Maybe you’ve been wanting to add a line of nutrition products to your practice for a while and have been struggling with how to do it: what products to carry, how many, what brand and so forth. Or, maybe you have already added supplements to your practice but they just sit on a shelf, with nary a bottle purchased by your patients. Either way, let’s explore how to effectively add a nutritional line to your practice, or jump start the program you currently have started.

Getting started…the right way!

If you have started a nutrition product line in your practice, and it hasn’t been successful up to this point, maybe things started on the wrong foot to begin with. We did telephone surveys of our most successful health care professionals who carried products and found some strong similarities amongst those who were moving the most products. One of the strongest, most prevalent similarities amongst the highest volume retailers was that the entire staff believed passionately in the product line. If you merely buy a product line and throw it up on a shelf, and your staff doesn’t know about the product, much less, believe in it, the stuff is going to just sit there. That is absolutely NOT going to be successful.

So how SHOULD we start (or start over)?

Start off with research. Talk to people. Talk to people who you trust (mentors) and see what products that they believe in. Read the trade magazines, surf the web – ask around at trade shows, etc. Find the right product line for you – what do you passionately believe in?

You found your match…now what?

After you have decided on what nutrition is best for you, introduce the product to your staff. This isn’t a one-time date; your staff needs to know your chosen product immediately. If you have to, on your dime, give your staff the product, so they can give it to a family member who may have an ailment that the product could relieve. We often hear our top customers CA’s say things like “Oh, my grandmother takes this and it has cleared her up ‘X’,” or “Since my brother started taking this, he no longer suffers from ‘XYZ’.” The bottom line is that when your staff are walking, talking testimonials, the excitement spreads and bottles will move off the shelf. And in the meantime, your practice is spreading a deeper, richer level of wellness! And isn’t that why most of us got into the profession in the first place?

The polar opposite:

When we called customers who had not ordered and asked why they stopped being a customer, the most often hard response was something along the lines of, “We didn’t stop being your customer; we still have a few bottles sitting on the shelf, so we had no reason to order anymore.” The reason bottles were still “sitting on the shelf” was because none of the staff were exposed to the product’s benefits and none of their family members had been enjoying the positive life enhancing effects. Even if YOU are a believer of the nutrition you carry, but don’t have a staff that shares your understanding, the bottles won’t “jump down” off the shelf and introduce themselves to your patients.

The “I’m not a salesman” complex:

A recent survey within the Chiropractic marketplace queried, “Do you bring up a product you believe in to a patient when its use is applicable to the patients needs?” Guess what percentage of the doctor’s polled mentioned the actual product? 20 percent. 20. That means that 80 percent of the time the doctor does not suggest using a product, even when they believe in the product. Why? The majority of the time, the response is “I’m not a salesman; I am a healer.” That’s well and good, but proper nutrition is vital to a person’s over-all health and wellness. Keeping a valuable supplement a secret isn’t doing anyone a favor. And, keep in mind, an MD makes “sales” all day long. It’s called “writing a prescription,” and no one has any problem with that (even though, considering the scary news on some of the drugs these days, they probably should!).

Reference:

Drucker, R. A. (2008, July). Adding Nutrition To Your Practice - Or Jumpstarting Your Current Supplement Program. D.C. Product Review, 8(7), 42-45.


A Word From Chiropractor’s Choice

This inspired us to take a poll of our own chiropractors who are doing extraordinarily well with retailing and referring this product to their patients and their colleagues. The majority of the chiropractors agreed with the philosophy this article presents and even gave us a few pointers on how they integrated some of these tips into their practice. They stated that they give incentives to their CA’s to help them promote Chiropractor’s Choice to their patients in addition to giving them a bottle to try. The most popular incentive was cash. But other incentives emerged like gas cards, restaurant gift certificates, and lunch on the doc! It was unanimous though, that getting the CA’s involved and actively participating in promoting Chiropractor’s Choice was the key to moving large volumes and reaping the benefits from it.

Call us with any questions or comments.

Sincerely,
Chiropractor’s Choice