COLUMN BUSINESS TALK How do you sleep at night? Reviewing our ethical business practices BY ANTHONY LOMBARDI W hen I was in chiro-practic school, I had one of my professors tell me that in re-al-world practice there would be the opportunity to make a lot of money, but the path we chose would determine our happiness. He said that his benchmark was gaug-ing how well he slept at night. He in-sisted that if we put the needs of the patients ahead of our own needs, then we would all sleep like babies. With that being said, there are two concepts that in my opinion, push the ethical envelope. MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING (MLM) For me, these companies are huge red flags whether they are legitimate or not. In many cases you have unli-censed, regular everyday people with minimal medical or nutritional train-ing who are dispensing advice and selling health care products to the general public. These companies tar-get chiropractors because we have years of education and training that gives us credibility to push the com-pany’s product. There are many DCs involved in MLM companies, and al-though they are not all are controver-sial, they traditionally come with a caveat. In general, MLM companies are focused on building a team rather than selling their product. Traditional MLM companies reflect pyramid schemes, where the company is driven in a bottom-up direction. The com-pany recruits people to buy and sell their product, but they highlight the incentive that if they recruit more people, then they earn dividends from the investment those people made into the MLM company. Then, they also earn dividends from the people they recruited (and so on and so forth). As this chain extends the goal becomes more of recruiting people and less about selling the product. Often MLM products are signifi-cantly overpriced. For instance, about 65 per cent of people will spend $10-$15 on glucosamine at big box stores. Others will buy a better product at specialty health food stores for $20-$30, but some MLM companies will sell their glucosamine product with unsubstantiated or little research be-hind their claims for over $40 per bottle. According to the journal Clin-ical Nutrition ESPEN (2018), good ANTHONY LOMBARDI, DC, is a private consultant to athletes in the NFL, CFL and NHL, and founder of the Hamilton Back Clinic, a multidisciplinary clinic. He teaches his fundamental EXSTORE Assessment System and practice building workshops to various health professionals. For more information, visit exstore.ca. 16 Canadian Chiropractor December 2018 MLM products are competitive with the common spending tendencies of the consumer landscape. This means that a product priced between $15-$20 would be acceptable to the con-sumer while conversely a product price over $40 would raise red flags. Ideally, solid MLM businesses should drive value in a top-down di-rection. A quality product is produced and the end consumer reaps the max-imum value from the transaction. A good example of this in a non-MLM company is Costco or Sam’s Club. Here consumers obtain a quality product at very competitive prices. The secondary ethical issue with MLM companies and chiropractors is that it can interfere with our ability to objectively take care of patients. Is it possible that the mission to sell prod-ucts or recruit more people to your sales team can interfere with your ca-pacity to take care of your patients? It’s a good question to reflect upon before engaging in an endeavour like www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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