Michael E. Gerber & Dr. Frank Sovinsky, co-authors of “The E-Myth Chiropractor, Why Most Chiropractic Practices Don’t Work and What to Do about It,” discuss the triad of a successful chiropractic business - the entrepreneur, the business owner and the chiropractor.
Make plans for our chiropractic seminar in March. Dr. Frank Sovinsky will be sharing much of what he and Michael Geber discussed and teach you how to let the entrepreneur lead your business to the success you dream of. Come bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be March 23 & 24 at DC Mentors’ Revive seminar.
Hello I’m Dr. Frank Sovinsky and welcome toDC Mentors v-blog. For chiropractors, business as usual is dead and, in my opinion, good riddance. We are now free to move about this cabin of success in a whole other way. That means we’re not subjected to having to prove what we’re doing for a patient every time. We need to improve what we do with that patient and then improve their lives. We get to sit back and lose all of our entitlements and get back to the thing that made us amazing in the beginning which was to create value with every patient, to be value-able, to give them more in exchange than anybody else can. Giving them hope with a plan called Chiropractic, a way to restore and revitalize themselves so when I say the business of Chiropracticis dead, I mean the old way is dead. That means that you’re free to create a business that actually works for you and your patients not for some other entity. So don’t try to readjust to the old way, it will keep you in an old mindset and you will not make it. Chiropractic business as usual is dead. Give our website a peek, www.dcmentors.com, look at DC Mentors’ processes, look at the people, have conversations on DC Mentors’ forum. I think you’ll agree that it’s time for a new plan for you and we have it.
I want to share with you the idea of managing your practice. You know 25 years ago Michael Gerber introduced the idea of the E-Myth and revolutionized small businesses. Well today we have The E-Myth Chiropractor that I co-authored with Michael E. Gerber. The E-Myth Chiropractor says that most chiropractic practices don’t work but there is a solution.
I want to teach you something about the whirlwind of practice today. Sometimes you get caught in people, caught in time, you don’t have enough people or the right people, or the right time. Step back and you start to look at chiropractic businessas managing the work that needs to be done, managing the time. In other words, manage the clock because it’s very important. Time equals life to people.
Then you manage the space, the office space, the flow of the office. We think that small is the new big, meaning we want to keep your overhead under your feet. So don’t look at management as managing people but managing the processes, managing the things that you can actually grab ahold of and take this whirlwind and make it spin the direction you want it to and don’t be driven by it or let it spin you.
We want you to be compelled to make a great chiropractic business not be propelled down into the ground, not consumed by it.
I’m here with world famous author, Dr. Nathan Unruh. It’s an awesome book, “Building a Better You.” I read it already. And you say there’s going to be a new title for it and picture on it, but the 7 Pillars of Wellness. Is there a website our viewers can go to?
Dr. Unruh – Envive your life. enviveonline.com
Dr. Sovinsky – OK, cool. So, I want to carry on with the conversation we were having last time. That conversation is – we’re not dooming and glooming. What we’re saying is, “Have you considered that some things are coming down?” I think, on a break, someone was asking if the medical home will be a good thing or a bad thing, do we know?
Dr. Unruh – I don’t think we do and I think that if it does show up, do you want to risk the fact that it could be a bad thing?
Dr. Sovinsky – Can you afford not to pay attention?
Dr. Unruh – Right. If it is a bad thing, which it very well could be, is your business going to be viable?
Dr. Sovinsky – So if we’re not being politically correct right now, let’s just say you’re the expert, OK? Because asDr. Douglas Sea says what he’s an expert in is his own opinion. So in your own opinion, when you’re steering your practice right now, as you look at what you’re going to do with your business, what is your prediction? Is this a good thing for your business?
Dr. Unruh – I don’t think so. I’m not willing to take that risk with my business.
Dr. Sovinsky – That’s what it comes down to because I know you have to do the political things. And that’s why I’m saying, “Seriously, let’s talk.” That’s the thing when we’re with Chiropractors, and what’s this naked thing you were talking about it? Talking about the naked, what was that concept of just really being real?
Dr. Unruh – It comes from a book written by Patrick Lencioni called “Getting Naked” – awesome book. Being vulnerable. You can’t get anywhere in conversations or making new decisions if you’re not vulnerable where you currently are and where you also want to go. Not that you ever have all the right answers but you have to be vulnerable with what’s going on.
Dr. Sovinsky We just want you to take a break, not trying to use fear, but just say, “Wake up. See some things going on.” The getting naked part is in the book I penned a few years ago, “Life: The Manual, When the Pursuit of Happiness Makes You Miserable.” One of the things I had people do when they’re taking themselves so seriously is to stand in front of a full length mirror and do jumping jacks naked. In our profession we’re kind of in this cocoon of not thinking about the future, “I just have to go in there and pay the bills today.” It’s the mindset we describe in “The E-Myth Chiropractor” as one of the employee. “I’ve got to go in there and I just got to do it, do it, and do it all the time.” So your mindset now as a visionary is you’re cleaning up your business model because you see insurance companies and government cleaning up a healthcare delivery model. Any advice for this chiropractic profession?
Dr. Unruh – Your business model has to be able to survive no matter what the environment is from government to the third party reimbursement system, can your chiropractic businesssurvive without those?
Dr. Sovinsky – I just want to make sure viewers know what we mean when we talk about the word affordable healthcare. Is affordable to the patient the $15.00 adjustment for everybody, or the family plan where the people are getting the prepays or what do you see as that key piece of a viable chiropractic business model, what is the economic engine of a practice because if you don’t sustain the economic engine you don’t have a business to transform the society or your patients. What do you see when I say affordable?
Dr. Unruh – Affordable in that everybody can access it, not give it away, not come from the standpoint of a poverty complex or scarcity complex where you just have to give everything away. Affordable is a fair fee for great service that’s going to be delivered in such a way that you can serve more and more people.
Dr. Sovinsky – So let me say affordable to most because there are viewers saying, “But I see this one family of 6 and they don’t have a job. . .” I’m just saying affordable to most, profitable enough to you to sustain your vision, your mission and your purpose in your life. Would you buy that one?
Dr. Unruh – I would.
Dr. Sovinsky – OK, so you’re switching your model?
Dr. Unruh – Yes, I’m switching but I think by switching some things it’s going to make it stronger.
Our second night in San Jose del Cabo we went to check out a restaurant that was recommended to us by a friend. Since I’m the navigator I checked the directions online before we hopped into the rental car. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read the 7th step in the directions, “Turn left onto a dirt road at the cement plant.” Seriously!
Since I knew there was no way the driver would be comfortable with that if I sprang it on him real time, I requested that he review the map too before we left. Frank confirmed what I was seeing, we laughed and drove off to our dining adventure with my mom. It turns out there were a few more dirt roads and lots of potholes and, fortunately, a lot of signs pointing toward the restaurant and a charming little organic farm and restaurant at the end of it all. Dinner was outdoors, under the stars, at the edge of the garden with a jazz trio playing and it was delicious.
After dinner we hopped back in the car and headed out of their parking lot following the arrow that read, “Exit.” Past that sign, at the top of the dirt drive the signage ended. We didn’t know whether to turn right or left. It was dark now and everything looked different. Well, it didn’t look like anything, it was black. Since we are on dirt streets it’s not like there were a lot of street lights. There were plenty of signs showing us the way in, but none showing us a way out. I turned on the map on my phone. It still had the directions on it from our trip out. “We should turn right,” I deducted.
We drove a bit more and all three of us realized, dark or not, this was NOT the way we came in. I was following the map on my phone, but had neglected to remember that I did not use the phone map on the way there. It was different than the directions on the restaurant’s website, so I had used theirs, not the phones. Not to worry though, I had the phone map and directions and we could just keep following those. Onward we went.
We got to the point where the dirt was supposed to turn back into asphalt at the base of this new bridge. I felt a bit of relief when I saw the bridge. Being on a dirt road, at night, in a foreign country isn’t the most secure feeling in the world. All I could think of was the reports of shootings that we read about in the news at home and the people who would tell me how crazy I was for going to Mexico these days because of all the violence. Pretty much anything bad I’d ever heard about was going through my mind and I added some new things that I just made up compliments of my imagination.
We drove up to the bridge and passed under it looking for what should have been a ramp onto the pavement, according to the map on the phone. I don’t know if there used to be
a ramp there before the bridge was built or if some day they are planning to put a ramp there, but there was no ramp, just shrubs and dirt and the bridge overhead . . . and cows lying around! Hmmm, this wasn’t in the brochure. It sure as heck wasn’t on the map!
We had passed one car since we had left the restaurant. You could feel the uneasiness in the car, but no one said anything. I went to plan B on the map. Although I wasn’t positive it would be accurate, I thought it was worth a try. The other 2 thought we should go back to the restaurant and start over again, but I had the map and could see that IF it was accurate we could be back to a real road in 2 turns. So we tried my plan B. We were nearing the spot where the road should turn into pavement again when we passed a field with 4 or 5 pickups in it, with their lights on. Two of them turned onto the road behind us. What did they want? Our rental car had a warning light on since we’d picked it up that there was a tire with low air. “Oh please don’t get a flat now.” We have no idea where we’re going. Why are they following so close? What if we hit another dead end? What are they going to do to us?
Then the road took a really sharp right and left around this drainage pipe and we popped up into the main highway going right through the middle of town.
Laughter of relief. Although no one had said a negative word the entire time you could tell what the general consensus was, and it wasn’t positive and upbeat. We just knew we were lost and in danger. And now we were relieved that we back in civilization.
Two days later I drug everyone to the Mercado Organico, the local farmer’s market and guess what? We drove off the main highway, took a sharp right and then a sharp left around a drainage pipe. People were walking and jogging on this dirt road. There were other cars. In the daylight we could see the foliage and farmland and we pulled into this field, the exact same field we had passed with the pickups in it two nights prior, and we parked for the farmer’s market. The exact same field that we had imagined the most horrible, evil things happening was in reality, in the daylight, the field that housed arts and crafts and cooked creations and freshly harvested fruits and vegetables. This time we laughed at how completely wrong we were.
You need to prepare, you need a plan, a map. You have to know where you are now to get where you want to go.
When things don’t seem to be going as planned and your visions seems dark remember:
Don’t listen to the naysayers
Control your own inner voice
Keep your EQ (emotional intelligence) in check
Circumstances change, keep your map updated
Things always look better in the daylight
Without a doubt, the worst battles never fought take place in our heads! Stop it!
