By Ed Petty

1990 — Associate practices can work. When they do not, it is often due to unclear expectations, on the part of the associate as well as the clinic owner. After working with hundreds of associate practices, we have observed 10 essential factors which underlie their success. If the following 10 points are understood and acted upon by the associate as well as by the clinic, a successful and profitable relationship is nearly guaranteed.

1. Know what you’re up against: Most new associates coming out of school have only a dim appreciation of the challenges that face them in business. The associate doctor is not only a chiropractic technician, but he/she is also a business person and an entrepreneur. As such, as with any business, it takes a tremendous amount of work and effort and ingenuity to succeed. Unlike other highly trained skills that require postgraduate education, the health care professional in chiropractic needs to be an entrepreneur.

2. Energy Level: To overcome the challenges that any entrepreneur faces, the relative energy level and doggedness necessary to get things done has to be extremely high. This means not necessarily what you’re doing, but how much you’re getting done. To be successful, you have to be very energetic and get a great deal of things done in a short period of time.

3. Enthusiasm and commitment towards chiropractic: Another attribute of a successful associate is a very high degree of enthusiasm towards chiropractic. Imagine your excitement if you suddenly discovered a simple way to create a million dollars. You would have a high degree of enthusiasm. To the degree that you can approach this level of enthusiasm toward chiropractic and have a very strong confidence, belief and faith in your profession, you will be successful.

4. Willingness to communicate: Your willingness and ability to communicate to others is a fundamental element in being a successful associate.

5. Promotion: This is very similar to communication. You have to be willing and able to continuously promote your services and chiropractic to your patients, to the staff and to individuals in your community, if you want to have a successful practice. This begins at a very basic level of handing out cards and meeting strangers, and must always occur continuously. There are thousands of other ways to promote, and you should not hesitate to do any of them.

6. Life Situation: In order to be a successful associate, you need to have all aspects of your life in good balance. This is subject to being in harmony with your family, with yourself, with your environment, with the civic community to which you belong, with the IRS, etc. In other words, you have to have your personal affairs in order and have your life arranged in a way that is compatible with your basic purposes.

7. Quality results in your patients: Ultimately, a practice that gets excellent results tends to reach its optimum capacity. This is to say, by getting incredibly good results, the word of mouth advertising that will be generated will be sufficient to supply you with a solvent practice. Quality results come from excellent skill, which in turn comes from constant practice and continued professional training, and always giving more service that is expected. In the long run, quality results in patients is not only what will make you successful, but is the reason for being successful in the first place.

8. Team member: Since you work with others, no matter how excellently you achieve the above points, if you don’t get along with your fellow staff and doctors, you won’t be successful. There is no point in hiding personal resentments with your co-workers or with the clinic owner. Handle any upsets as soon as possible, for if you don’t your practice will shrink.

9. Mutual Respect: Unless you have started and ran your own company before, such things as overhead, risk and liability, time spent on clinic start-up, training, management and a hundred other important administrative concerns are not often appreciated. Similarly, the work gone into streamlining office routines and creating goodwill with the patients and community over the years is not at first obvious. The better these past contributions are understood and respected on your part, the easier it will be for the clinic, in turn, to respect your need for success and your potential for contributing. Naturally, the most support you get from the clinic, the more successful you will be.

10. Integrity: Integrity would mean your honesty with yourself and with others, your loyalty, your trustworthiness. All successful people rely on networks of mutual trust.