Trust is a key factor in acquiring new patients for your practice.  If people don’t trust you – they won’t schedule an appointment with you – it’s just that simple. One of the problems with the typical chiropractic business building systems being sold to chiropractors is they seem to ignore this basic premise.

There’s no doubt that patient referrals are perhaps the most powerful practice building tool available to chiropractors.  The reason patient referrals are such a powerful practice building tool is that patient referrals leverage trust to inspire action.

The first level of trust which is at play in the patient referral is the trusting relationship established between you and the existing patient.   You have a lot of control here – so this part is relatively “easy” for a chiropractor manage.  You simply provide top quality chiropractic care while providing basic education for your patient.  However, there is a second level of “trust” at play in the patient referral – one over which you – the chiropractor – have absolutely no control.

The second level of trust which is at play in the patient referral process is the trust between the patient and others.  While you must earn each patient’s trust – you have no control over how much trust each patient has earned with friends and family.  That patient has their own relationships – and his/her credibility is the key element in whether or not he/she is able to “pass” their trust in you to others a.k.a. provide patient referrals for your practice.

Honestly – this is most often the point where the patient referral system “breaks down”.  The patient – for whatever reason – either isn’t telling family and friends OR hasn’t established enough trust with family and friends for his/her referral to have any value.

In a perfect world, every patient would be not only willing but able to provide all the patient referrals you would ever want or need to fill your practice.  However, it’s not a perfect world and only a few of your current patients have the connections and the ability to truly grow your practice through patient referrals.

This is why actively marketing your practice to reach new and prospective patients is essential for any chiropractic practice.  In order to get prospective patients to schedule an appointment with your office you’re going to have to work at building trust with them.

How to build trust with prospective patients

Building trusting relationships takes time.

This is an important fact to keep in mind as you think about creating any marketing communication designed to build trust with prospective patients.  The only “shortcut” to a lengthy trust building process via the existing patient referral.

When it comes to spreading the word about your practice – remember the old marketing adage – that it takes 8-13 exposures to your marketing message before it makes an impression on the target consumer.  What that means is that a prospective patient has to see/hear your advertisement on average 8-13 times before it even BEGINS to register.  So if you’re running an ad on the radio – and you’re sick to death of hearing it – remember – it has just begun to make an “impression” with your target audience.

Traditional advertising helps accelerate building trusting relationships.

Advertising – either on the radio, in the newspaper, on television or via the local cinema – all do a great job of laying a furn foundation for building trust.  There’s just something about committing to placing your message in a local media on a regular basis that plays a pivotal role in building trust with prospective patients you don’t know and your current patients don’t know.  Keep the point above in mind when advertising your practice though – about the time you’re sick of your ad – it’s just starting to make an impression with the masses.

Testimonials help accelerate building trusting relationships.

Patient testimonials work best when prospective patients know and recognize the patients you feature in your testimonials.  However, getting patients to write testimonials can be difficult.  I encouraged one of my clients to bring his camcorder to work.  When he was done seeing his patients, he asked if he could record them giving a brief testimonials.  Of course, some said no – but many said yes – and he uses those powerful videos on his website – to help build trust with people in his community that he hasn’t met yet.

Blogging can help accelerate building trusting relationships.

I recently had a conversation with a client who thought that the “magic” blogging held for her business was to get it to the #1 organic search position in Google when someone searched for her by name.   Her blog did exactly that – but it wasn’t until she began blogging for her practice with the idea of building trust with prospective patients in mind that her blog really began “working” at building her practice.

The “magic” of blogging lies in how easy blogs make it to publish content to the web.  It’s only when you share your experience and expertise on your will you see what a powerful practice building tool a blog can be.

Start sharing your expertise on your blog on a regular basis and you might be surprised how quickly you can build trust with prospective patients.

Facebook helps accelerate building trusting relationships.

Recent studies have shown that regular Facebook users are more trusting of the recommendations offered to them by their friends and connections on the popular social networking device.

Create a Facebook page for your chiropractic practice and start communicating with patients and prospective patients alike there.

Not only does Facebook help to build trust – but having a Facebook Page makes it EASY for your patients to “share” you there.

Keep in mind as you create marketing messages for your practice – they need to answer the question swimming in every prospective patient’s head – “Can I trust you?”

I hate it when former used car salesmen and other “salesmen” decide to go into the business of selling “practice building information products” to chiropractors. I hate it for you – the chiropractor who is reading this post and who really wants to build a successful practice but is at wits end as to how to do it.

Why most “Effortless Chiropractor Business Builder Systems” are a load of BS.

If you’ve ever visited one of those high pressure “explode your chiropractic practice patient count” websites and felt uneasy about using those high pressure tactics to promote your practice – then I have really good news for you.  TRUST YOUR GUT! Your instincts are right on target and I’ll share with you and important reason WHY most of the “practice building” techniques illustrated in these systems aren’t equipped to help you successfully market and build your practice in the long haul.

As a chiropractor – you’re not selling cars – or books – or videos – or even a membership to a website.  Those – along with these “practice building systems” are relatively easy things to sell compared to the “sale” you have to make as a chiropractor.

As a chiropractor – you have an incredibly difficult “sale” to make because your objective is to “sell” your ability to provide quality health care for your patients.

I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know.  However, this is where it gets exciting.  See, chiropractors aren’t the only ones who have trouble making this kind of sale.   Thanks to studies performed back in the early 1980′s there’s now a word for this kind of sale: it’s called a MAJOR SALE.

A major sale is not some term I coined – but rather one used by Neil Rackham a psychologist who decided to study and document the traits of super successful sales people.  What he discovered was literally ground breaking information upon which a series of books were written and upon which a multi-million dollar sales training company has been built. If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of Mr. Rackham – or his ground breaking work – it’s because he works with Fortune 100 clients like IBM and Honeywell.

In the book  SPIN Selling Rackham shares why traditional sales methods which were developed for small consumer sales just won’t work for what he called “Major Sales”.  IBM and Honeywell executives are well aware that their sales teams are involved in making these types of sales.

Does it surprise you to know that as a chiropractor – you too are engaged in making a Major Sale?

Which is why I literally CRINGE when I see the marketing tactics employed by almost every “Chiropractic Practice Building” bullshit program.

Those marketing tactics – the popup beg screens – the outlandish claims promising an “avalanche of new patients” -are all great marketing tactics to use when you’re making a MINOR SALE.

According to Rackham, you know it’s a Minor Sales if/when the follow criteria are met.

• The buyer’s financial or emotional investment is low or insignificant
• The purchase does not warrant the time/energy necessary to research alternatives
• There is little interaction between you and the customer
• The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are inconsequential or insignificant.

As you can see from the list above, selling a “chiropractic practice building system” qualifies as a Minor Sale.

On the other hand, your practice marketing is making a Major Sale if:

• The buyer’s financial and/or emotional investment is significant
• The purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives
• There is the potential for a long-term relationship between you and/or your business and the customer
• The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high

The second list – the one which lists the qualities of a major sale – sure sound like they apply to building your practice – don’t they?

This is why most Chiropractic Practice Building Systems are worthless.  Not because they don’t contain GREAT marketing/sales information – many do.  However, many of them approach the “sale” of chiropractic like it’s on the same level as selling an ebook or video system.

You’re not selling a “system” – you’re not even just selling “health care” – you’re selling yourself as a professional health care provider.  Your patient’s health is in your hands.   They know this – make sure your practice building marketing tactics show you do as well.

When it comes to marketing your chiropractic practice – you must keep the following in mind:

The better your patient’s experience with your practice, the more they will reward you in terms of repeat visits and patient referrals down the road.

Online appointment scheduling for chiropractors is really nothing new. The technology behind online appointment scheduling isn’t “new” or even “advanced”.  It’s not hard for chiropractors to add online appointment scheduling to their practice – and it may actually result in increased patient reactivation – not to mention increasing new patient visits as well.

A few companies have been offering online appointment scheduling services for more than a decade but as recently as a few years ago- offering online appointment scheduling was only for the technically savvy chiropractor.

Chiropractors who used online appointment scheduling were doing it more to demonstrate their technical expertise than to provide real value for patients.

The reason is simple – until recently very few “potential patients” were using the web on a regular basis.  The web was a place for geeks – not a place where grandparents shared photos of their children and grandchildren on Facebook.

Ah – Facebook – and Twitter – and all of the other wonderful “social media” sites which have made the web “accessible” to the masses.  While it was a rarity to reach prospective patients via the web ten years ago – today it’s becoming a common practice.  Your patients and prospective patients are using the web for more today than ever before.

The biggest reason we’re seeing this meteoric rise web use is simple: it’s smart phones – hand held computers which also act like cell phones.  Patients are no longer turning to the yellow pages to find information – they’re accessing the web via their smart phone.

If you’ve done your homework -  patients will find your chiropractic website quickly and easily using their mystical magical smart phone or tablet PC.   Now that they’re at your website – now what?

The absolute BEST possibility is that they don’t have to call – instead they can quickly and easily schedule an appointment RIGHT THERE ON YOUR WEBSITE.

Not only will online appointment scheduling help you to get new patients – it will also help you book more appointments with your current patients as well.

Case in point – I’ve been listening to my daughter complain for a few weeks now about headaches she’s having.  She keeps meaning to call her chiropractor – but she always seems to think about calling either after business hours or during their lunch hour.  If her chiropractor only had online appointment scheduling – he would have had SEVERAL appointments added to his schedule from my daughter alone!

Make it easy for new and current patients to schedule an appointment with you.  Add online appointment scheduling to your website.  Then – let your patients know you’re accepting appointments online and see if your practice doesn’t grow because of it.

The BEST chiropractic websites are not the most lavishly designed…. but rather they are practical as well as beautiful.

Here are 3 main characteristics of the BEST chiropractic websites:

1.  The Best Chiropractic Websites can be easily found and indexed by the search engines.

It sounds easy enough – doesn’t it?  I mean, when you sign a contract for web development services, you naturally ASSUME that when your website is completed that it will show up when a prospective patient searches for you by name.

Unfortunately, some of the most beautiful chiropractic websites are only seen by current patients.  Prospective patients who are either searching for the chiropractor by name or simply searching for a local chiropractor may not ever find that beautiful website.

I’ll be honest – nothing breaks my heart more than the chiropractor who spent a lot of money getting a website developed and now wants help in getting a practice website “found” by the search engines.

The way a site is created is a critical component in whether or not the content will be found and indexed by the search engines.

It matters – a LOT.

Ask for references and then – do a Google search for the web developer’s client BY NAME.  If the web developer’s client’s site isn’t showing up on the first page – it’s a sign that this developer doesn’t have a CLUE on what he/she needs to do to please the minor dieties known as the search engines.

2.  The Best Chiropractic Websites introduce prospective patients to you and your practice.

Having a chiropractic website which can be FOUND is just the beginning of the process.  Once your website can be FOUND – then we need to focus on what prospective patients SEE when they get there.

Is your website filled with generic content about chiropractic – or is it filled with information about YOUR practice.

There’s a huge difference between the two.

Many chiropractic websites are filled with well written articles which describe chiropractic IN GENERAL.

By the time a prospective patient finds your website by searching for you by name – they don’t need to be SOLD on the benefits of chiropractic.  Instead, they need to learn more about you and your unique style of practice.

Is your waiting room filled with toys for the little ones?  Are most of your patients high performance athletes??

The best chiropractic websites introduce a prospective patient to your practice before they schedule an appointment.

Unique, original content – including photos, audio and video are all part of the BEST chiropractic websites.

3.  The Best Chiropractic Websites allow patients to schedule appointments online.

In a recent survey, 79% of respondents indicated that they PREFERRED the ease and convenience of making appointments online.  Can prospective patients quickly and easily schedule their first appointment with you by simply clicking within your website?

If your website is doing its job – you want to make it as easy as possible for that prospective patient to schedule his/her first exam.

Genbook (affiliate link) offers a truly interactive online appointment scheduling service which allows chiropractors to set different kinds of appointment types.   They also offer a free 30 day full service trial to get started.

These are the three basic characteristics of the BEST chiropractic websites.  When your chiropractic website hits the mark on all three of these characteristics – you’ll soon discover what all the FUSS is about when it comes to marketing your practice via the internet.