Ideas Gleaned from Dr. Thurman Fleet’s Writings on Chiropractic Salesmanship
Ideas Gleaned from Dr. Thurman Fleet’s Writings on Chiropractic Salesmanship
EVERY CHIROPRACTIC MARKETING plan begins with the same question: What are you selling?
The answer, according to most marketing platforms, usually varies. Are you opening a new office? Have you acquired an esteemed associate? Does your technique stand far above the rest?
Have you adopted new therapies? Does your practice provide exclusive products and services that today’s informed patient base is requesting?
Though your answers may seem important as you focus on procuring new patients, those are secondary details that support your true purpose as a chiropractor — healing the patient who comes to you for care. It is a maxim that we cannot sell what we do not possess. Therefore, we must lean in and examine whether we are offering our product (chiropractic) in the truest sense of the word.
Your own deeply held concepts about chiropractic will determine whether your marketing attracts patients who stay, pay, get well, and refer others, or merely produces a short parade of symptom-chasing bargain hunters knocking on your door. Some doctors expect objections to their fees or even the type of care provided. They may blame a lack of success on location, the economy, or the “competition.” These concepts will derail the most carefully prepared marketing plan because the patient will get the idea that the doctor does not believe they can provide a superior healing outcome.
Dr. Thurman Fleet wrote, “If you hold any of these types of feelings to any degree, you can easily get those negative ideas out of your system. But if left unattended, these concepts will haunt you and impede your success in attracting quality patients throughout your career.”1
Perhaps we have been asking ourselves the wrong questions, both in marketing and from a philosophical perspective. Instead, we might ask: Where is the resistance? In what area do I need a breakthrough as a healer?
Let’s consider a basic acronym attributed to B.J. Palmer that summarizes the philosophy of chiropractic — above, down, inside, out (ADIO). This principle states that healing power originates from Universal Intelligence. Next, it is translated into Innate Intelligence in the subjective human expression of the doctor. Finally, it is transferred to the patient’s Innate through the adjustment, culminating in the healing result.
“So what concepts are we vibrating or “selling” to our patients? Concepts of health, or dis-ease?
Few doctors understand how this “basic principle” functions. Without understanding, there is only faith, and imperfect faith produces imperfect results.
In Dr. Fleet’s Suggestive Therapy®, he wrote, “That is quite a concept for us to get in our mind as far as even the doctor is concerned. The Innate Power has all the power, all the knowledge, is everywhere present, and what we get within our consciousness becomes us. We vibrate the idea, the concept, to the subconscious of the patient. The patient picks it up, and it becomes in their body accordingly.”2
So what concepts are we vibrating or “selling” to our patients? Concepts of health, or dis-ease? Concepts of faith in our ability to heal or fear that the patient will be dissatisfied with our level of care?
The reality is that savvy marketing doesn’t generate patients who will profess a lifetime of faith in your healing skills, although that may be necessary to get prospective patients into the office for a first visit. The most effective way to develop a loyal patient base is to develop who you are, which naturally enhances the positive doctor-patient relationship.
Dr. Fleet described this as the “Composite Personality®,” a core tenet of his comprehensive teaching known as Concept-Therapy1, which describes in detail the vibratory state of resonance that facilitates the transfer of the healing concept between doctor and patient — Innate to Innate.
“Regardless of your age or years in practice, as the doctor grows, so grows the practice.”
Most of the old-time docs had incredible patient results because of their passion, their innate understanding, and their love for chiropractic. They innately used the Composite Personality^.
Regardless of your age or years in practice, as the doctor grows, so grows the practice. It is a fact of nature that what is not growing is dying — there is no stasis.
Chiropractic is more than a profession; it is a calling. It is a passion that fills the doctor with faith, hope, and aspiration that creates a well of living waters that never run dry within the soul when the Educated Mind and the Innate become engaged in the service of healing lives.
If this is not your current experience, then you may want to ask yourself the tough questions and search for answers that can lead you to achieve your breakthrough as a healer in the chiropractic field.
If your philosophy affirms a belief that the growth of your chiropractic practice benefits from a consistent inner development that promotes health, happiness, success, and peace as a unit, both in your personal and professional life, then perchance you have heard that calling.
B.J. Palmer may have had the best marketing advice of all time when he said, “Go ye and find yourself and help the helpless multitudes find within themselves that great balm that, which it alone, gets them well.”3
Get the “big idea”? If so, you may have just become the most powerful marketing tool for your practice and the art, science, and philosophy of chiropractic. An ailing world awaits your answer!
Mary Connors is a second-generation doctor of chiropractic (DC) with a passionate family who experienced, believed, and witnessed the power of chiropractic. When cancer reared its ugly head, taking the life of her DC uncle and causing the death of her mother at the tender age of thirteen, she asked many questions, pondering why chiropractic didn’t save them. What went wrong? Why did they die? She entered Palmer at age 21, graduated in 1984, and has enjoyed practicing for 40 years. She currently serves on the Massachusetts Board of Registration and is an active member of TLC coaching. Mary is a Concept-Therapy Instructor Her website is ConnorsChiropractic.com.
1. Fleet T. Chiropractic salesmanship and business building of Concept-Therapy. Concept-Therapy Institute. 1945.
2. Fleet T. Suggestive Therapy. Concept-Therapy Institute. 1965.
3. Palmer BJ. The bigness of the fellow within (Vol. XXII). Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic. 1978.
