Building a business and a following within the profession can be a long, tedious process. When chiropractors graduate from school, you get a piece of paper and a license and think that you are going to go out a crush it. In your mind, you think that patients are going to be lining up to seek your care, well I’ve got news for all of the new graduate out there…it doesn’t typically work this way.

I’m ten years into practice, days have their ups and downs but overall things have been trending upwards.  When the office first opened, seeing 40 patients a WEEK was the goal, that is by far not the case that this point in the business.  Constant growth is always going to be the goal.

The thought process has come too light, am I doing this on my terms or am I working within a profession that sets it sights and goals based on public perception. I would like to think that over the course of the last couple years the practice has started to evolve into something that I am proud to work at and have comfort telling people what I do with no shame.

As a new generation graduates from chiropractic school and the older/baby boomer generation within the profession is starting to retire, the profession, I feel, is at a bit of a crossroad.  The younger generation is trending more towards the rehabilitation aspects of the profession and the older generation is geared more towards adjusting patients and using the adjustment as the main tool in their repertoire. This is just an observation, not necessarily a hard and fast rule.

The irony of the profession in the years to come is that a lot of older offices do not fit the mold of an office that a lot of new graduates are going to want to buy or take over. This is the perplexing argument within the profession.  There are arguments to be made on both sides and I feel that there is evidence to support the older and younger generation.

This is where I start the argument of building your following or tribe as I would call it. I would consider that I run a fairly hybrid type practice. We lean heavily on the adjustment and a few therapies.  If you are looking for specific post surgical care, stem cell injections, lots of hands on exercise programs or other specific neurological/spinal condition, there may be other providers that are better at handling certain types of case.

Building a trust within your patient base and allowing decisions/discussions to flow freely make for the best type of care.  Claiming to help everyone is not only irresponsible; it’s a flat out lie most of the time. Our goal within the practice is to continue to grow the practice while getting the best possible results for the patient whether that is at our office or at another.  I have people all the time stop in just to ask questions, it’s refreshing to know that people feel comfortable will come in ask a question and walk right back out without feeling that they were taken advantage of.

This may sound a little strange, but I check the obituaries fairly regularly and when I have a patient pass away, a small member of the tribe is now gone.  The tribe is ever growing and ebbs and flows, people will come and go, lures from other offices are tough to ignore, but I would like to think that we are always available when you are in a time of need.  Whether that is for a conversation or for treatment from our office, just know that you will never be taken advantage of and we lean back on the old school chiropractic technique.

Do we fall for the latest trends, I would like to think we don’t but we have tools and tricks of the older generation while trying to work within an ever changing healthcare field of the younger generation. We don’t hard sell and just know just because you go to a different office for a time or two, you will always be welcomed back into the tribe at Spracklin Chiropractic where we lean on the adjustment, a few therapies and DOT Physicals, that’s it, we make it simple.