Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Rocket Chiro podcast, a business and marketing podcast for chiropractors. We're going to talk today about a little something that I have coined associate PTSD. This is something that I have noticed. Um, I shouldn't be laughing about it. I shouldn't be smiling about it. I just like my name. So just bear with my enjoyment of my stupid name for this.
But what we're going to talk about is something that I've noticed when I have a next step member or maybe a coaching client that comes on board with me and I have a phone call with them and they seem to be struggling with particular things. And those particular things seem to be a response to their associate position that they had before. And I see this a lot with young chiropractors that are starting their own practice.
And some of the struggles that they're having is actually a result of how they have reacted or maybe even overreacted. to their job as a chiropractor when they were an associate. So we're gonna unpack this a little bit and hopefully this will be helpful for those of you.
My intention is if you are a chiropractic student and you're gonna get out and you may get an associate position and it may not be ideal and a lot of associate positions aren't, that you will recognize that this is what's going on or this is something that could potentially be going on in the future and that way you don't have this problem when you start.
If you are starting your own practice and you're coming out of a bad associate position that you can also recognize that this may be a mistake that you make. And you can course correct now before it start effects affecting your, your pocketbook. Or if you're like the doctor I talked to this week where you've been out in practice for a little while, and this has sort of plagued you and it, you haven't been able to really put your finger on it.
Hopefully this podcast will be helpful for you and free you up to start making better choices and start heading in a better direction for your chiropractic practice. So that's my intention for today. Now, before I get into that, I do want to say a couple of things. One is that there are a lot of people that have, I just went past my 500th episode for Rocket Chiro. There's a lot of people that listen to this podcast.
Some of you have listened to this podcast for years and I would like you to do me a favor. If you haven't ever gone into Apple podcasts and leave a review for ah Rocket Chiro, I would really, really appreciate it. It's one of those things that helps the algorithm. It helps the podcast get pushed out to more people.
And so either leaving a review or sharing the podcast or both of those things, if you know a chiropractor that could benefit from it, or you just want to share it on your social platform so other chiropractors can see it, that would be super helpful for me. And I would really, really appreciate that. I would love to. get some of the listenership of the podcast up.
think there's a lot more chiropractors out there that could use the help from this podcast that just, you know, this has always been a relatively small thing. I don't ever think that I'm going to be a mainstream voice within the chiropractic world. But I do think that our little small community could be a little bit bigger and there could be some more chiropractors that I could help.
So if you're listening to this podcast and you have been listening for a while and you haven't ever taken that couple seconds and it actually is a pain, it's a pain in the butt. to do reviews on Apple podcasts, it's sort of a clunky, they've kind of made it more clunky to do it. But if you would take the second to do it, I'd really appreciate it.
Now, if you're someone who listens to the podcast, and you're thinking you might want to work together, whether that's help with your business and marketing from a coaching standpoint, my next step programs and option, I do occasionally do one on one coaching with chiropractors. ah But that's, that's something you'd have to reach out to me and ask about. The other thing is websites, SEO, Google ads, those are things I'm doing more and more these days.
And if you're looking for a better website, and if you're tired of your website being junk or cluttered, or if you're tired of just working with a chiropractic website farm, some of these big box website companies, then reach out to me. I'll be glad to help you however I can. All right. So I was talking to a guy this week and I sort of recognize this right away.
Like as he was talking, I was thinking to myself as he's telling me about his associate position, was thinking, I know what this guy's problem is. Like I know, I know what the result of this is. And what happens is a lot of the associate positions that are available for chiropractors are available in these like high volume chiropractic mills.
It's these practices that are seeing a lot of people and I'm not, this is not me criticizing chiropractic practices that are very, very busy, but there are these mills, these sort of high sales, scare tactic, high pressure, long-term care plans, same recommendations for everyone. They're these sort of places because especially if the chiropractor is really good at sales, like they're good at talking, they're good at sales, they're good at, they would be good at selling cars.
They would be good at selling insurance, like life insurance and what they would just be good at selling because they're good at selling that personality in chiropractic tends to be this type of practice and every single town has at least one of these practices. And those practices oftentimes are the ones that have the volume where they can bring in an associate and those associates don't usually last.
mean, this is one of the reasons that associate positions don't generally last, or actually probably a couple reasons that associate positions don't generally last all that long, is because chiropractors don't make the kind of money that would be appropriate for the amount of time and effort and energy you put into being a chiropractor. So most associates don't get paid anywhere close to what you would like to be making as a chiropractor.
And the other part of it is most associate jobs kind of stink. You sort of get uh poop into the stick, you know, you kind of get stuck with all the stuff that the other chiropractor doesn't want to do. Oftentimes you're forced to do things you ethically maybe have an issue with. Oftentimes the chiropractor doesn't really practice the way that you would. So there's sort of that dilemma. Sometimes the chiropractor is a jerk.
Sometimes the chiropractor is just passing off everything that's terrible. Sometimes you're not being trained very well. I mean, there's all kinds of messes that are chiropractic associate jobs.
But when I see chiropractors that come out of these, these chiropractic mills, oftentimes They throw the baby out with the bath water and something that I try to tell chiropractors when I hear this and when I talk to them on the phone is I'll tell them like, don't throw out good things because they were done in a bad way.
There are a lot of things in these chiropractic kind of mills and these chiropractic like high volume things that there's, a lot of things that are good in philosophy and in theory, but the way that they're being done is kind of icky. And that's what you don't like about it.
so chiropractors will kind of give an example is that, you know, being very rigid, like maybe having a script or having a very laid out plan, having care recommendations, having a certain uh tableside manner, asking for reviews, asking for referrals, like some of these things are actually perfectly fine. Like it's perfectly fine. You should have a plan. You should have a structure. There should be a method to your madness.
should be asking for reviews, you should be asking for referrals, you should have systems in place. And so those things aren't a problem. Even recommendations, you'll you'll see that a lot of chiropractors that come out of these kind of cookie cutter care plan, like long term prepaid care plan chiropractic associateships, they won't do recommendations at all. And they find themselves in a situation where their retention stinks.
Because this is what ends up happening when you when you disregard structure and having a plan of attack, when you disregard good communication, when you disregard uh charging a fair price, ah because being the cheapest person in town is not noble, by the way, there's no, there's nothing like righteous about being the cheapest person, I'm not saying you should gouge people.
But sometimes when you're in a place where you feel like they're gouging people, the overreaction is you try to be the cheapest chiropractor in town. Sometimes when, uh, you're in a place where you feel like you're manipulating people with how you're saying things, you bypass good communication altogether. Like you don't work on your communication skills and, that relationship, communication leadership thing that is really required in a good chiropractic practice.
Sometimes when you have these cookie cutter care plans, you disregard recommendations altogether and you don't have a plan. just. Nobody knows what's going on. The patient doesn't know what the plan is. You don't know what the plan is. You're hoping one thing, they're hoping another thing. Nobody's on the same page. It creates a mess.
And when you don't have a structure, like you may have a super structured place as an associate where everything it's like the Truman show, you know, the old Jim Carrey movie where everything is everybody's acting. It's like there are lot of practices that are like that. And it could be really suffocating and terrible and feel very disingenuine. But if you take it to the extreme and your response to that is I'm not going to plan anything. I'm not going to have any structure.
I'm not going to have any method to my madness. You've thrown the baby out with the bath bathwater. You've thrown the good out with the bad. And the result of that is you end up with terrible follow through terrible retention. You end up frustrated. You end up questioning whether good chiropractors can make a living. You end up having resentment toward any successful chiropractor. You just assume that Any chiropractor who is doing well is ripping people off in line.
You assume that when you saw busy practice and they were doing things that were kind of shifty and bad, you start to assume because you're struggling and you're not doing any of some basic business stuff correctly. You start to assume that everyone is successful is doing something shifty and doing something wrong because you can't be a good chiropractor and you can't be an honest chiropractor. And you can't be a caring patient centered chiropractor and be successful. It just can't work that way.
You have to do it that shifty way. That's a very black and white way of looking at practice success. And it's not correct. There are many, many, many patients centered, caring, honest chiropractors out there who have very, very successful practices. They're not sloppy. They don't have bad communication. They don't have bad systems or no systems at all. They're not doing the things that you're doing. as a result, a reaction to your bad associate position.
And in the worst case scenario, I you start to get a poverty mindset, which is not the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is all these things combined and you end up in a situation where you oftentimes have to close your practice, or you end up struggling for 10 or 15 years, barely getting your head above water. You're not you're not able to pay your loans off very quickly or not at all.
You're you're not able to put any money away for In the event something happens, like if you get sick or get hurt or something and you can't work anymore, you're not able to provide for your family the way that you want to. And it's not because you're a chiropractor and it's not because people don't want chiropractic. It's because you had a terrible reaction to a bad associate position. And this is what I call chiropractic associate PTSD. And so what do we do differently?
So you need to change your mindset. You need to have a method to your madness. need to prioritize patient communication and management. The people management part of being a chiropractor is one of the most difficult things being a chiropractor, putting your hands on people and adjusting them and getting a good result. That's barely easy. I mean, if you're a, if you're a not very coordinated person, it's harder obviously, but even then you have instruments that, that do a decent job.
If done used correctly, you don't have to be a super athletic person to be a good chiropractor. So getting a good result from chiropractic adjustments and chiropractic treatments, therapies, whatever. mean, even, even things within the realm of chiropractic, if we're, I think, I think chiropractors should focus on the adjustment. should major on the adjustment. That's my personal belief. I think that's what we do best. think that's the unique thing that we have to offer.
But even if you weren't and you were going to start doing some sort of secondary therapies and stuff as a chiropractor, you can still get good results. Like that's actually not even close to being the most difficult thing as a chiropractor, dealing with people and managing people, the human beings, like that's actually the much harder part of being a chiropractor. And that also includes staff.
If you have staff that you have to manage, like you're dealing with humans and that's hard and you have to be better at that. You have to prioritize getting better at patient communication and communication with your staff and being a better leader. You need to have a plan, but you need to be flexible.
Because when you sit down and you make recommendations with someone you say this is what we're going to do over the next two weeks, three weeks, three months, six months, whatever you're comfortable with. Cause I don't believe in a certain timeframe that everyone has to follow. If you know, someone's going to need long-term care and you want to sit down and talk to them about long-term care, that's fine.
If somebody's going to need short-term care and you're like, Hey, I don't, you know, let's just, let's just kind of go for a week or two, see how you do. Cause I'm not a hundred percent sure how you're going to respond. Like that's okay too. You could be short-term long-term, but there needs to be a plan. And you should also be flexible, meaning that not everybody follows your plan. But you should be able to get on the same page with the patient. This is what we're doing.
This is what we're trying. This is what the plan is for now. There should be some level of agreement with that. And that starts with you. You're the leader. Like you're the one that has to start this process. Have you just let people assume or if you just let people think whatever they're going to think in terms of chiropractic, they have no idea how their body works. People don't know how their body works. They don't know how chiropractic works. They don't understand any part of what we do.
And they're just going to assume that you're like a bandaid. That's you're an aspirin. That's healthier. Like it's they, they just think it's going to be like one or two adjustments and that's it. They've had this problem for 40 years. Like that's there's a patient education. There's a leadership element to being a chiropractor that you have to be committed to. You got to be better at it.
And if you're not getting the result that you want and people aren't understanding what you're saying, or people aren't following through with care, you need to take an honest look at what you're saying and what you're doing and figure out better ways to do it. But there needs to be a commitment to the structure and a commitment to having a plan. You need to get participation from the patient, whatever you're deciding to do, and there needs to be some level of agreement.
You don't have to get people to sign contracts or nothing like that, but there should at least be a head nod. Like, yes, I understand this is what the plan is over the next couple of weeks or next few months. This is what we're planning on doing for now. And then lastly, I talk about this all the time. I beat this drum on this podcast, be committed to excellence.
I do think that, although it is easy to get good results as a chiropractor, that you should be committed to being excellent at anything you're doing in your office. That also means being excellent at being a leader, patient communication, patient management, running a business. It's not just about your hands. It's not just about the chiropractic king stuff. Cause school teaches you how to chiropractic. from a patient perspective standpoint, and it gets you sort of mildly, uh mildly competent.
It doesn't prepare you at all for people, for humans, for managing staff or running a business for marketing. And I'm not saying you have to be an expert at all of that stuff. You could delegate some of it. You could have me to your website and your SEO and your Google ads. And there's other people out there that'll help you with other things that you don't want to do or you don't feel good at.
But there's some things that you're going to have to be good at that you're going to have to get better at than what you currently are. So just being committed to excellence and you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be perfect from the start. mean, everybody that does everything the first time you stink, you're terrible.
And if you're, you're, sitting around kind of like planning and planning and planning and planning because you're scared or planning and planning and planning because you really don't know what you're doing or because of whatever, like don't do that. Just push the bird out of the nest, give it a try. And if it doesn't work well, figure out a different way. Ask for help. Try something different.
The patients you had last month don't actually know what you did with the patients or the patients you have this month don't know what you did with the patients last month. So it's okay to change things. It's okay to change how you communicate. It's okay to change how you do your recommendations. It's okay to do all that. You're figuring it out. And when you start to see things work. Great, hey, cool. That worked better than the last thing I did. That becomes the standard now.
You've moved the goalpost. And then then you do that for a little while and you figure out a little bit better way and you go, hey, hey, that works a little better than what I was doing before. You just move the goalpost that becomes the standard now. And you just need to do that over and over and over again. But the starting point for all of this, and this is maybe the big point of this podcast is to just change your mindset about your associate experience.
You have to change your mindset about it. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I understand that it was a bad experience. I understand that a lot of chiropractors have crappy associate positions that are out there. And most chiropractors that leave them do not leave them happy. They leave them kind of burned and beat up. Don't let that ruin your practice. Don't don't take something good. and throw it out because it was done poorly or wrong within the environment that you were in.
That's my advice for today. I hope it helps you guys out. I see this a lot and uh it's a shame because it could really wreck your practice if you let that bad associate job kind of become a brain grenade. Not good. All right guys, that's it. I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for your reviews. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for all the things that you do that allow me to continue to podcast.
And for those of you who are clients of mine, special thank you to you because if nobody was paying me, I wouldn't be able to do this and that would stink. I'd have to go get a real job. So I'm done. I'm out of here. I will talk to you guys on the next episode. See ya.