We, as chiropractors, should begin or continue our thinking process into as many natural healing avenues, so that we can become known as the natural healing source in our communities. We should be known as the “go to guy” when a patient or community member has any question concerning what he or she has been diagnosed with. We should be the primary physician when it comes to treating all types of health related situations through the usage of natural techniques and nutritional materials.
You are sitting on a gold mine of an untapped profit center in your office. Let me give to you a simple example. You walk into your favorite grocery store and look around. Every available space on every aisle is filled with food and related products that make money for the grocer. Your local grocery store is filled with hundreds of individual profit centers all under one roof.
Look around your office. Do you have available space to open a new profit center in your office—a profit center that could and will help every patient that comes through your clinic doors? Of course you do. I began years ago bringing in a nutritional profit center, just by putting up three shelves over the CA’s desk. Now, we have shelves everywhere ,with hundreds of products that we sell to our patients as well as through our website. My rationale for bringing a nutritional profit center into my office was the following: Every patient that walks into my office has other health concerns besides spinal problems: allergies/high blood pressure/diabetes/hormone imbalances/overweight/stress/thyroid, just to name a few problems. And there are many more. With your in-house nutritional center, you can offer sound nutritional foundations and formulations for all these health problems.
What an in-house nutritional center can do for you
Here are various reasons why each and every chiropractor should consider adding an in-house nutritional center in their office. Remember, all that it will take is a few shelves and nutritional supplements:
• Expand Your Services to Each and Every Patient
• Show the Patient that Their Doctor Has the Finest Nutritional Products on the Market Today
• Sending Patients to the Health Food Store Gives Extra Revenue to the Store, Not to the Doctor
• Sending Patients to the Health Food Store Ends in Noncompliance on the Part of the Patient. They May Even Pick up the Wrong Product
• Adds an Additional Revenue Stream to Your Practice.
• Capitalizes on The Wellness Boom by Positioning Your Chiropractic Practice as the Community Wellness Center
• You Can Private Label Your Nutritional Products, so that Your Patients Will Recommend Your Products to Others
• Retains Your Patients Longer. They Will Come Back to Purchase Professional Branded Products Not Available to the General Public.
The most simplistic way to begin to bring a nutritional center into your office is doing what I did about 15 years ago. I began to offer to my patients the most basic of nutritional product—the Multiple Vitamin. I can guarantee you that almost every patient and person that you see is taking a multiple vitamin. My question to you is, did they get this vitamin supplement from you? It can be that easy. After finding success with a multiple vitamin you can begin to bring into your practice common popular nutritional products. These could include an emulsified Vitamin D, an All Natural Vitamin C, a Joint Repair Formula to give to all your joint related cases from accidents to sports injuries, a CoQ10 for cardiac health, a fish oil supplement, a cholesterol lowering supplement and many more. Start slow; learn more and then bring more into your nutritional profit center. A few months after the success that you are having, you can become more objective with your nutritional recommendations. You can begin to analyze blood tests for their nutritional deficiencies, and order saliva testing for hormonal imbalances and adrenal fatigue. You can take this profit center to any heights that you desire. Of course, we must never lose sight of our primary intention: to get our patient well. Unlike thirty years ago, when orthopedic supports and hot packs were the only extra profit center most chiropractors had, we now have an array of nutritional healing materials, as well as techniques available to us to offer to our patients.
Now you can become known as the community wellness center by bringing into your office an in-house nutritional center. A profit center for you = a healing center for your community.
by Stan Guberman, D.C.
Dr. Stan Guberman is a licensed chiropractic physician and a certified acupuncturist. He has been practicing clinical nutrition for over 30 years. He has developed many private labeled nutritional formulations used by 1000’s of chiropractors. He can be reached at 1-800-333-9942 or at his website, www.drguberman.com.