EPISODE 2 - Giving and Booking Lectures

Hello and welcome to Doctor J's 'Path to Success' podcast. Doctor James Fedich is a successful practice owner, best selling author and speaker. Listen in as he shares his secrets to a successful business, and a successful life. So now, here's Dr. J.

Hello there. Welcome to, this is our first official real episode. Episode one was a pilot to tell you a little bit about myself, about the podcast, about what I do, and about me. And this is our first real episode. So this weeks' episode, we're gonna talk about lectures. So I had a question, funny day, I had a question from a coaching client about doing lectures, and I actually had to do my own lecture today, so I thought it'd be a timely topic. This is what the podcast is gonna be about. Something that I see in my coaching, or in my practice. A daily, weekly thing that I see, that I think is gonna help you, and I'm gonna share it with you.

So this is about lectures. So one of the oldest practice billing methods about doing lectures and it's not just practice, again, it's anything you're doing. You're in any kind of small business doing lectures are a great way to build your business. So we're gonna talk about doing lectures. So there's a couple things about doing lectures. So I got a coaching question this morning about doing lectures, saying he's doing a bunch of lectures and not getting any patients. I asked about when he's doing at the end or the close. And basically he says "If you need me for anything here's my business card." So there's no wonder we're not getting a lot of patients out of that type of lecture. Correct?

So what I also had to, funny enough, had to do a lecture myself today in New Jersey, it is January 17th I believe, and we had about six inches of snow, so we had a weird day. Down at the doc, at the office, another doc was busy. Long story short I took a lecture and I don't usually do a lot of those, usually I'm sending people to the lectures, but I don't mind doing them anymore. I did a thousand lectures how to build a practice, so when I did a lecture I'm done for a while. So funny, got a coaching question about doing lectures and I had to do one myself.

So here's some stuff about lectures. So if you're doing a lecture, there's a great way to build your practice, it's a no cost or low cost way to get in, build your practice or any kind of business that you're doing. So how do we go about getting a lecture? So do we, most doctors want to talk about doing the lecture. How do we do the lecture? What are they talking about? Knee pain, back pain, they're concerned about the slides, spending six to eight hours re-doing the slides. I just had a PT today spending all this time re-doing the slides. The slides are probably the least important part of this whole lecture. The first important is getting them, and then the next important is really doing the close. So that's all we really should be worried about.

So first, how do we get the lectures? So real simple, best way is probably Chamber of Commerce for any of you guys, but we can go on Google, just check out local businesses. We're gonna google local businesses you wanna make sure they have at least 10 employees or more. And they're within 10 or 15 miles of your office, based on your geography. You know, if you're in New York City, it might be just a block or two.

But you wanna be sure they're local, and 10 or 15 people. If you can find out about their insurance, great. That's not always easy to do. I know some people recommend that, but depending on where you are in your practice, you get out there and do that. Even us, we have a very big practice, one of the biggest in the state. We're still out doing there.

So anyways, we're gonna call these places up and say "I'm Mr. Smith from Smith Family Chiropractic." We talk about this a little bit in the coaching call the other day. But we don't necessarily want to say Smith Family Chiropractic. So for my previous example is Village Family Clinic is the name of my office. But our actually legal name is Village Family Chiropractic. When I started the place, that's how I incorporated. As we spread to PT, acupuncture, we dropped the chiropracting and called it clinic. But legally it's still chiropractic. I mean just because our sign out front says Clinic, all our paperwork says clinic. It's a DBA, Doing Business As, all of our paperwork says Village Family Clinic and when you call you say Village Family Clinic, cause we're not just chiropractic anymore. And unfortunately 60 to 70 percent of people have a stigma against chiropractors.

So we can avoid that by changing our name. So something to think about, if your name is Smith Family Chiropractic, Smith Family Clinic, Smith Family Wellness Center. Even if you don't change your sign on the door, for getting business, businesses let you come in instead of seeing your chiropractor Smith Family Wellness Center. Is probably a better deal. I know there's philosophical debates on that, but we're not gonna get into that.

The same might be true of physical therapy, acupuncture. Other people I coach with acupuncture and PT's as well, same thing. Jones Family Physical Therapy or Acupuncture Center, we just call it a wellness center, or health center, or Clinic is gonna be a little bit easier to get in the door. But that's a whole other conversation as well. But we're just gonna call up and say "Jones Family Wellness Center. We do community outreach in the local area as part of giving back and making a healthier community. We have several health topics that we do." You may wanna have a list right there, so just have one associates get. "We have a list of our health topics, there's five or six of the topics that we do. We have only set aside a number of appointments for these, per month. We have a set schedule that we only do a couple of these per month. We're wanting to call and see if you want to get on our schedule for a free community wellness lecture next month." Something like that would be your schedule.

Nowadays you can do the same via email. You do wanna have some scarcity in there, so you wanna say "We only have so many per month." Another twist on this that we've done, we've found it's better to call it a Lunch and Learn, and offer to bring them free lunch. I'm certainly not the only one to talk about this, but again, it's somebody doing it in the field. I'm in doing it today. We actually had a lecture every day this week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I think every day so far this week we have a talk. But, so doing a Lunch and Learn is gonna be a little easier to get in the door. "So we offer a few community lunch and learns. We'll come in and bring you and your staff a free, delicious lunch and do a community wellness workshop for you at that time. It takes about a half hour, we'll bring you free lunch. We only have a couple of slots of these per month, would you be interested in setting one up this month or next month?" Monday or Tuesday the deal will close that you guys should all know.

So that's really it. It's very easy to set them up and most of you don't need help doing that. I mean some of you do, but maybe you don't. And then we're gonna go onto the topic. So just get a couple good topics out there. Ergonomics is easy. Stress, headaches, sleeping. All that kind of stuff. Don't get to crazy. People don't wanna get to detailed. But you wanna do stress, health, sleep, et cetera. So then once we get the topic in you're gonna set it on up. Again, I do like lunch, just spending 25 ... The one I did today, we brought a couple pizzas and garlic bread. It was 26 dollars for the luncheon. I think it's a good, get your foot in the door, but again, you're right out of school that's fine, don't do it. But that is how we're gonna get into there.

So we're gonna do the talk, the lecture. Get a computer, it's worth investing in one of those projectors for a couple hundred dollars, and a screen if your gonna be doing these. But again your just starting out, just do it on your computer without the projector and then buy the projector, buy the screen. You do the lecture, the slides aren't that important, honestly. You know, that's where everybody gets hung up. Make a decent information that people want to know that you know what the heck your talking about. Hopefully you do. Read the slides, make sure and engage with the audience. You wanna look up. One of my associates did one, I have my staff film them sometimes, and he filmed it and he was looking at the computer screen way too much. We had to talk. Look down, look at the slides, and then make sure you look up and engage the audience. But you can go up there and read the slides and if they're somewhat decent, the people are gonna know you know what you're talking about. You're in their business. You bought them lunch.

There's also a reciprocal, natural tendency to give to someone who gave you back. So you gave them lunch, they kinda feel like they owe you one. So that's a good thing as well. So there's some reciprocal stuff there. Read Dr.Chow [Dih's 00:06:49] books on that. But anyway. So your gonna give em the talk, that's not that important, except know what your talking about. Read through it a couple times, make sure you don't stumble up. But engage with the audience and then, most important is gonna be the close.

The last slide on all of our slides is pretty much a picture of a box, a gift box, and it'll say "Our gift to you." And the close is really simple. Here's what your gonna say, "This special gift to you, as part of this community outreach program, we set aside this few number of complimentary health passes. We're gonna give you a free exam and consultation with one of our doctors or therapists, acupuncturists." Whatever you want to say. "During this consultation we'll spend 15 minutes with you, one on one, in a closed room with one of our doctors or therapists. Discuss any and all of your health problems that your having. See if there might be something we might be able to help you out with. If we do an examination it will include XYZ, depending on what health provider you are." You know, examinations, x rays, I don't actually recommended that, but anyways.

"Do an examination, we'll find out if your having any problems that we may be able to help you out with. If you have a problem we can help you out with, we'll let you know. If you don't, we may be able to find you somebody who can. Normally this examination compensation is 100 dollars, 150, 200, whatever it is. But as part of our community outreach we've set aside just this small number of these to do absolutely free. The only catch is you have to sign up for tonight." Or today, whatever your doing. "Set aside a small number of these appointments, and they will fill up. We have less than we have attendees and I've only set aside a small number of these. So you need to sign up today to get that free. If you don't want to do that, and you want to call us down the road, of course we'd love to see you. But it won't be offered for that free exam."

"Part of that free exam, we offer a complimentary benefits' analysis. You come in and we'll see if your insurance, if your going through insurance, what will be covered or not covered via your insurance. If you incur any charges at all. So if you come in for our free consult our billing staff will check into your insurance company, see what kind of insurance coverage you have, so if you decide to get for other treatment if it's necessary. So book that today. I'll be in the back after this." Or if you bring a staff it's even better. And then you just want to set aside less appointments than are there. So you get a little Excel spreadsheet, block a couple of slots that you know are available or you're gonna have that if your doing them by yourself. Staff members are nice, if you have someone in the back, you know, "John will be in the back to take the appointments in the back." But do it yourself, I've done it too. And go from there. And that's about it.

And that's the closing. Make the appointments. Give them an appointment reminder. I also like giving them a intake form. It's a little more of a commitment device, so they're committed to the appointment a little bit more. As well as it's just something to give them and they'll remind you and all that stuff. So give them an appointment card.

The other important thing is these people need to be pre-called. So they need to be called the night before. You also only wanna make those appointments for the next five or six days. So your not making an appointment two weeks out. So it's only good for the next week to be a complimentary consultation. Otherwise, you can make an appointment down the road and just normal charges will apply. So you wanna make the next five days, the sooner the better. And make it as soon as possible. Get that, and make sure the staff are calling them the night before to remind them.

There's gonna be high likelihood of not showing up. You gotta realize that's the game too. So it's really about numbers. So your gonna make 10 of these, seven show up, four convert or something like that. Your numbers are all gonna be different depending on how good you are and all this kind of deal. But they're not all gonna show and they're not all gonna come in, but that's okay. You're gonna get four new ones. 1500, 2000 a pop, whatever your numbers are. So we're gonna play a numbers game there.

So that's real brief on how to get lectures. So this is the close. It costs you nothing, or 25 bucks for lunch. Get these Lunch and Learns going, or just the community outreach. All it is is that script to book em. And the script to close em. That's all you need to do. The slides are very unimportant. If your a coaching client, we have slides in the system. If not, I'm sure you have something out there, or email us for more information. So hopefully that's a little bit of tips on how to do lectures. An old practice building tip, still works today, you can get a couple of people every lecture and it's a good way to build it without spending a lot of money. And you can get it started today. So hopefully this helps on how to book lectures.

Thanks of listening to Dr. J's Path to success podcast. Make sure to subscribe on iTunes and leave us a review. For information please visit doctorjamesfedich.com. Dr. James R. Fedich, Clinic Director at Village Family Clinic. His book "Secrets of a Million Dollar Clinic" is available on amazon and online at hackettstownfamilyclinic.com or www.drjamesfedich.com.