A common response I encounter often when talking with chiropractors about sales is a reluctance to sell...to ask people to become patients. The reasoning goes: "I'm a doctor, and my focus is just on helping people. I don't want to sell them!" The challenge is that the only way to help people with the medical services you offer is to show them the value of how you can help improve their health and well-being, and that IS sales! You may be the very best chiropractor the world has ever seen. You've gone to school to learn to be the best. You've invested thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and years of your life, to learn how to help people. If you don't have any patients or clients (or enough of them), all that time, money, effort and learning is going to waste. You aren't receiving an adequate return on your investment. Even more troubling is that your prospective patients are missing out on the benefits of your education and expertise because you aren't effectively asking them to allow you to help. In my opinion, you're short-changing the world and yourself if you aren't an expert salesperson in addition to your other skills! It's common for people to tell me, "I'm just not a salesperson!" Not true! We all sell. If you're married or in a relationship, you're selling. If you have children, you're definitely selling. If you have employees, you're selling. And yes, if you're a chiropractor, you're in sales! Because sales is simply the process of discussing an idea, a concept or a path to health and wellness that you believe in and are excited about, and helping other people get excited about it as well Here are three reasons why chiropractors and their staff MUST be great salespeople: The only way you can stay in practice and help all the people you'd like to is to be successful finan cially. That happens only by adding new patients to your practice, and that involves sales. If you fail financially and close your practice, your ability to give people the service and help you desire to give ceases. You want to focus on helping people, not on money. If your practice is not generating the cash flow you need to take care of yourself, your family and your employees, by default, the focus WILL be on money. If you're great at selling and adding patients to your practice on a regular basis, you'll experience abundance in your practice and in your life, and you can focus on helping, rather than on money. You're doing your potential patients a disservice if you don't develop great skill in sales. They need what you have. You're the key that unlocks their doors to health and wellness. If you can't skillfully show your prospects how you can become their partner in achieving the health and wellness they really want and need, they may never look else where. If you don't effectively demonstrate the value of your services, they may never know how wonderful their lives could really be. If you won't askthemto become your patients and answer any objections that might arise, they may never get the help they need, or do the things they need to do, to live healthy, happy, productive lives. That would be a shame! A different skill: The sales conversation is a separate and different process from your healing process. And it needs to come first. Your sales conversation, first and foremost, is to find out what your prospects want and need and to determine whether your services are a good fit for them. Once they've become your patients, you can educate them, help them and heal them. You MUST sell to them first, though, in a way that meets their needs and yours. A major problem: Most coaching academies, chiropractic schools and acupuncture schools help their students learn the skills to be effective at their craft, and they DON'T teach their students how to have a fun, productive, effective sales conversation with their prospective clients or patients. The solution: So I would urge you to learn and practice having sales conversations that will enable you to consistently, successfully convert your prospects into patients in a non-aggressive, non-intrusive way. If you do, it will serve you, your family, your patients and all those people out there who truly need your help. Invest the time and money to learn to sell effectively, and insure that you'll serve and help as many people as possible and produce an abundant return on investment for yourself and your family. Read books on sales, listen to CDs and webinars, watch DVDs, go to seminars and workshops. Find a sales coach who can help you develop the proper attitudes and skills that will make your practice grow into the giving, serving, prospering entity you envisioned when you went to chiropractic school. Really, it's the only truly responsible thing to do! Hugh Liddle is the CEO and head coach at Red Cap Sales Coaching in Sebring, Florida. He's a talented, effective coach, specializing in helping chiropractors sell their services and increase their practices. In addition, he s the author of "Selling for Fun and Profit — Taking the lcky and Scary Out of Sales ", a radio talk show host, platform speaker and workshop presenter. When Hugh isn't working, he s hanging out with his wife Priscilla, Mooch and Minnie the cats and Snappy the Alligator!
