This past Friday I had my first ever opportunity to speak to the CBP club students at Life University in Marietta, GA. It has been a few years since I have been back on campus and I was happy to see all of the changes. From the huge cafeteria to the new apartments and day care I could not believe what I saw. The parking deck! Man we could have used that when I was a student. When I was a student we had to park in Roswell and walk to class up hill both ways. ;)
When I left campus 10 years ago the school was in crisis. Accreditation just got pulled and I stuck out of there like Indiana Jones reaching under the rock door and grabbing my hat before it came slamming down.
When I got to campus I was graciously greeted by the CBP club president, Ryan Stamp. He recently took over the reigns from the former president Rachel Stockwell. He did a great job letting the students know I was coming and putting on a great event. We had 37 students show up! Great job Ryan!
It was a great experience trying to prepare for the talk. It forced me to think about what I could speak about that would help the students the most. It made me really think about how far I have come in the past 10 years since graduation. It is truly amazing how much information I have gathered over the years. If I only knew then what I know now……. Actually there is not a lot I would change. I would have probably just been where I am now in half the time 
. Trying to sum up what I have learned or pick some of the most important points was a challenge to say the least.
After all I decided to focus what I have come to believe is the most important skill a doctor can learn both from a patient care perspective and business perspective. That being Patient Relationship Management. That is how to help patients realize the true benefits of care and coaching them to the place where they can determine their own reason/s (Their big Why) for committing to life time chiropractic care. From a business perspective I spoke about the 3 types of risks to patient relationships that can be measured in a practice. These are the tings that show the doctor patient may have forgotten their Why.
- Patient Retention
- Cash Flow
- Compliance
The other Why was the doctor’s why. Learning why you do what you do is more important that learning how you do what you do. I thought this was important for students. They are always so focused on what to do. CBP docs especially. Hoe to fix a spine, what new patient process to follow… In the real world teaching chiropractic is met with a lot of resistance and without a big enough reason for doing what you do, that little resistance can be enough to discourage a doc right out of practice. At that point it does not matter how good you are at the “how”. We spoke a little bit about the hows too. Communication and confronting objections, billing, chiropractic software (of course), EMR/EHR, SOAP notes, the right forms, etc.
I would say that if anything could be learned that would change the potential for success it was finding your big why. Why will you go to the office when you are exhausted? Why will you be willing to confront a patient who has missed a visit? Why are you committed to learning CBP if that is your chosen technique? Why are you willing to help patients find their big why? Or as Garret Gunderson says the “Soul Purpose”.
If you are a student or doc and you are reading this, please share your Big Why. Was it a patient or family member who’s life was changed by chiropractic? Was it your own chiropractic miracle? Please share! Maybe if we hear others we can also use them to add to our motivation!
