(This is an exclusive guest post by Dr. Tabor Smith. He began his career in one of the largest chiropractic offices in the state of Texas, where he was in charge of chiropractic spinal screenings and learned all the other marketing strategies associated with a 1,400 visit per week practice!

He now runs a thriving practice in Houston TX, that he built from scratch by utilizing “low cost” marketing strategies, such as, spinal screenings, dinner workshops, and business lectures.  

Through his career he has performed hundreds of spinal screenings and meticulously perfected his spinal screening techniques.  He now coaches chiropractors all over the world on how to bring in floods of new patients using his simple techniques. Dr. Tabor is a regular fixture in some of the most popular chiropractic newsletters, blogs, websites and podcasts all over the country.)

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When you read the title of this article you probably thought I was talking about using neurology to screen your chiropractic patients. In fact, that is not what I mean at all. I’m talking about using neurology in your communication!

The first goal to any spinal screening is to stop and engage a person in conversation with you.

This is how you get DRAMATICALLY MORE people into your screening booth. Let’s face it, if you can’t get them into your booth, you can’t screen them, and it won’t really matter what technique you are using in your screening.

The number one mistake chiropractors make at a spinal screening is also the number one reason they are not screening as many people as they should be.

Chiropractors are asking the prospective client a “yes or no” question and they are surprised when they continue to get the same reply over and over again.

If you have been doing screenings and are having problems getting people into your booth you might recognize the following conversation:

You: “Hello, would you like a free spinal screening today?”
Person: “No Thank You”… (And they just keep walking…)

As it turns out, the question, “Would you like a free spinal screening today?” is the most commonly asked question at the forefront of any spinal screening booth.

This simple “yes or no” question might sound harmless-enough to you, but the TRUTH is, our society has been so overly “sold to” in the last few decades that we have developed a instinctive social reflex called the “No-Thank-You Reflex.”

Every time the consumer is asked a yes or no question in relation to marketing they don’t even fully hear that question before they reply, “No thank you” and continue to walk on so they can skip out on any more conversation.

After about a hundred short conversations like that one, there’s no wonder you’re saying, “I never want to do a spinal screening again!” Don’t worry!

What I am about to reveal to you will make things MUCH easier for you from now on.

Get ready to make a small change in your wording, that will translate to a big difference in your spinal screenings.

From now on, you are going to start using neurology in your communication. As a chiropractor you use neurology every day, so why not use it in your communication?

The whole key to getting more people to engage in your conversation is to ask a question that will trigger “memory centers” of the brain (temporal lobe). This might sound difficult, but it’s actually very easy to do.

Here is how the conversation might go:

You: “Excuse me, WHEN was the last time you had a spinal screening?”
Person: “Umm, I don’t know. What is that?”
You: “It’s a quick evaluation that helps us determine the health of your spine. It takes 2 minutes and it’s free…”

When you ask someone about their past you have a better chance of “engaging” their brain activity. An easy way to know if you have “engaged” them with your question is to watch their eyes.

Many times when they start thinking about your question their eyes will look up and to the left, or up and to the right in search of an answer. This is how you know that they are trying to activate temporal lobe areas that store past experiences.

Most of the time you will get a question back instead of an answer.

This is because most people have never had a spinal screening before. They have no information or memories stored in their brain on that subject. When you ask them about their last spinal screening, you will most likely get a response like, “What is that?”

This is a good thing. At that point you have them exactly where you want them. You know they are engaged and not giving you a reflex answer such as, “No thank you.”

You don’t have to use that exact question every time. You could use a lot of different opening questions as long as it makes them access their memory centers.

Some other questions I use are, “HAVE you ever had a nerve system scan?” (this is a yes or no question, but it still accesses memory), “WHEN was your last posture analysis?”, and “HOW LONG AGO was your last spinal check up?”. Do you see how these questions ask something about the past?

Therein lies the key to your success!

In my opinion screenings are one of the most important things a chiropractor can do for his/her community and for the advancement of chiropractic itself. There is no one else on this planet that will be screening the public for subluxation if you, the chiropractor, doesn’t do it.

Please, don’t let a small communication barrier keep you from reaching hundreds, if not thousands of people in your community. Get out there and start doing more spinal screenings today!

If you found this little tip helpful, send this article with fellow colleagues and click the share buttons below. To find more tips on maximizing your spinal screenings visit this link here.

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