And why that sentence stops you from achieving your dreams!
A Tale Of 2 Associates
I kinda stumbled across the “it’s different here” which can also show up in the form of the “it doesn’t work” or “people here are different” or the “it’s different in my city” disease when I ran multiple associate based practices.
Ultimately… it’s all a “it not me, its them/it” disease!
There couldn’t be a more perfect scenario to illustrate the point than when 2 docs … from the same school, with the same degree, similar ages, same sex, given the same training within my business, same scripts and even practicing in the same practice would show at times, dramatically different levels of success in practice.
In one particular example, an associate I worked with was adjusting around 180-200 visits a week. By most people’s definition of success he was doing well for himself. It would absolutely amaze me how “brazenly” a particular associate practicing in the same practice would say things like, “the scripts don’t work” or “patients from facebook don’t convert” or “people in this area have no money to pay for care”.
You name it, he had a “it just doesn’t work” sob story.
Sometimes the meetings would happen in a small semi-open plan adjustment pod… with a mere 10mm piece of glass separating him from the doc that was pulling in a six figure income per year… Less than a meter away. Same people, same scripts, same benches, same CA, same “facebook patients” etc.
What amazed me even more is that he was so busy looking for reasons that “it doesn’t work” he quite literally became FLAT OUT BLIND to the fact that he was literally watching it work… in front of his eyes… centimeters away.
Here is what I’ve learnt…
EVERYTHING WORKS (if executed correctly)
And
NOTHING WORKS (if executed incorrectly)
Forgive me if i’m pretty frank with you… but boy does some Bullsh*t get spoken at some conferences, facebook groups and communities.
The truth is… IT’S ALL TRUE… and IT’S ALL BS .
Just think how outrageously dense some of the following sentences are…
“facebook adverts don’t work”
OR
“screenings dont work”
Or
“Emailing your patients doesn’t work”
Or
“Talks don’t work anymore”…
Or
“Print newsletters dont work”
Or
“The scripts don’t work”
Anyone with half a brain cell, can without much thought realize that those are outrageous statements… said by fools. They may be well meaning, kind hearted fools… but a fool nonetheless.
Here’s why…
Saying “X,Y or Z doesn’t work” is like saying…
“The adjustment doesn’t work”
Now let’s be clear… Most reading this have a conviction that “the adjustment just works”… but also have a balanced view that “it can work better” if we apply ourselves better.
Whether that be… philosophically, technically or mechanically through practice via technique seminars or simply just trial and error.
Not only that, we don’t walk out of the conference, adjust one upper cervical and COMPLAIN THAT IT DOESN’T WORK…. When there isn’t an IMMEDIATE see cataclysmic change.
We understand things like “healing takes time” etc and “frequency matters”.
We would simply never dream of saying “the adjustment just doesn’t work”.
You get me!
Of course it all works!
Of course Facebook works… how is it possible for it to “not work”
Facebook is simply a form of “media”. Nothing more… nothing less. You tell it to send a certain “message”… Of your choice… To a certain “market” that you can target in that media .That’s it… So for “that purpose” it’s INSANELY POWERFUL .
Just Think how insanely amazing it is that you can simply “hit” thousands of eyeballs, within walking distance of your practice with testimonials and miracle stories and results your patients are getting, for at times pennies.
Just that and nothing else can and does make it an insanely powerful tool to be ignored at your peril!
“Of course screenings work”…
You may not want to do them… but they damn sure work!
“Of course emails work” and my goodness they work…
“Of course “talks and dinner with a doc” still work… and while there are certainly things that have changed post covid, of course the strategy of getting people in a room, didn’t magically stop working.
And of course…
ALL OF THEM HAVE NOT WORKED… is just not that simple as they “do or don’t”…
There are nuances and that’s an important part of the story…
EVERYTHING WORKS… but perhaps “YOU” don’t know how to make “IT WORK”. (yet)
Ask not “if it works” but rather “how it works”
I typically find that the “it doesn’t work disease” can have 2 origins
- I Don’t Know How To Make It Work!
I was once taught that one of the hardest things for anyone to say is “please help me”. I think there is alot of truth to it.
But I will also add that once you have been taught “the way” or “the recipe ” there is still A LOT to learn through trial and error.
I recently watched a brilliant series on the life and success of Shaquel O’neal. He attributes a lot of his success to his mom and dad. One saying that was repeated multiple times in the documentary was a phrase he learnt from his mom .
“Before you succeed, you must first learn to fail”
It’s interesting that that is mentioned by Shaq as a key part of his success since from the outside it would appear that a kid that went pro at 19 and is today nearly a Billionaire has “never” failed.
I think that what you should take out of it is this…
A cooking analogy
“Even if you have the recipe , your still probably going to have to f**k it up a couple times before you nail it”
They say you should never cook a new recipe for the first time when entertaining guests for this very reason. Even though you have “the recipe” most mess it up the first time.
And furthermore… even if 2 cooks have the exact same recipe, more often than not , their results differ.
So… get a recipe, but then, test, observe redirect, test observe redirect… Over and over.
I think this is why they say Bruce Lee said: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”.
- I DON’T WANT TO MAKE IT WORK or (I just don’t want to do it)
Sometimes it’s easier to say “something doesn’t work” rather than go through the trials and tribulations of making it work.
Screenings are a great example
TRUE STORY…
I had just started building multiple offices and I remember a colleague and I talking about marketing. This was just prior to social media strategies really taking off.
I remember looking at the results of our most recent screenings and looking at the colleague and saying the following sentence “those damn screening just work don’t they”
By just work, I was referring to the fact that NEVER had I ever recalled a single event where we didnt get new patient sign ups. NEVER. That’s a pretty good hit rate if you ask me.
But when sharing this to any room I can literally feel the eyes roll and hearts sink. You see in truth … it’s not that it doesn’t work that deters practice owners from implementing this strategy, its that they just don’t really want to do it so it’s much easier to say … it doesn’t work … rather than admit either that they simply don’t know how to make it work or that they simply can’t muster up the motivation to do it.
BTW… there is nothing wrong with… “I don’t want to do it”… but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it just means you need to find a way to make it work without you!
Story continued…
I often say that the first 5 years of running successful practices was built off the back of screenings and in those 5 years I probably attended 10 events in person myself. That’s it! I chose to build a team to do them…
So I leave you with the following thought…
If it worked in the past… it almost certainly STILL WORKS!
And if others are making it work… it’s certainly not the “thing”.
SO what to do if you just feel like it’s not working…
Time, faith and determination.
And lastly look inward.
I always brag about me being the most unoriginal business man in the world. Nothing I do is revolutionary, not in most cases “new”. I’m just exceptional and not thinking too much and testing and doing the “boring stuff” pretty well.
If I’ve said the following sentence within my business once ive said it 100 times to a team member… STOP INNOVATING ie thingoin you have to come up with the answer… JUST MODEL!
I just don’t get it. I don’t get the obsession with “coming up with a good idea” when there are literally people succeeding around you everywhere.
Even within the consulting world… I often tell my group that they will learn more from the room than me.
I literally teach the EXACT same strategy to 100 docs and some kill it… and some don’t.
EXACT SAME… but there are nuances. So get your head under the bonnet and simply observe and test the daylights out of that thing till you make it succeed.
Don’t be a toe dipper.
DIVE IN
