Contrary to what you may have been told in chiropractic college, hanging out your shingle is not all it takes to get new patients and start your practice. All of you who have been in practice for longer than a month, know that new patients are the life blood of your practice. Until everyone knows and understands what it is that you do and about the many benefits of chiropractic care, not all of your acute patients will still be in your practice as maintenance patients this time next year.
We need a steady supply of good new patients to maintain and grow our practices. The things is, that practicing up here in the NE (Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont & New Hampshire) is a different game that requires a different game plan, compared to practicing in the south, the central US or the west.
I know of what I speak, because as NorthEast Director of AMC, I have not only observed what works up here, but in the last nine years, I have personally coached over 200 practices, from Florida to Hawaii, and from Wisconsin to Texas. At last count, I believe I have had AMC Family members as coaching clients from all but 1 or 2 states.
What does it take up here to get new patients? As many of you have found, the conventional market approaches never did work that well in the past, and are quickly not working at all. Back in the good old days, you could put an ad in the newspaper and depend on getting more than a few calls. Not any more.
I will sum up what I and AMC have identified as crucial to attracting new patients up here. First, you need to get out of your office and meet the public. And no, I am NOT talking about going around handing out your cards and telling people to come see you.
The key up north is to develop a “one on one” personalized connection with your prospects, in a very scientific and effective way.
AMC has developed very up to date ways of accomplishing that, which includes outside talks, screenings, websites and blogs. You may have already tried some or all of these, or seen your colleagues doing them, but there is a very specific way to go about them in order to make them effective in getting new patients into your office. My follow up articles will get into more detail on each of these.
You contrasted your area with the south. What works differently /better/ not as good down here in Georgia?
Hi Dr. Marshall,
The short answer to that question is pretty much everything I write about for “up north” will work just as well “down south.” It’s just that not eveything works the same everywhere. You can never go wrong getting out of your office to meet potential patients on their turf.