EPISODE 483: Student Business Show Episode 7

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.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. In this episode, we play the recording of our latest episode seven of the Student Business Show. Uh, if you're not a student, you still will learn a lot from these episodes, but it is geared towards certain things that I feel like, you know, students aren't learning.

And, uh, frankly, if the students aren't learning, if you're somewhat in, uh, the early phase of your DC career, there's a chance that you didn't either. And so we're- uh, we do this show once a month. We put it on YouTube. You can check out the actual videos on YouTube on Modern- at Modern Chiropractic Mastery, and you can check out the Student Business Shows.

This is episode seven. We have a segment, uh, with Dr. Mark King on the clinical side, and then I answer some questions on the, uh, business and marketing and communications and, and career development side of it. And so we, uh, put this occasionally as a podcast episode, not too often, but we do, uh, every so [00:01:00] often, and that is what we will be doing today.

Um, if you are a student and you're looking to, um, potentially keep on learning more about business, uh, email me, kevin@modern-jockey.com, and I wanna send you something, a little gift from me. Uh, so email me, kevin@modern-jockey.com. Would love to help you continue, uh, to, um, learn the business side, right? Ear-early on.

It's... You can't learn it soon enough. I will be hosting another free student workshop here in Boca Raton where our headquarters is, and that'll be in November, so keep a lookout on that. I will- I'll send you that info if you email me, kevin@modern-jockey.com. All right, without further ado, this is a Student Business Show, episode seven

Welcome to the MCM Student Business Show hosted by Dr. Kevin Christie and Dr. Gage Winkles, with a special clinical segment by Dr. Mark King. [00:02:00] The show for chiropractic students and recent graduates designed to help you become a thriving chiropractor

All right, let's get to our first question from the Student Business Show. I'm gonna read that to you. I got this submitted. This will be on the marketing side, and we'll do a little screen share. A little different format today on our Student Business Show, but, uh, we're gonna do some screen shares, so I wanted to do it this way.

Um, the first one here is, "I am joining a busy practice. What is one way you would recommend I contribute to the marketing?" And so let me go into a screen share. We have a tool called the Referral Directory that I really think is great. You know, just imagine we got a busy, uh, practice that we're joining and the, the other, say, the owner doctor or the other doctors are, are just really busy, and they're in that season of their life where they're busy with patients, busy with running a business, busy with family.

One of the things I would recommend is you come in with the w- with the, with the leadership mentality and, and how you can help. And we put together something [00:03:00] here for Referral Directory, whether, again, whether it's this circumstance where you're joining a busy practice or it's your own practice, I love this tool.

Helps you just think about, uh, leveraging some of the contacts you have in your patient, right? So if the other doctors or yourself have a patient come in, and you're doing your history consultation, and there's a, a trainer or a massage therapist or a doctor or a golf pro, anybody that they're working with on their health and performance that you could communicate with on what you're dealing-- what they're dealing with is gonna be really good care, but then it's also gonna be you being able to connect with other people.

So for example, you know, you got the golfer coming in, has some shoulder issues, working with a golf pro, wants to be playing golf. You could say, "Hey John, do you mind if I reach out to your golf pro? Let them know what I found, maybe some things that we can work on, but not the, uh, the full swing right now, and I'd love to communicate that with him."

And he's gonna love that level of care. You're gonna, you know, it's gonna be, [00:04:00] um, a, a, a really unique, um, thing that a doctor would do for their patient, and I think it's really a great experience for that patient. A, it's gonna help you clinically. It's gonna help them get better, so that way you're not, like, working on them, and they're going back to their golf pro, and they're messing it up.

And so that patient says yes. You tell the front desk, "Hey, can you make sure to get, um, John's golf pro when he checks out?" You get the information. Within a day or two, you call that golf pro, have a conversation around, uh, your patient and what's going on there, and then at the end of that, you say, "You know, I love working with, uh, like-minded people in the performance and health, uh, world here.

Is there any time I could stop by and introduce myself?" Right? So then you get that meeting set with that golf pro. You go and have a conversation with that golf pro. Learn about what their, some of their philosophies of teaching the swing is, and you have normal dialogue around that and what you do and how you treat golf injuries and assess golf injuries.

And again, I'm using golf as an example, but you could apply this to all kinds of [00:05:00] other things, tennis pro, pickleball, running coach, you name it, right? A lot of ones, a lot out there, definitely doctors, um, personal trainers, things like that. And so now you've met with that golf pro and you have a contact, and you've now done two things.

You've had a really good level of care for that patient and a lot of communication around that, uh, injury and what they wanna do with golf, and you've met a golf pro. And if you cultivate that relationship really well, uh, that can be, uh, very, very fruitful, uh, for you.

Our next question is gonna be, um, from Dr. Mark King

Okay, we got a clinical question that was asked. Let me read that to you and we'll get your answer. Uh, what age range did you feel confident in your clinical skillset, right? Like, and, and kind of how you got there, but what was it about age-wise, where you were, some of the things you helped you get to that point?

Okay. So I have thought about this a lot over the [00:06:00] years because you brought this up to me once a long time ago. And, um, I, I think I have a kind of a weird answer. So when I graduated, I was around 27, 28 years old, and I was very confident at that point coming out of school because I hadn't gotten my, kind of my brains beat in by not every single patient got better when I started.

And I, so, um, as I went along there for a while, they weren't getting... Not everyone got better like I thought they would. C- coming out of school, they kind of taught you that everyone improved and everyone got better, and they don't. So then your confidence wanes a little bit. And then, so that was age, say, 27, 28, in that range.

And then probably I'm guessing, and may have given different answers in the past, but I'm guessing around age 40 I really started getting my footing on feeling more and more confident about what I was doing. A lot of what you learn at the beginning is just managing a case. Mm-hmm. Uh, you may be a very good diagnostician.

I thought I was. Wasn't al- it turns out I w- uh, I wasn't always so perfect. And [00:07:00] but I... One of the big things I learned was how to manage a case and how to put people on a care plan so they would actually get better and they would refer other people and, and build, help build my practice because they got helped instead of treating them once or twice or three times and they don't get better, and then they don't refer, and then they'll never come back.

So then as I got older, I got more and more confident. I feel like I'm at my greatest, uh, skill set now. I read an interesting book, actually, uh, I, I believe I got this recommendation from you, uh, Dr. Christie, was Arthur Brooks wrote the book From Strength to Strength. Mm. He talks about different kind of intelligence, and I'm obviously at the crystallized intelligence stage.

When you're 25 or 35, you're in the fluid intelligence stage. So I have a lot of, uh, lot of, uh, battle scars, if you will, in my background where I've seen a lot of these cases. So I, I, I've seen a lot of X, Y, and Z, and so I can build on that and I know what to expect. So that's really helped me, uh, be more [00:08:00] confident, uh, with what I do.

And, uh, the... so when I go into a, a case with a patient, I tell them what I really think, as everyone should, and then, and I feel confident I'm gonna be able to help them, or I know where to refer them, generally speaking, and get them help other- otherwise. Yeah, I wanted to ask that question 'cause I, I feel like a lot of chiropractors feel like it's n- may never get better.

Uh, or like you said, they have that dip where early on they had that false confidence, and then it's like, "Oh, wow, maybe I'm not as good as I, I am," and, and then they can't see the forest through the trees. So it's good to hear from someone that's been through that and it's like, yeah, you know, you'll, you'll regain that confidence.

It doesn't happen overnight, and it takes a lot of, uh, experience. Yes. So I just... I was working full time, obviously, uh, working hard building a big practice. I took lots of classes. I read lots of books. I had some great mentors, and I just kept learning, kept learning, kept learning, and then I would try to apply what I learned, [00:09:00] see how it went.

And, and build on it from there Perfect. And, uh, when, when is a, a next MPI seminar where a chiropractor could, uh, uh, continue to improve clinically? Because that's a big part of it as well, is you gotta keep improving, uh, clinically. So what does MPI have coming up? Well, first of June, first weekend in June, we have the MPI disc class, and then toward the end of June, I'll be in St.

Louis doing an upper integration class. And then we slow down a little bit in July and August. We have a few classes. Uh, and then we pick it back up again, uh, in the fall. And then our motionpalpation.org website have, has lots of, um, information on there. And one other thing I wanted to add about this learning is- Yep

you really have to be able to, y- you know, you kind of have to enjoy the grind. A- a- and I do. I like trying to help people. I like trying to figure these things out, and it really helps if you just enjoy the grind and you're okay with, um, you know, h- uh, how that's gonna go day to day. I always had this [00:10:00] mission that I wanted to change the way the United States looked at healthcare and disease care, and obviously I, I have not succeeded yet, but I keep trying, and it gives me a mission and a, and a North Star to keep trying to improve on that.

Yeah. You're, you're like the, when I was a kid watching dog races in South Florida, they would chase the rabbit. Uh, you're, you're chasing that rabbit. Yes, I'm still chasing the rabbit. Keep chasing, brother. Well, thanks for your, your time and your wisdom and your crystallizing intell- intelligence today.

Thank you, doctor. Take care.

Dr. Kevin Christie: All right, now moving on to our, uh, third question. This is gonna be around communication. So let me read the question I got here. Um, it's actually, this one wasn't a question. This was a topic that I was actually going over with a couple associate doctors recently, and it's the, the patient communication triangle, and essentially, um, how to make sure we have optimal patient adherence.

One of the biggest struggles of young DCs is [00:11:00] having the confidence around, um, the, the patient and, uh, really having conviction around that. So I want to share two things that I went over.

All right. I wrote about this in my book, Doing It Right: Modern Chiropractic Marketing, and I had a coach some years back who had shared this concept with me here, and it was just simply what type of chiropractor are you, okay? 'Cause it's all gonna come around communication. We're gonna talk about this and then the, the communication triangle.

But I wanna really wanna focus on the doctor, you, uh, first. And so, um, in this upper left qu- quadrant we have bold and uncertain. This is disorganized, loud, uncertain, bad experience, loss of trust. Kind of a bull in a China shop, right? Um, we don't wanna be there. Um, then down in the bottom left we have timid and uncertain.

So this is timid, uncertain, stuck, no trust develops, ineffective, doctor's scared of own [00:12:00] treatment plan, and it's a bad patient experience. We get a lot of young DCs are in this timid and uncertain. Now, there's obviously realities to that, but let's, let's, let's break that down in a minute. Then the bottom right we have knowledgeable and timid.

I would say a lot of young DCs are this. A lot of you are very knowledgeable, but you're timid, and that leads to a timid, but you're smart and skilled, you're just unsure of your influence. It's a second-rate experience, reluctant to lead that patient and your team, and patient will stop coming in, coming in when, uh, no longer getting results.

They're not gonna trust the process if they feel like you're timid about what their, um, what their, the reality of them getting better is, right? And then ideally we wanna be bold and knowledgeable. We wanna be bold, smart. We have, we wanna have an organized agenda, clarity of path. It's gonna be a first-rate experience, and the doctor provides [00:13:00] leadership.

I feel like if I were to sum up bold and knowledgeable- And one word, it would be conviction. You're gonna have conviction around what you're recommending the patient, and I highly recommend you working towards that. The more you do get better clinically, the more experience you get, the more you learn, the more you practice your communication, the more you, um, have confidence in speaking to someone and looking them in the eye and, and all that, uh, you will become more bold and knowledgeable, and so you'll continue to work towards that.

The other part of this, what we have is the patient adherence triangle, is that now we just talked about the doctor needs to communicate really good with the patient, right? So that was what we just went over, and you need to be bold and knowledgeable, and you really need to communicate with the patient well, okay?

The second thing you need to do is you make... You need to make sure you communicate to the front desk what the treatment fre-frequency and duration is for that patient. It's up to you to make sure that front desk is, um, an advocate for what you're recommending, [00:14:00] right? Too many times a doctor says something to the patient, front desk doesn't know, patient goes and checks out, and there's a miscommunication there, and, and, and the patient can either sense it or they're just, um, it's just a bad experience.

And then the patients do fall off there or don't get the recommended care on there that they need. So you need to make sure you communicate to the front desk well, and then you and the team in general needs to make sure the front desk communicates to the patient really well on what the treatment expectations are.

So with the communication side of things, make sure you're communicating real well with the patient, make sure you're communicating well with the front desk, and make sure the front desk is communicating really well with the patient. And that will improve the patient experience and ultimately the patient adherence and ultimately better patient outcomes, okay?

All right. All right, last question we've got is career development. I am going to search for a clinic to work [00:15:00] for. Uh, what should I be considering from the clinical aspect of joining a practice? So I wanna just ta- talk on this for a minute. You know, historically, if, you know, MCM and us, we, we follow more of the evidence-informed crowd of chiropractic.

We know there's another kind of side of the profession, maybe vitalistic or philosophical, however you wanna label it. Uh, that would be, like, something a lot of people know, is, like, if you're more on the evidence-informed, you probably don't wanna work for a philosophical clinic or vice versa, right? If you're more on the philosophy side, you probably don't wanna work for an evidence-based or evidence-informed clinic, and that's kinda almost obvious at this point, but it still happens.

People get desperate for jobs, and that's a big issue, is you just... You, you gotta make sure that your clinical philosophy or your clinical, um, uh, you know, desires are congruent with that practice. And I would say the other thing that I'm seeing more and more of within the evidence-informed crowd is we've [00:16:00] got clinics that are mismatches even within the evidence-informed, and what's happening is I'm seeing some clinics might be, uh, very rehab-heavy and not as much focused on the hands-on stuff, and they hire a hands-on chiropractor who doesn't really know much or care much to do with the rehab, or vice versa, right?

I see, uh... 'Cause a lot of times what the, the practices that are hiring younger DCs are a lot of times chiropractors that are already in their 40s and 50s, like, like I am, and, and our clinics tend to be, uh, more, uh, hands-on, right? Like palpation adjustment, say soft tissue with some rehab. And I see sometimes clinics like ours or doctors like us might end up hiring someone that's very rehab-focused, like all through school, all through...

or, or previous. They're just really rehab-heavy, but not necessarily as skilled or desiring the skill [00:17:00] of palpation and adjusting or soft tissue work. And so there's a mismatch when a hands-on heavy clinic hires a rehab heavy associate, and vice versa. So make sure the congruency is there. Um, otherwise, it gets very tricky for all parties involved and, uh, can be very frustrating.

So that's our show for today. Hope that's helpful, and submit your questions, kevin@moderndeskjockey.com.