health professionals. Visit exstore.ca for information.