EPISODE 459: Signal vs. Noise: How to Tune Out Distractions and Win in Business

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Mastery Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

459 Signal vs Nose

[00:00:00] Imagine you're driving through a storm rain, pounding the windshield wipers, going crazy, radio blaring warnings. Yet somehow you still spot that faint exit sign and gets you home safely. That's the difference between signal and noise and business. Most entrepreneurs are drowning in noise, but the ones who build empires, well, obviously we don't care about empires, but you know, build really good businesses.

They lock into the signal. And today we're gonna talk about how to exactly do that, the signal verse, the noise in your business. But before we do that, uh, do want to make mention that uh, we have a. Fun opportunity. If you're in Europe or if you're in the States and Canada, you wanna travel over to Europe.

Uh, but we do have quite a bit of a European audience, which has been pretty cool to dive into the statistics of that. And so if you are listening, uh, we're going to be in, um, London, June [00:01:00] 20th. So it's gonna be June 20th. We're gonna be in London for a patient experience masterclass. It's gonna be myself.

And Dr. Chris Chippendale, who is in the uk. And so we're gonna, uh, it's gonna be a one day event. It's gonna be in London. It's actually gonna be at the drafts London. Um, so drafts like D-R-A-U-G-H-T-S, that's how they spell it over in the uk. But it's uh, cool. Actually, uh, two friends of mine. Um, uh, started the drafts.

Uh, there's two in the London area. This one will be in the Stratford area of London, but it's a, it's a board game cafe. Really cool location and uh, we're gonna host it there. They've got a whole setup where you can host meetings and classroom style. We're going to probably limit this to 25 people. It's gonna be all day on the Saturday, June 20th, and the morning session will be with Dr.

Chris Chippendale on the Dr. Patient communication [00:02:00] experience, and then I'll be in the afternoon. Um, and that'll be service versus hospitality and marketing essentials for the patient. And this information will be, uh, you know, suited for any car, whether you're in the Europe or if you're in the States or Canada.

Um, gonna be suited for that. So don't worry about that. Um, that'll be from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM on June 20th. And you can just simply go to.

Bitly, BIT LY slash MCM UK 26. So that's Bitly B ly slash mcm UK 26, and we will put that in the show notes, so hopefully we will. See you there. Excited. Uh, there's an early bird right now, uh, before the end of March, so please sign up if you're gonna go. I really, uh, hope you sign up soon. We're trying to gauge.

How many people [00:03:00] we are gonna have there, but we're gonna probably cap it at 25 and we're getting some good feedback and we'll actually probably have a few people over from the states, from our mastermind group there as well. So, alright, um, not that long ago, what made me think about doing this particular podcast, solo episode of.

Signal versus noise was, I was listening to another podcast. I, I listened to so many podcasts. I, I forget which one it was, but they were interviewing, um, Mr. Wonderful from, and I can't even remember what his real name is, but he's from Shark Tank. And a simple question was, you know, what do you usually see amongst the successful entrepreneurs versus the ones that struggle?

And, uh, he mentioned that the successful ones do a really good job. Of focusing on the signal and not the noise. And he said, you know, um, your day should consist of spending 80% on signal and 20% or less on [00:04:00] the noise. And I think as chiropractors we struggle with that. And part of it's inherent to the fact that, you know, if I said to you, you gotta grow your practice.

And you gotta focus on the business side of that. Only doing things, uh, marketing and business growth related. One would consider the signal and everything else, the noise, but we have to spend so many hours on treating patients and so. I think one of the things I bring to the table is being able to apply business and marketing strategies, uh, to the real world of, of being a, a practicing chiropractor.

And so I would say, you know, obviously treating patients is the signal like you gotta be when you are treating patients, you have to be focusing on treating patients and providing the best care and experience you can because that will drive a ton of referrals. So a very. Often, uh, distracted or, [00:05:00] um, chiropractors that are not, uh, really present, um, with the patients struggle.

And, and, and then there's a silent killer of the, you know, you have the net promoter score. You can Google that. If you don't know what it is, but, um, you don't have a high net promoter score and so not enough people are screaming at the rooftop to refer to you, and that could be a problem. And so you might be focusing on the noise even during patient care.

So if you're doing patient care, that's the signal doing notes, you know, it probably is. It's, it's, uh. Feels like noise in our life and it, and it is in a lot of ways for sure, but we just have to do it. So it's part of it, part of getting paid to. So we'll put that in the signal. But then when you have downtime.

Uh, within your work week, not on Sunday or whatever, but you have downtime in business hours and you're not treating patients, you have to consider the, the short periods of time that you do have that [00:06:00] is not with family and not with patients, but still working is you gotta get really, really good at focusing on the signal.

'cause you might only have four to six hours a week. To work on business and marketing, right? And so you better be very strategic with the that time and not be filling it with noise, right? And so how they define signal would be meaningful, high leverage information that actually moves your business forward.

Core metrics, customer truth, long-term trends, your unique vision. You know, like really focusing on the things that are gonna move your business. Forward. And then noise is everything else that feels urgent, but isn't important, right? Just all that type of stuff that we know. And so we gotta to really figure out how much of your week is spent reacting to things that won't matter in a year.

And we gotta be able to define signal versus noise.[00:07:00]

And then now I'm gonna kind of marry. You know, a strategy around that and essentially defining your North Star, or I've mentioned it quite a bit over the last couple months, whether it's coaching, uh, clients or maybe on the podcast. Um, but we, we had, uh, the great game of business, come speak to our East West Mastermind meetup in New Orleans back at the end of October.

And, and it was all about the critical number and getting very clear on the critical number of a, of a business. And then for us as a, as a chiropractor. And so I think if you can get, and that's, we're really hitting this hard with our coaching clients and, and we've onboarded quite a few new ones beginning of the year.

And this is where we're really starting out with them a lot. Is getting hyper-focused on the critical number because then that is what I'm finding, at least in my practice. And in M-C-M-I-I, we did our critical number for health Fit [00:08:00] my practice, and we've done it for MCM and it's really helped, um, focus us on the signal and the, so there's four characteristics of the critical number.

Uh, and if you heard this, sorry, you hear it again, sometimes you need to hear it seven times before it really sinks in. But how the great game of business defines it is one is the critical number is a weakness or a vulnerability. Two, the critical number is measurable. Three, the critical number is a performance yardstick.

And four, the critical number is a rallying point for your team. And so we as a group and MCM, we, we kind of teased out what some probable critical numbers could be for a, a chiropractic practice. And then sometimes you have to dig deeper, right? So I'll list them out and I'll give you an example how sometimes you have to dig deeper.

New patients could definitely be a critical number. Um, it's not always, we've actually had a lot more of our clients [00:09:00] where it's not new patients. We have quite a bit of practices that they're getting a healthy amount of new patients. It's not a new patient problem, but there are definitely pro practices that need more new patients.

Another one is office visits. Now that's the one I'll, I'll tease out a little bit that. Office visits could be a critical number, but if we're not careful and this is what we've been working with our clients, that could just be a surface level thing. And as we dig deeper, we were like, you know what? Um, yeah, we need more office visits, but there's a reason why your clinic is lacking office visits.

And so I've had clinics where the new patient's numbers are great, but the office visit amount doesn't really match up, uh, with. The new patients they're getting and the historical years they've had behind their belt and their practice and the, uh, reactivations they, they should be getting right. So, uh, you know, a practice, if I gave you two practices that do 30 new patients a month, one's been in business for two years and one's been in business for 12 years, the [00:10:00] one that has 12 years is gonna have a lot more reactivations and potentially more visits because of that.

More maintenance patients, more vi, more reactivations. Than the practice that has only two years, as you can imagine. But, um, an office visit could be a critical number, but I, I could dive into it and say, you know what, it's not office visits. That's the problem. Yeah, it is. But deeper than that is your patient adherence is bad.

You're getting new patients and you're getting reactivations, but not enough of them are following through with what your treatment plan is. Right. And so that's one example. There could be five things causing lack of office visits, but I just want to give you an example. Of how it could be deeper rooted, right?

Uh, yeah. Revenue could definitely be a critical number, but a lot of times that's a, uh, we gotta dig deeper there, but sometimes it, it is the critical number and we, we need to tackle like three things to do it. Patient adherence could be a critical number. Office visit average, right? The dollar amount per visit average, right?

So if I took your last three years [00:11:00] of office visits divided by revenue, there's a number, 50 bucks, 75 bucks, $80. A lot of our clients, OVA is the problem, right? They got good new patients, they're doing good with patient adherence. Office visits are good, but they have a very low OVA due to maybe particular insurances or cash rates they're charging, things like that.

Another one could be. Percentages of new patients scheduled scheduling their treatment plan entirely. So how many of your new patients are scheduling their entire treatment plan out? That's a really good key indicator for a practice. Um, higher patient adherence when they do that. Lot of reasons for it.

I'm not gonna dive into it on this episode, but this is something we tackle a lot. Uh, reactivations could be a very, um, common. Critical number you might be doing good in, you know, new patients and offices are good. OVA is good. You're doing pretty good at patient adherence, but we're just not getting enough reactivation.

So we need to target maybe a [00:12:00] marketing strategy to get more reactivations. Uh, you know, another one could be packages sold, right? Um, if you sell reasonable packages, that can be a great indicator for a practice. And so those are some of the things that, you know, you gotta get really clear on. For your practice and then build a strategic plan around it.

And then that strategic plan becomes the signal and everything else, the noise. It doesn't mean you don't touch up on this or improve that a little bit and, and, and monitor that, but you're spending a lot of time tackling that one critical number or what your North Star is, right? And so you, you want to try to, once you've gotten clear on that.

You want to try to create some noise filters, right? Maybe a weekly review, right? What did I spend time on this week? That won't matter in six months? That's a good question to ask yourself. Maybe you need an information [00:13:00] diet. Um, curate your feeds, ruthlessly unfollow, mute, batch check, you know, the news or.

If you're listening to too many audio books and, you know, or podcasts, you keep listening to this one, hopefully. Uh, but sometimes you gotta, you know, I've done this every so often. I, I consume a lot of information. I just enjoy it so much, whether it's reading or listening to podcasts or, uh, whatever. I, I just try to digest as much.

And, and part of that is too, 'cause I try to digest a lot of information. And tease it out and then be able to present it to you, the audience. And, uh, this is an example. This episode's an example. This was something I. Uh, listen to on another podcast like, oh, you know what? This makes a lot of sense for, for, for all of you.

And so it's part of my job, but sometimes I go on an information diet and say, I just gotta go heads down. Um, you know, build some deep work habits. Um, this, one of the things, I love Cal Newport. I love a lot of his work, but he has the book called Deep Work. So like kind of [00:14:00] time block focus periods, turn off notifications.

And really do some heads down work that you need to, to grow your business, right? Um, another one is, uh, say no gracefully, right? Uh, practice scripts like that's interesting, but it doesn't fill our current or doesn't fit our current focus, right? And so if you get really clear on what your North Star is and your current focus, it becomes easier to say no to things that don't serve you.

Okay. And so, um, you know, I think Signal is quiet, persistent and boring. Boringly powerful, uh, noise is loud, urgent, and ultimately empty. Okay? Uh, and I wanna just challenge you this week, right this week, pick one source of noise in your business. And eliminate it, and then, uh, see how that feels, and then go to the next one.

Right? And so, you know, the, ultimately the, the quietest companies are often the strongest, right? Tune out the [00:15:00] noise, lock under your signal and what happens next? Watch what happens next in your practice. And if you need help, uh, figuring out what the signal is for your practice. That is something that as we at MCM have grown quite exponentially over the last few years with helping chiropractors, whether it's in our traditional coaching and marketing programs or our masterminds or online courses, is we're, we're getting even better to understand.

What our signal is as a company to help chiropractors out and what your signal is to help you have a direct path to achieve the results you need because it's different for everybody. And being able to tease that out when you're in it is sometimes hard. And, and us, uh, our coaches, me, uh, Kurt Kippenberger, who we got an episode coming out with him, Ashley Jordan.

Um, Brendan Donahue, who is, uh, wanna welcome him. He's one of our new associate coaches outta St. Louis. [00:16:00] And, uh, you know, our whole team, uh, Becky and our account coordinators, Emily and Anthony, uh, Darcy helps us on the SEO stuff. We got quite a team around here to help you out on what the signal is for your practice.