Right off the heels of the most successful ProAdjuster National Symposium ever, The American Chiropractor magazine’s Editorial Board Member, Dr. Frank Corbo, had the opportunity to sit down with ProAdjuster President and CEO, Dr. Maurice A. Pisciottano. The testimonials were still pouring in from the May National, one of two annual ProAdjuster Business Symposiums, and it is being described as an event few in the chiropractic industry have ever experienced before.
In fact, those in attendance knew they were witnessing something very special and, quite possibly, something that may never happen again. For the first time ever, Zig Ziglar and Jay Abraham shared the stage as they delivered their messages of motivation and inspiration that will certainly leave a profound impact on the doctors, their families and staff.
Zig’s message, those words that many of us have heard on 8-tracks, cassettes and CD’s in the past, were brought to life as he incorporated concepts from his new best selling book, Better than Good. Zig also shared his personal testimony about chiropractic, and how it changed his life from a young child and throughout his career. He challenged those attending to sharpen their skills, continually grow in their interpersonal communication and to never give up, because there is a hurting world that needs our care. It was, indeed, vintage Zig.
“There may never be another time that we have the opportunity to share such intimate time with a man that has, literally, shaped and impacted the lives of millions of people the world over. I wanted to give those that attended a gift that they would remember for a lifetime,” said Dr. Pisciottano.
This statement encapsulates the man behind the ProAdjuster, and it is commonplace for those of us in the profession that have had the wonderful opportunity to know him on a much deeper level. You will come to find that he is one of the most generous people in our industry.
In an interview with The American Chiropractor (TAC), Dr. Pisciottano discusses the philosophy behind ProAdjuster.
TAC: Dr. Moe, the ProAdjuster is growing at an unprecedented rate. What has lead to such success in your company?
Pisciottano: Every successful company, every successful chiropractic clinic, is a unique blend of its products and its people. ProSolutions is no different. Regarding our products, we are relentless in the pursuit of excellence. For example, when we were researching to find the perfect ProAdjuster piezoelectric sensor head, we went through over 2,000 versions before we developed it! It was a grueling and, I might add, a tremendously expensive process. The results, well, they speak for themselves.
Regarding people, the pursuit is no different; I am always on the lookout for bringing great people into our organization. In one of my favorite books, Good to Great, best selling author Jim Collins says this: “Get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus, and then decide where you’re going to drive the bus.”
I couldn’t agree more with this statement. You see, if the truth be told, I’m not the smartest guy in our profession, I just make it my business to hire the smartest people, and that is what makes our company great.
For example, take a look at the relationships we have developed in the profession. We bring in the best of the best. For instance, the foot scanner in our ProAdjuster chair is made by Foot Levelers, one of the most well known and respected companies in the chiropractic profession. We would be crazy to make our own orthotics when they have been making them for 50 years.
The same is true about our nutritional supplements. We’ve contracted Douglas Labs to develop ours.
We also recommend that every one of our clients have a coach, and we have selected The Masters Circle as the consulting arm for our company.
These are all top-notch industry leading companies. You see, another great tip to doing business well is to create and maintain strong relationships within the industry. We have been extraordinarily fortunate to have many friends in chiropractic.
A key ingredient that I will never forget that I have learned from Dale Carnegie’s work is this: “I would rather have 1% of 100 people, than 100% of myself.” Great business comes from great people.
TAC: If you had to sum up your goal for the chiropractic profession as a whole, what would it be?
Pisciottano: Anyone that knows me or has ever seen me speak can answer that one, and it is simply this: We are determined, we are resolute, we are focused on one outcome, and that is to make chiropractic the #1 health care choice on the planet earth!
TAC: How do you intend doing that?
Pisciottano: That’s a great question. It begins and ends with one word: certainty.
You see, the biggest problem facing doctors of chiropractic today is that they have a low certainty level. They’re short on having confidence in what they do, or can do. This uncertainty leads to a whole bunch of things. For example, doctors don’t want to do workshops or lectures. They don’t want to ask for referrals. They may be a little wobbly doing their reports of findings. They have a low confront level for missed appointments; their recommendations for care are “subjectively based,” which is actually directly opposite of their own wellness mindset. The effects of low certainty impact every aspect of their practices.
Having more certainty is linked to having clear clinical objective findings. And the things that give you clear clinical findings, in 2006, are tools that use technology.
For example, take the Subluxation Station by Dr. Patrick Gentempo. For over 10 years, his unit has been one of the standards used in our profession to document pre- and post-adjustment changes with high technology.
Technology has gained acceptance because it is irrefutable. Technology is irrefutable. And the benefit of combining technology with patient care is a powerful tool. The doctors’ certainty levels soar and, as a result, so does the confidence and belief in what it is they are providing for their patients. When doctors see, for themselves, the irrefutable objective improvements in their patients, they experience an instantaneous shift in their personal paradigms that results in a certainty level in their care that transforms them. The result of their transformation is very powerful, and it has the same practice-wide impact as a low certainty level, only all the influences are positive.
To simplify this process, the doctor’s results and the technology match up; therefore, we have an interfacing of the emotional subjective response of the patient. “I feel better,” with the irrefutable technology showing very clearly, “Your nervous system is improving.”
TAC: What is the biggest problem or challenge you see in the chiropractic profession today?
Pisciottano: The biggest profession-wide challenge is that the percentage of patients and potential patients that truly understand and are willing to utilize chiropractic care is, at best, 5%. So it’s a profession wide problem, because we’re basically barking up the wrong tree, with 95% of the population being fearful of what we do. We have to change the way we serve it up to them.
There was a study done about 2 years ago that cost upwards of $120,000, and this is what it revealed regarding why an individual is reluctant to go to a chiropractor. Two things dominated the results: First, they were afraid to be twisted and turned; and, second, they didn’t know what to expect from one doctor to the next or, in other words, there was little standardization of the chiropractic experience. Therefore, the most critical thing we must do is, instead of fighting them, we have to serve it up to them. And, as a profession, we haven’t served it up. What I mean by serving it up is that we are trying to fit the patient into our model for care delivery, but we are overlooking their fears and their concerns.
TAC: Can you think of one change that a chiropractor can do to significantly impact his/her practice’s growth immediately?
Pisciottano: Simply put, research and find out what it is that people in their community want and need and serve it up to them.
TAC: Do you have any recommended marketing strategies that chiropractors can use to attract new patients and to keep current patients?
Pisciottano: The number one strategy is called educational based marketing. Educational based marketing conveys this message: “It’s only a matter of time.” It’s only a matter of time before I provide you with enough information—in the form of education—that will persuade you to consider chiropractic as an option for your health care.
This approach takes all the high pressure or “salesiness” out of the process and, as a result, both the doctor and the potential patient can relax. When doctors relax, they can think better, they can concentrate on listening to the potential patient more actively, and so on. When patients relax, they feel as though the doctor is their “health advisor,” rather than someone that is manipulating them for their own benefit. It is an essential foundational element to the doctor-patient relationship.
TAC: What type of educational based marketing tools do you recommend and utilize?
Pisciottano: We apply a principle known as the Forced Multiplier Effect to our system. This is a military term meaning we’ll attack—I’m sorry!—we’ll educate by air, by land and by sea. The result is that you will achieve a geometric multiple when using all three strategies, rather than using any one single strategy. The key to improving productivity of these tools is to aim them at producing goals in three areas: new business, business retention, and something called marginal net worth.
Marginal net worth is a term used for ethically increasing the products and/or services offered to the patient and results in an increase in the doctor’s dollar per visit average. Examples of this would be adding orthotics or nutritional supplements to the patient’s overall care.
Tools that we utilize, some of which we have created from scratch, some of which we have developed jointly with our strategic alliances, include products like the ProAdjuster Lifestyle Magazine™. Those outside our company may not realize or understand what I’m about to say, and the impact of it, but our circulation has grown in just over a year-and-a-half to 250,000 copies per issue. That’s a multiple of over five times any publication in our profession. We’ve also created and perfected a process in which ProAdjuster Lifestyle Magazine™ is mailed directly into the doctor’s community and results in their being seen as the “expert.”
We’ve also created customized television and radio commercials that reach tens of thousands of potential patients. We’ve created a top notch, turnkey patient lecture series that the doctors or their staff can use in the community.
Once in the office, patients and potential patients are proactively and systematically educated with tools such as customized in-office waiting room and consultation room DVD’s and waiting room point of purchase displays and placards for supplements, orthotics, and the first ever, customized ProAdjuster Sleep System. Along with ProAdjuster Lifestyle Magazine, we have created with Back Talk Systems a ProAdjuster series of patient education trifold brochures and magazettes that add to our education based marketing.
Dr. Rick Barrett and I have co-authored a book that is in its 3rd edition, Improve Your Life Proactively, that contains dozens of patient testimonials and, again, is just a piece of the educational puzzle communicating the mindset I discussed earlier, “It’s only a matter of time.”
Regarding patient care, on each visit, a patented and streamlined 5-step process that may take from 3-5 minutes or more, if necessary, is utilized. The visit includes a full spine pre-adjustment analysis, which leads to specific treatment; once treatment is completed, a re-analysis is made, followed by patient education using a customized software system created in alliance with the Neuropatholator. And, finally, recommendations for care are rendered.
The fundamental key to our system is that we have created a unique way of integrating each of these tools into our system. This system is non-emotional but, rather, scientific; and, as a result, it consistently produces the desired results.
TAC: What single piece of advice would you give a new chiropractor just starting out or, maybe, an established doctor that is not quite achieving the desired results?
Pisciottano: Their success will be directly related to their ability to understand where to go to acquire the knowledge and skills to become the best doctor and best businessperson they can be. This powerful combination will produce the most outrageous benefit that I have, personally, experienced hundreds and hundreds of times: complete certainty. As previously mentioned, increased certainty leads to confidence, and a confident doctor of chiropractic will forever change his/her life on every front: personally, business wise, relationally and, most importantly, that will impact his/her practice, family and world, and, in the process, leave a legacy of servant leadership that will affect his or her community for generations to come.
TAC: I was going to ask you what you see as the future of chiropractic, but I believe you just answered it.
Thank you for joining us, Dr. Moe. Before ending our interview, do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?
Pisciottano: As far as final thoughts, I would say this: There is a continuum that I call the Doubt-Certainty continuum. The more doubt a doctor has, the less impact he or she will make; the greater certainty he/she has, the greater impact he/she will make. I would challenge your readers to take a few moments and assess the areas of their lives in which they may not have the level of certainty that they would like to have. Then, decide that they are going to take the steps necessary to obtain whatever knowledge, skill or training they need to change it.
The most important thing to remember here is that we are not after perfection. Perfection has never been our goal. We will make mistakes on some decisions; that’s natural. Every successful businessman or woman does; but the goal for each and every day is to make it better than the day before.
Would it be O.K. if I offer your readers each a gift?
TAC: Absolutely. A new Hummer like you gave away in Pittsburgh?
Pisciottano: Actually, something more valuable.
TAC: By all means.
Pisciottano: At the National Symposium in May, we unveiled a program that we have been working on for over two years.It combines every aspect of what we have just been discussing, mainly that success occurs when the doctor transitions from doubt to certainty, based on clear clinical results. The program is called ProAdjuster University. A very important part of ProAdjuster University includes our ProMap for Success audio CD series. There are 26 CD’s in the series and they cover just about every challenge a DC experiences, for example, new patient consultations, collecting 100% of the office visit, time management, reactivations, handling missed appointments, networking with professionals and many more things.
Your readers can access the entire list on line at www.pro-adjuster.us/promap or they can call 877-942-4284, and ask for Jamie Blayney at extension 109. They can pick any one of the topics they like and we’ll ship out the CD free.
Also, if they are serious about experiencing the benefits of the ProAdjuster system for themselves, they can call Jamie about that, too. She will provide all the details for setting up, at my expense, flight and hotel arrangements to experience the ProAdjuster at one of our weekend trainings. We have two each month, and we would be delighted to host them for a memorable weekend— a weekend in which they will meet doctors from across the country and around the world, some of which have been using the ProAdjuster for years, like Dr. Joe Grice who bought the first ProAdjuster in the United States, and now has four in his office, to Dr. Todd Fetter, who just began with the ProAdjuster a few months ago, but has already doubled his practice. We encourage lots of communication with these doctors so that our guests can get as much information as they need to find out if the ProAdjuster is right for them.
TAC: Thank you, Dr. Moe, that is, indeed, a generous offer.
Pisciottano: Thank you, for the opportunity, Frank; it’s been my pleasure.
Frank A. Corbo, DC, CCRD, QME, is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic. He is co-founder of Chiropractic Wellness and Fitness Magazine. Before starting his chiropractic career, Dr. Corbo was employed by The Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company in Milan, Italy, working with a strategic marketing team developing effective strategies for marketing osteoporosis products.
Dr. Corbo can be reached at [email protected].