Professional advice pays off

A number of years ago (before I got into publishing), I worked for a Fortune 300 company that had several manufacturing divisions and employed approximately 6,000 employees

My official title was employee relations manager. In that role, I served as an internal consultant to top management and a coach to employees.

Those two roles, as you might imagine, were considerably different. Here’s an example that illustrates the difference:

The vice president of a large division made the difficult decision to close a plant. He asked me how he could downsize compassionately. I outlined recom-mended steps and procedures. He accepted most of my recommendations, but chose not to follow others.

Once the plant-closing announcement was made, I switched out of the consultant role and into the role of coach to the downsized employees. I taught them how to assess their skills, write their resumes, and find new jobs. Some employees needed cajoling; others required serious esteem-building. And still others only needed to be given a direction.

The employees did not need a consultant who only gave suggestions; they needed direction and inspiration.

Each role helped the organization and its displaced employees achieve their respective goals.

In this issue, we are publishing the final segment of our 10th Annual Salary & Expense Survey, which we conducted in the spring. This segment deals with a new question: Do you belong to a practice-management group?

What we discovered was that those individuals (about 25 percent) who have a coach or consultant on their team earn significantly more than the 75 percent who do not use a coach or consultant. They have higher patient-visit averages and more patient visits per week. They also spend more on marketing and advertising.

Our mission at Chiropractic Economics is to help you become successful in your practice. I hope the information you find in this issue leads you to success.

Until next time,

Linda Segall, Editor-in-Chief