Clinic burnout is a VERY common occurrence, whether you have a  busy clinic or a struggling clinic.

If you have a busy successful clinic, burnout can come from constantly having to go out to promote your office or almost being like a robot and repeating the same chiropractic message/script to your consults, ROFs and existing patients or from having to quickly bounce from room to room adjusting patients.

If you're just opening up a new clinic or you have a struggling clinic and you're burning the candle at both ends trying to make a go of your clinic and just trying to pay the bills.

Regardless of how you get to clinic burnout, the experience is the same...

• Dread knowing that Monday is tomorrow and you have to go to the clinic.
• Just don't want to get out of bed to face another day at the office.
• Don't want to spend another weekend doing another promotion.
• Don't have the energy and the focus to give what your patients need.
• Always tired during the work week, but have lots of energy on your days off.

We've all been there!

The great thing is... there are easy ways to re-energize and get back that excitement about practicing like you had on the last day of classes at your chiro college. And I'm going to tell you about it right now!

Here at the TOP 6 ways to get out of a slump...

1. The Pareto Principle: A.K.A. the 80-20 Rule - roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.  That is to say,  get rid of the patients that just whine and complain and bring down the energy in your office.  Do the promotions that bring in the best patients.  Don't waste your time on all those other promotions that only bring in a few, but  you have to spend HOURS getting those few. Of all the task that you have to do, only 20% of them matter.  So ONLY work on that 20% as those are the ones that will drive 80% of your business/clinic.
   
   
2. Write It Out: Often people become overwhelmed because they feel that they have so much to do and they just don't know where to start.  So they start tasks haphazardly and just spin their wheels and get no where because they are jumping back and forth from task to task trying to get everything done.   AND at the same time, busying themselves doing less important tasks and NOT the important ones that will truly benefit them and their clinic. But, if you write out your task in a list format, you will realize that you actually have less to do to achieve your goals and you'll know which tasks are the important ones.
   
   Here's what I do... on my wall (in my home office), using cue card, I have 3 columns.  The first column is the "To Do" column.  2nd column it's the "Doing" column.  3rd column - "Done" column. So I then write down each task on 1 card and put them in the "To Do" column and as I start a task, I move the card into the "Doing" column.  When I finish that task... I move the card into the "Done" column.
   
   You will be AMAZED how it removes your stress levels!  Because now you see what you actually have to do (and as  you move the cards to the "DONE" column you get a lot of satisfaction as you see your tasks getting completed) AND you realize that it's a lot less than you think you actually had to do.
   
   
3. Go On A Spontaneous Vacation: Right now, think of a place you want to go to (the Caribbean is really cheap this time of year), book it for 3-7 days from now (so that you give your patients the heads up), and then just take off!  Ya, you heard me... just jet!  I did this.  During a super stressful time in my life (and I had an insanely busy office), I took off for 3 weeks.  You might be thinking, "What are my patients going to think?!"  Well, when I got back after 3 weeks, NONE of my patients said anything and the clinic started back up as if I never left!  My advice... JUST DO IT!
   
   While I was on vacation, I not only came back super charged and ready to go back, but I also came back with amazing marketing and promotional ideas that built up my clinic that much more! And more importantly, my patients were feeling much better from my adjustments because I was able to focus more!
   
4. Change Up Your Clinic:  Paint the wall, get new chiropractic posters, new flowers, new furniture etc.  Don't have the money for that? That's fine.. then just rearrange your furniture, change the patient flow patterns in your office, change the music in your office to more pop or energetic music.  If you are already playing pop music, switch it up to jazz or ambient music.
   
   Instead of wearing jeans and a T-shirt or golf shirt in the office, wear dress pants and a dress shirt or vice versa.
   
   Or have some fun contest in your office.  Do some Give-Away to the patient that brings in the most referrals within the month, organize a food drive. do a Chiro Quiz Contest (i.e. make up a sheet of 10 questions about chiropractic that your patients have to answer and hand in on their next visit.  Then at the end of the month have a draw - person who's name is drawn must have answered the Qs correctly.  Winner get a gift certificate to a nice restaurant).
5. Go to a Chiropractic Seminar:  Although you may think that you're the only one suffering, believe me, YOU'RE NOT ALONE!  A great place to get motivated, learn new ideas, get the moral support you need, is from Chiro Seminars.  Not only is it a great escape from your office, but it sets your mind straight so that you can get back into the game.
   
   
   And My ALL Time FAVORITE... with LASTING Results...
   

   
   
6. Network With Other Chiros (WITH A TWIST!):  First of all get a Magic Jack (i.e. internet phone where you can call anywhere in North America (and some other countries) for free.
   
   Second: Find successful chiropractors in different states or provinces.  I did this by Googling different chiropractic websites. I had 2 main criteria that I used to gauged a successful practice...
1. Quality of their website - Was the site just slapped together with no thought just so that they had a website, or did they have a high quality site because they took pride in their clinic.
2. How did the office look - Did the office look professional, clean and modern or did it look like just a plain office with typical M.D. office chairs, plain walls, and just really no thought involved.

If the office met my criteria, I would call them up to talk to the doctor and tell him/her that I was forming a private group of just a few select docs where we can share marketing and promotional ideas, how to make our practice more fun, etc.

At first, I was met with hesitation because the chiros didn't know if I was their competition down the road.  So I told them that I am calling docs from completely different states so that there is no conflict of interest and we can openly share our insider secrets without having the office down the road using them. 

So how do you set your chiropractic clinic apart from your competition?

First of all, before I go on, I would like to apologize to all of our followers for the lack of recent posting!  The reason why for this delay is because Promodocs.com has become so busy with our chiropractic poster orders that it, quite frankly, took us by surprise and we found that we were understaffed.  As such, all efforts were focused on poster production and filling out our orders and getting them out on time (with a couple delays here and there).

None-the-less, we are now fully staffed and orders are going out on time!
(p.s. thanks for everyone's support!)

Back to the topic at hand...

As everyone is aware, sadly, there is a fair bit of infighting with chiropractors.  "We're straight chiropractors.  We're the true chiropractors because we stick to the gospel of D.D. and B.J"  or "We need to change the name of chiropractic because there is a division between chiros and we need to deferentiate!" or "We are Mixed chiropractors and we are better than the straights because we offer more to our patients than just adjusting" OHHHH SHUT UP! ...BLAH BLAH BLAH.

1. In-home examinations if you are in too much pain to come in for a consultation.
2. The only chiropractor that X trusts (eg. politician, sports celebrity, actor, sports team etc.)
3. The only clinic that provides X technology/treatment to the community of {your town}
4. The only clinic that  provide "Free Adjustment Fridays"
5. The only clinic that provides 24/7 emergency Chiropractic care.
6. Profiled in X (new report, paper/TV article) due to our effective treatment
7. etc.

What do you offer that is different?  Again, "Why would a patient come to my office?"

When you figure out what your Competitive Advantage is, word it in a way that is eye-catching to your potential patients and put in on all your marketing material.  Have all your staff memorize it.  Teach your front end to tell potential patients who are on the phone, email or in your waiting room.  Make it second nature like breathing.

So now your new consult has been brought down to your office for you to get their history and to perform your examination on them.

What do you do?  Well.. you have to build rapport.


In my office, I had pictures of me with different people in the media that I have done TV or Radio work with and I also had this big blown up photo of me when I was in Berlin, Germany and I was standing in front of these 3 armoured personal carriers joined together to make an arch and behind that was the wall.

Anyways, it was a really cool pic and it really sparked up a good conversation with the patients (as did the other pics that I had).  So it was a lot easier to start a conversation and instantly build rapport with my consults.

Also, if you have Thank You cards from patients, place them on your desk so that the inside message can be seen by your consults when they are sitting.