results - Dr. Kelley

A hinge is a small piece of metal that uses leverage and physics to move something much bigger than itself…a door. No, this blog isn’t about home or office repairs. This blog is about the huge impact minor changes can make in your practice.

Here’s a specific example: Years ago I worked in a high-end wellness-oriented chiropractic practice. Our ideal patients were those who were healthy and wanted to be healthier. We couldn’t understand why, given the office environment and energy, patients often returned to the pain conversation. Then we removed one phrase from our vocabulary. That phrase was “How’re you feeling today?”

The focus of our care was on restoring proper function to the body…not on chasing symptoms. However, by asking that one question, it reinforced for people that how their bodies felt was more important than how they functioned. (This directly contradicted one of the office’s main messages!) Of course, if someone had a serious issue or needed to talk about their discomfort we would…we just chose not to start the conversation that way.

Instead, we substituted the question “How’s your day today?” As a result, that one simple change helped remove patients from the headspace of “being sick” or somehow broken to that of a person working on restoring proper function and health. It took them from the role of the victim and propelled them into their rightful place as a partner in their own health.

While this story shows the positive power a small change can have, remember that it can go the other way too. Seemingly minor changes can lead to disaster. For example, conversion issue with one small number resulted in levy walls that weren’t deep enough. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 the levees couldn’t hold and caused more damage than the hurricane itself.

What little changes have you made that yielded huge results in your practice? Or, what changes could you make? Please share your stories and comments at Dr-Kelley.com as we build our community of successful healthcare professionals!

For more information on building community connections, I encourage you to read my new book Community Connections! Relationship Marketing for Healthcare Professionals. If you want more valuable information about how to Connect with YOUR Community, you can find FREE healthcare practice marketing content, PowerPoint Presentation Jumpstart Kits, workbooks, blog articles, and my FREE “Practice Marketing Planner” Now!

Can you believe we’re halfway through the year! It’s time for a mid-year goal check so we can see how far we’ve come and how far we have to go before the end of the year.

Review Your Goals

Earlier, we discussed setting goals . Because summer is slower for many practices, now is the ideal time to track your progress. Look at each goal. Why was it important? If you don’t have a good answer for that question, you aren’t likely to stick to those goals. Reaching a goal requires sacrifice, and if the goal isn’t compelling, you aren’t going to be motivated to work towards it.

A lot can happen in six months; you may have to make adjustments to both your goals and your plans to reach them. There’s nothing wrong with that, running a business is dynamic, and you have to be willing to change what isn’t working. What seemed urgent in January might not be a priority now.

Be careful that you aren’t doubling down on a goal that isn’t helping your business. It’s easy to fall victim to sunk cost fallacy when making business decisions. Car repairs are a typical example of the sunk cost fallacy. You spent money to put in a new transmission and then the brakes go out. The cost of the transmission and brakes together add up to more than the car is worth. The ideal decision would be to eat the cost of the transmission, it’s money already spent that you can’t get back, and buy a new car. But because you just spent all that money, you decide to spend money on new brakes too. Admit a mistake and don’t throw good money after bad.

Use a Real Measure

Hard numbers don’t lie, so make sure you look at them when you measure progress. Did your marketing campaign grow your patient numbers? Did the EMR system you implemented save you the time and money you thought it would? If the numbers aren’t adding up, you need to reassess your goals so you can “right the ship” before the end of the year.

Prioritize

Now that you’ve reviewed your goals, you need to spend your energy in the right place. Is there a goal on your list that stands out? There should be! Focus your attention on the big goals, the ones that will grow your business. That might mean enhancing your web presence, spending more time on community outreach programs, or improving the training methods for your staff.

No Zero Days

“No zero days” means that every day, you have to do something towards a goal, it can be a small thing, but you can’t let a day pass without doing something. Getting started is often the hardest part for many people. They’re fine once they get going, but getting going can be hard. That’s why implementing a “no zero days” policy is so helpful to eliminate that kind of procrastination.

You want to communicate more often with your patients by sending out a monthly newsletter, but it never seems to happen. From now on, you’ll do something to reach that goal every day. Sit down and decide on a subject for your next letter. Got the subject? Great, you can quit for today. But you’re already in front of your computer, and you already know what you want to write about, so you might as well write the opener.

Now that you have the opener, you might as well write the first paragraph. And so on until, voila! You’ve written the entire newsletter!

Accountability

Did you know that people who write down their goals and share them with others are much more likely to meet those goals? It’s true! A study found that more than 70% of people who wrote down their goals and gave weekly updates to a friend on their progress, met those goals, compared to just 35% of people who didn’t do the same.

Get yourself an accountability partner and let them give you the push you need.

Goals Not Traditions

If you find yourself making the same goals year after year, they’ve stopped being goals and become traditions. Use the mid-year goal check to cross those goals off your list once and for all. There’s nothing as motivating as a clean slate. That’s what you want to take into 2025, a clean slate, so you have a place to write down your new goals.

Small Hinges Swing Big Doors

Mid-Year Goal Check