Are you a great chiropractor… but frustrated by inconsistent new patients or marketing that feels uncomfortable? In this episode of The Chiropractic Deep Dive, we break down the Six Pack Marketing Solution — a simple, structured system of 3 internal and 3 external strategies that stabilize and grow your practice without burnout. You’ll learn how to: - Stop “winging” your marketing - Increase referrals at the right time - Use support groups and events for massive conversions - Improve efficiency to handle more volume without stress If you want predictable growth instead of panic marketing, this episode is your blueprint.
Brilliant chiropractors…
No marketing system.
Result?
Your practice must:
Profit isn’t greed. It’s fuel.
You need 6 strategies running at all times.
3 internal. 3 external. No guessing.
Get personalized guidance from Dr. George Birnbach at Five Star Management.
👉 https://myfivestar.com/work-with-us/
Attend our 2-day event, Too Many New Patients, and learn how to generate and handle high patient volume without breaking your systems.
👉 https://myfivestar.com/in-person-seminar/
If this episode gave you clarity, hit subscribe and leave a review.
Your six pack starts now.
Note: This episode was produced using AI-generated voices to deliver key insights from Five Star Management teachings in a clear and engaging format.
Welcome back to the Chiropractic Deep Dive, a special edition of the Successful Chiro Podcast. Yeah, this is where we really open up the vault. Take the absolute best information from, you know, the world of chiropractic success, and just distill it down into actionable gold. For you, for you. I'm your host and I am, uh, I'm ready to unpack some serious practice building strategies today, and I'm here to help connect the dots, look at the systems behind that success.
It's great to be here. It is, you know, usually we're talking about the clinical side or, um, the philosophy, but today, today's about the engine. Yes. It's the machine that keeps the practice running so you can actually do the work you love. Exactly. And just to set the stage before we dive in, this Deep Dive is brought to you by Five Star Management.
That's us. We're all about helping chiropractors like you build the practice of your dreams without. You know the nightmare of burnout. We've seen the struggle firsthand, haven't we? We see it every single day. I mean, it's the classic paradox of our profession. It really is. You have these incredibly talented doctors.
They spend years in school mastering anatomy, adjusting techniques, diagnosis. They have magic hands, right? But they open their doors. Yeah. And there is just this massive gap in their curriculum, a huge gap. Nobody taught them how to fill the waiting room. It's that technician versus entrepreneur dilemma.
Mm-hmm. You know how to fix the subluxation, but you don't know how to fix the empty appointment book without feeling like. I don't know. Like you're compromising your ethics. That's the fear. That is the fear. The fear of sounding like a used car salesman. Totally. So you have doctors who are amazing clinicians, but they're stressed about overhead.
They're worried about where the next new patient's coming from, and honestly, they just feel stuck. They're working hard, but the practice, it isn't growing. And that brings us to our source material for today. We have exclusive access to a high level Mastermind Zoom call, led by the founder of Five Star Management, Dr.
Noel Lloyd. And this wasn't a lecture, you know, or a seminar. This was a gathering of some of the most successful chiropractors in the country sharing exactly what is working for them right now. And the topic on the table was the six pack marketing solution. And before you asked, no, we're not talking about doing crunches between adjustments to get abs of steel, though, that would be impressive for patient retention.
I'm just saying. It would, but no, this is about a marketing structure. Dr. Noel Lloyd's mission in the session was really specific. Yeah. How do we help more people with less work? How do we stop guessing and start using a system that stabilizes and, uh, expands the practice, help more people with less work?
I mean, that is the dream, isn't it? It is. But to get there, Dr. Lloyd started the call by laying down a foundational mindset shift. He calls it the trifold objective. I love this concept. It just simplifies everything. Let's break that down. Okay. So it's the lens through which you have to view your entire career.
Yeah. Goal number one is, well, it's obvious. Help people. Help as many people as your heart desires and your technique allows. That's the why. That's why you went to chiropractic college, right? If you aren't helping people, you aren't a doctor. Exactly. But you can't stop there. Goal number two, have fun. Yes.
Practice shouldn't be a grind that gives you ulcers. It should be enjoyable. You should look forward to Monday morning. Absolutely. And then there's goal number three, which is where a lot of chiropractors get squeamish. Make money. Yeah. Let's pause there because there is this weird cultural guilt in healthcare.
About profitability. It, it feels, I don't know, dirty to some practitioners to say they wanna be wealthy. Dr. Lloyd tackles that head on. I mean, he argues that if you're broke, you can't help anyone. Good point. You need profit to get out of debt, to pay your staff a living wage so they stay with you to support your family and to reinvest in the community.
He actually framed this in the context of Associateships too. Oh, that's right. He talks about treating an associateship like a postdoc fellowship and success. I really like that framing. It changes the whole dynamic. It's not just a job. The goal for an associate should be to sprint to a bonus to hit those financial targets, like a hundred thousand dollars in income by mastering marketing early.
Right. It's about proving competence, not just greed. Exactly. But knowing you need to market and actually doing it are two different things. It's so different. Dr. Lloyd asked the group, why do chiropractors struggle with marketing? And the answers were pretty revealing. They really were. It came down to a few mental blocks.
The biggest one, the salesman stigma. I hear that all the time. I'm a doctor, not a salesperson all the time. One of the participants mentioned that marketing feels like you're selling yourself, and that feels counterintuitive to being a doctor. It feels like you're lowering your status. Mm-hmm. And Dr.
Lloyd's counter argument is brilliant, he says, everybody is a salesperson. Right? Parents sell their kids on eating vegetables or doing homework. Kids sell their parents on staying up late or getting ice cream, uhhuh. That's true. It's not about manipulation. It's about effective communication. If you believe you have the solution to someone's pain, if you believe chiropractic can save them from surgery or addiction to painkillers, you have a moral obligation to sell them on
the idea of getting help that reframes it completely. It's about advocacy, not trickery. That's the word. If you don't sell them on health. Someone else is selling them on sickness precisely. Once you accept that selling is just advocacy, the fear of rejection, what they call confrontational tolerance starts to fade.
You stop worrying about ROI, anxiety and the cost of ads, but to really remove the fear. You need a system, you need a safety net, and that is the six pack. Okay, let's get into the meat of it. What exactly is the six pack? It's really a diversification strategy. You never wanna put all your eggs in one basket.
Makes sense. The definition is simple. You need three solid internal marketing strategies and three solid external marketing strategies running at the same time. Running simultaneously. That's your six pack. So three things happening inside the four walls of your office with your existing patients. Yeah.
And three things happening out in the community to bring strangers in. Correct. And the beauty of this is adaptability. Hmm. You rely on your top producers. If one strategy starts to lag, say your spinal screenings aren't pulling in the numbers this month because of the weather, you swap it out. You swap it out for a new one.
You're constantly refining the pack, but the number stays at six. You never stop marketing. You just change the play. Dr. Lloyd used a great analogy during the call. He compared the practice to a boat pulling a float. I loved that visual. Imagine a speed boat pulling a tube, right? Okay. The boat is your marketing system.
When you drive the boat and make a sharp turn, the boat moves efficiently, but that float, it whips around incredibly fast with huge momentum. I see. When you have a strong marketing system, that's the boat turning. The practice road is the float. It gains momentum. It's exciting, and it's a fun ride. It shouldn't be stressful.
It should be a thrill. So let's build our own six pack right now based on what these successful doctors shared on the call. Let's start with the external strategies getting out of the office. What's working right now. Okay. One of the heavy hitters discussed was massage events. Everybody loves a free massage.
Mm-hmm. But how do you do it without just. You know, giving away free labor context is everything one participant mentioned specifically targeting schools during teacher appreciation week, or corporations, right? There was an example of a doctor who set up 10 slots at a local company. They filled up instantly.
It was so popular they had to bring a second chair and a second therapist just to handle the volume. That is a very good problem to have. It is, but here's the bottleneck, Dr. Lloyd identified. You can't always be the one setting these up, especially if you're the doctor treating patients. True. That's where the COA comes in the community outreach assistant.
And this is a specific staff role, right? Not just the front desk ca crucial distinction. This isn't your front desk person trying to make calls in between answering phones and checking people out. Right. This is a dedicated role. Their job is to bust down doors. They're contacting HR departments, banks, chambers of commerce.
One doctor on the call said their COA is just, top-notch professional, actively filling the calendar with events. So the doctor just has to show up. That's leverage. You're duplicating your time. The COA sets the spike. You just show up and hit the ball. Exactly. Now, there was a bit of a debate about spinal screenings.
I feel like I hear people say screenings are dead all the time. It feels very nineties. Dr. Lloyd and the group push back on that hard screenings aren't dead. Bad screenings are dead. Right. Standing outside a grocery store begging people to look at you is dead. But they shared a ninja tactic that I thought was genius.
Oh, I caught that too. It's about not doing the screening yourself. Right, exactly. Don't just be the screener. Be the trainer. The trainer. Go into a gym and train the personal trainers on how to spot postural distortions. Go to a school and teach the school nurse how to screen for scoliosis properly.
You're deputizing them. You are creating a referral army. You teach the school nurse what to look for and then say, if you see this deviation, send them to us for an x-ray, you're establishing yourself as the expert specialist, not just a vendor at a table that is so smart. It moves you from salesperson to consultant immediately.
Okay. What about the next external strategy? This one sounded incredibly effective for conversion. This was the niche support groups, and honestly, this is so underutilized. One participant shared a story about finding local support groups at hospitals or libraries. Mm-hmm. Groups for fibromyalgia, migraines, arthritis.
So they've already self-selected, they're organized around a specific problem, and they're desperate for speakers. They meet weekly or monthly and always need content. The stats from the call were staggering. What were they? One doctor spoke to a fibromyalgia group of 24 people. He screened 23 of them. Wow.
And 22 became active patients. 22 outta 24. That is an absurd conversion rate. It's because the trust is already there and the need is acute. I mean, if you can walk into a room of people suffering from migraines and explain the mechanism of how chiropractic helps, you aren't convincing them they have a problem.
They know they do. You're just offering a lifeline. That's all it is. That's powerful. And then of course, we have the digital side of things to round out the external pack, right? Using Facebook or Instagram videos, but specifically using them to create time. If you boost a post with a helpful stretch or a success story, that video is marketing for you at two in the morning while you're asleep.
It's working while you're treating patients. It's the only way to be in two places at once. Okay, so that's a solid external trio. Corporate events run by a COA train the trainer, screenings and niche support groups. Now, let's move inside. Dr. Lloyd talks about mining the gold you have. What are the best internal marketing strategies?
The first one is my absolute favorite because it solves a retention problem and a new patient problem at the same time. Okay. It's the spouse strategy. Walk us through this because the scripting they shared was really specific. You don't just ask, Hey, bring your wife. No, no. That's way too passive. The goal is to get the patient's spouse or significant other to attend the report of findings ROF, but you frame it as a clinical necessity.
Let's say the patient is a guy named Dave. You don't ask Dave. You tell Dave what's the script? You say, Dave, we need to schedule your report of findings. When your wife Kate can come, she needs to understand exactly what you're going through so she can support you during care. Ah, so you make it about her role in his recovery.
Exactly. And then the handoff at the front desk has to mirror that The doctor walks Dave to the front and says to the ca. I need you to schedule this for when Kate can attend. You use the name, use the name, personalize it. Now, here's the kicker. If the spouse comes to the ROF, the patient takes their care much more seriously because their partner is on board,
but then you turn to the spouse, you offer them a gift certificate. And offer them a gift certificate to get checked. It's a natural transition. Since you're here and you see how important this is, yeah, she's seen the x-ray. She understands the physiology now, and usually the spouse has seen the patient suffering and wants to avoid that same fate.
It's a very high conversion internal referral that feels completely organic. I love that it serves the patient better and grows the practice. What's next? For frictionless reviews, we all know Google reviews matter hugely, but asking for them is awkward, and patients forget the second they leave the office.
One doctor shared a tactic of putting QR codes physically inside the adjusting rooms. So while they're waiting for the doc or right after the adjustment, right, they scan it, leave the review right there on their phone while they are feeling good. And you know in the moment it removes all the friction, simple.
Efficient. Okay. This next one made me laugh because of the distinction they made the patient appreciation party, not day, not day. Huge distinction. A patient appreciation day often becomes bring your friends for free adjustments while we work like dogs for 12 hours. Burnout. Total burnout. A patient appreciation party is an event.
Burgers, pancakes, music. It's a celebration. Exactly, and the rule is no new patients get treated on the day of the party. Interesting. The party is for fun, but you market it for four weeks leading up to the event. If a patient refers a friend during those four weeks, the patient gets a gift, like a t-shirt or some swag, and the friend gets a complimentary exam before the party.
Oh, so you do the work beforehand and the party is just the victory lap. Exactly. It builds community. One doctor mentioned feeding 140 people in their parking lot. Wow. The social proof of seeing 140 to happy people eating burgers does more for your attention than any lecture you could give. And it doesn't turn your Saturday into a chaotic, free clinic.
That sounds way better than a stressful 12 hour shift. It's way better. And finally, for internal, there's systematized referrals. Hmm. We all know we should ask, but when? This is all about timing. You can't just ask whenever. Uhhuh, Dr. Lloyd and the group identified the sweet spot. Yeah, yeah. It's between visit three and visit eight.
Why that window? Why not visit one or visit 20? At visit one they're in pain and skeptical by visit 20. They're feeling great, but the miracle is faded. It's just their new normal. Oh, between visits three and eight, they're in the relief phase. The pain is dropping, the novelty of the office is high, and their enthusiasm is at its peak.
That is when they're most likely to tell a friend. You have to strike while the iron is hot. That's it. That makes total sense. So we have our six pack, three external, three internal, right. But having a list of ideas isn't enough. You actually have to do them. This leads us to implementation, right? Dr. Lloyd threw out a challenge to the group.
He did. He called it the 36 changes challenge. He wants you to show up to the Mastermind 36 times and make 36 small changes. It's about consistency. Isn't that an overhaul? It's not an overhaul. Overnight, you tweak the spouse script today, you add the QR code next week, you hire the COA next month, it compounds.
The results from the participants were pretty wild. We heard about some serious record breaking numbers. We did. We heard from a doctor who had his busiest month in 25 years of practice, 25 years. We heard from another who went from 105 visits a week to 146. That's a 40% increase just by fixing efficiency.
There was a specific efficiency tip that caught my ear. It sounded so small, but obviously it adds up when you're dealing with that kind of volume. It's the ready on the table protocol. Okay. In most offices, the doctor walks into the room, waits for the patient to put their phone down, stand up, walk to the table, and lie down.
That eats up what? 45 to 60 seconds per visit, which doesn't seem like much until you multiply it by 150 patients. Exactly. You're losing two hours a week just watching people sit down. The ready on the table protocol means the staff ensures the patient is already lying down, face down, and ready for the adjustment before the doctor walks in, and that saves maybe 30 seconds, a patient, maybe more, but multiply that across the week.
You just bought yourself hours of time. That's how you handle volume without stress. That's the mastermind effect. It is, hearing these tiny tweaks that have massive impacts. It really reinforces that idea of stabilize, streamline, expand. You streamline the flow so you can expand the volume, and that ties right back to the boat analogy.
If the boat is streamlined, it cuts through the water. If you're dragging an anchor of inefficiency, you can't pull the float. So let's bring this all home. What does this mean for the chiropractor listening right now? It means you need to stop winging it. Marketing shouldn't be something you do when you panic because the schedule's empty, right?
It needs to be a system. A six pack, three internal, three external running all the time. If you do that, you stabilize the business. You help way more people, and yes, you make the money you deserve and you have fun doing it. That's the most important part. Now, if you are listening to this and thinking, okay, I get the concept, I want a six pack.
I don't know where to start, or I don't know if my market will respond to massage events. Yeah. We have a solution for you. We do. This Deep Dive is brought to you by Five Star Management and we're committed to your success. We wanna help you stop guessing yes, so we have a special opportunity for our listeners.
You can book a completely free call with Dr. George Birnbach. Dr. Birnbach is a master at this. He can look at your practice, look at your numbers, and tell you exactly which strategies will work for your specific situation. There's a link right in the show notes.
Don't let this be just another podcast you listen to. Take action, click the link and book that call. And if you're the type of person who likes to learn in person to feel that energy we talked about on the mastermind call, we have something huge coming up. You do. We are hosting a live two day event in Chicago, Illinois, and it's appropriately titled Too many new patients, too many new patients.
That is the kind of problem I want to have. It's a great problem, but it is a problem if you aren't ready for it. This event is gonna be a deep dive into all these systems, how to generate the volume, and crucially how to handle it so you don't break. The link for that. Chicago event is also in the show notes.
If you wanna be in a room with winners like the ones we heard from on Dr. Lloyd's call, right? Get yourself to Chicago. Absolutely. The energy at these events is transformative. So check the show notes for the free call with Dr. Birnbach and the ticket link for the too many new patients event in Chicago.
And finally, if you enjoyed this deep dive, please hit that subscribe button. We have so many more insights to share to help you build the practice and the life you want. Go build your six pack everyone. Stabilization and expansion are just around the corner. Thanks for listening to the Successful Chiro Podcasts
deep Dive. See you next time.