January 2009

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3 keys to a successful nutritional practice

By Freddie Ulan, DC, CCN

So you thought you just examine your new patient, tell him what to take, sell him a product, and hope he’ll come back?

Do that and you are ignoring the most important breakthrough you’ll ever make in your nutritional practice.

A stress-free, successful nutritional practice can happen in three simple yet vital steps.

Step 1. Don’t explain or convince.

Never start this step by explaining or convincing a patient that he needs your help. You must first prepare your patient to receive the report of findings (ROF), and second make sure he is a nutritional case. Remember that the purpose of the ROF visit is to determine whether or not the patient is a nutritional case.

Develop a system that enables you to sort out who the nutritional cases are and aren’t. If you have a system that helps sort that out, you will never accept a patient who’s going to be a problem because you will only accept the nutritional case that’s right for your office. The kind of patient you accept and keep is the kind of patient you’re going to have.

As overly simplistic as this may sounds, you need to understand that the patients you accept refer people just like themselves to your practice. If you accept patients who are not right for your practice, you may end up with others just like them, or nobody.

But when you only accept those patients who are actually right for you, you create a vacuum that literally pulls patients into your practice who are right for you, and you end up with this big, full, happy practice of people who like you, like what you’re doing, and agree with you — and they tend to refer to friends and co-workers.

After you’ve established rapport and performed an examination, communicate something similar to: “Thank you for coming in and giving me an opportunity to talk with you and find out what’s going on with your body, nutritionally. I’ve got a lot of good information here. I’m going to go over this, and I’m going to prepare a Report of Findings and recommendations for you. And when you come back in a few days, I’m going to go over it with you fully. The whole purpose of my studying your information is to find out whether or not you are a nutritional case. And if you are a nutritional case, then I’m going to let you know what the program’s going to be for you to get the most possible benefit out of doing a nutritional program.” That patient will go home and hope he is a nutritional

Don’t sell nutrition on the first visit. If you do you will be selling somebody product before he fully agreed with, understood your recommendations for, and are committed to doing the program. It’s that simple.

Step 2. Determine the patient’s role.

The next purpose of the ROF visit is to clearly ensure that the patient knows what his or her role is going to be in attaining the maximum possible health restoration.

Be certain your patients understand what you expect of them before accepting them as a patient. Indicate to the patient, “I think you’re a nutritional case. Our experience is that with people who are nutritional cases, nothing else is going to help them as much. But in order for you to get the help, there are certain actions you’re going to have to do during this period so that we’re working together.”

And if the patient has any questions, clear them up right then and there. If they have any objections, you either handle them right away or, if they will not handle easily, thank them for coming and let them know that they are not right for your practice.

Step 3. Ensure commitment to the program.

Make sure the patient is committed to doing the program and following the recommendations.

If they’re not, you have to handle it. Give them more time and information, send them home, thank them for coming — whatever is necessary — but don’t ever start a treatment program on somebody who is not committed to doing the program and following your recommendations. This is critical.

If they are committed to doing the program, you may start once the patient has completed that ROF visit. Only then should you begin the first therapeutic visit and get that patient properly started on his program.

Do you see how this changes the whole vector of your practice? Instead of “Oh, please take these pills, and please come back for the next visit, and please be good about it and do what I tell you,” now you’re letting him know, “Okay, I have this great program here. It’s going to get you well, if you do your share. Here’s what you’ve got to do. Are you willing to do this?”

By implementing these three easy, vital ROF steps, you’ll discover that you can create a stress-free, booming nutritional practice with a great retention rate — as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Freddie Ulan, DC, CCN, founder of Ulan Nutritional Systems, Inc. (UNS), is the creator of Nutrition Response Testing and designer of the Nutritional Patients Management workshop. He can be reached at 866-418-4801, info@unsinc.info, or through www.unsinc.info.

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