Profile: Chiropractic office thrives, offers advice for COVID-19 business continuity

A marketing push, membership options and other innovations help a chiropractic practice to maintain COVID-19 business continuity during the pandemic

For many, 2020 has been a “write-off,” choosing to sit back, mix a stiff G&T and wait for it all to blow over, before resuming life. This, however, wasn’t the case for us. Lucky to be able to stay open during some of the first full UK lockdown, we decided to double down and try and help as many people as we could; we wanted to provide a relaxing escape outside of people’s homes and care for our community while maintaining our COVID-19 business continuity.

In our mission to help as many of our community as possible by providing chiropractic care, we found ourselves busier and more profitable than ever before. We’re here to share our top tips for growing your practice and helping even more people back to health.

Double-down on marketing

They say marketing can fix any problem short term, like a Band-Aid on a wound, so as soon as we were able to open after the first UK lockdown we doubled down on our marketing efforts.

This included spending on Facebook Ads as well as sending out thousands of emails, texts and newsletters to our existing patient base. This generated a steady flow of new and returning patients who were coming in and leaving their houses for the first time in months. Without that marketing push, we likely wouldn’t have made it out the other end in regard to COVID-19 business continuity as well as we did.

COVID-19 business continuity and membership options

Something that has fundamentally changed our business model, and was introduced several years ago, is a membership option for guests which means they are able to join our wellbeing community for regular care with monthly direct debit payments, which is not only cheaper than our pay-as-you-go price but means our guests are guaranteed the adjustments they have paid for that month, whilst our pay-as-you-go guests can’t always be certain of our availability.

From a business point of view, membership means we have a steady flow of income every single month which can be budgeted for as well as allowing us to project revenue months in advance.

Having membership in place during the first few months of the lockdown meant we still had an income from guests (who were paying for their membership) allowing us to keep paying key personnel and made sure the ship was still sailing.

The other benefit to practice owners of having a membership option in place allows you to implement a price increase without alienating your existing customers by offering them a reduced membership price (this may be same price they were always paying prior to your price increase). We also created a legacy price for the longer-standing members of our wellness community. It’s a common fear for service business owners that raising prices will scare customers away, however, you’d have to lose 20% of your entire patient list for a 10% price increase to not be worth it and from experience, we can tell you that this is highly unlikely.

Additionally, if you position the price increase correctly then you won’t lose many, if any of your guests. Unfortunately, many of the chiropractors we speak to do not have a membership program with a set guest journey in place and this could be “that thing” that’s been holding you back from maintaining your COVID-19 business continuity.

Pre-booking and pre-paying strategies

Several years ago the center was doing really well, we were seeing hundreds of guests a week, and the chiropractor’s diaries were packed. But we had two issues:

1) Our patients couldn’t find time to book in with us, and;
2) The front desk was becoming overwhelmed.

We found that we had hit a proverbial glass ceiling. Our team felt as though they had reached capacity and couldn’t see any more guests. This was until we decided to introduce another payment structure that not only solved our problems but has allowed us to have record-breaking months consecutively over the last five years.

We implemented pre-booking and pre-paying strategies, and if this is something your practice isn’t already doing, please consider it. Introducing a system where guests have to pre-book and pre-pay for their appointments in advance means that they are guaranteed their ideal appointment times each week for their adjustments; the front desk is no longer bogged down with people booking one appointment at a time.

It has also meant that we had far fewer people not showing up for their appointments or cancelling as they had already financially committed to the appointment and thus saved the front desk a lot of time in chasing guests.

Taking on business coaching

To get to where we are now, having a practice that runs itself and having reached our own personal financial freedom goal, has not been a direct or smooth road. But one of the life changers that has sped-up our path to success has been working with coaches.

Over the years we have worked with a number of business and life coaches that have listened to our issues and have asked us the right questions which has allowed us to solve the never-ending hurdles you encounter running a business.

Not only have they led us in the right direction, but they have shared their experiences of failure to give us a better chance at success. After being contacted over the years by chiropractors wanting our help, we now use our years of experience (both of failure and success) to help other chiropractic practice owners reach their goals and become happier and more fulfilled.

In the time that we have been working with fellow business owners, we have already seen dramatic spiritual, mindset and economic improvements (such as tripling weekly income and tripling membership numbers) as they reposition themselves for success and COVID-19 business continuity. Definitely consider working with a coach, however successful you are, as eyes outside of the business can see problems you may not have even considered.

Survive COVID and thrive

So, if you want to not only survive COVID but thrive in spite of it, then implement everything we’ve mentioned and we can guarantee you’ll see amazing results.

Through marketing, membership plans, pre-paying and pre-booking and working with coaches, we have taken our business to new heights — care to join us?

WENDY DAVIS, DC, and ALICIA LEONTIEFF, DC, are published authors, chiropractors and business owners who have been running Bury Chiropractic (burychiro.co.uk) for almost 14 years, aligning spines and changing lives in the heart of Bury, Greater Manchester. From starting out on their own, they now have a team of over 20 people and are projected to turnover seven figures this coming year alone. They now spend their time managing the business and coaching other chiropractic and health centers by providing them with the tools they need to succeed. If you’re interested in a free discovery call with Wendy and Alicia, visit leontieffanddavis.co.uk or email info@burychiro.co.uk (book soon as spaces are limited).