Dr. Fred DiDomenico is a master at communication. His program, Elite Coaching, focuses on teaching doctors how to use life coaching principles and apply them to chiropractic practice. In doing so his clients realize that they develop the skills to predictably help patients find a deep inspiration for achieving extraordinary health through chiropractic principles. I have first hand experience with Dr. Fred’s system and can say it works. After listening to this webinar series you will be one step closer to a more fulfilling practice and personal life.
Brian Capra
Founder & President, Billing Precision
Fred DiDomenico: That’s where we get into coaching. And I did the “three problems” for years. Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality.” What does that mean? By doing the same thing over and over and over again and getting the same result of wanting something different. That’s the definition of insanity.
“To change something, you have to build a new model that makes the old model or the existing model obsolete.” That’s really the shift in communication and moving with the times. We’ve gone through economic changes. People in the last few years have been less willing to part with their money. It doesn’t mean they haven’t had the money, it just means they’ve been more skeptical about where they’re going to put it.
So, if we got to change that model and that consulting model is now obsolete, then what’s the new model? That’s where we get into coaching. Statements equals selling. Does anybody ever feel like you’re talking someone into care? That’s the most frustrating question that equals influence. If you want to create influence and get people from back pain into posture, into spinal correction, into whatever you’re delivering, then it has to be their idea. Once it becomes their idea, then they’re far more empowered and inspired to do. In fact, they’ll pay you anything and they’ll follow the recommendations.
So, how do we make it their idea? Again, I’ve already given you the clue. That’s the shift and the coaching. So, what coaching is — if you look at a coach or an athlete, if you’re an Olympic coach and you’re coaching an Olympic athlete, a coach’s responsibility is to pull all the inspiration out of that athlete. When that athlete doesn’t feel good, the coach still pushes them to train hard that day. The coach reminds him of the goal. The athlete may commence, “I want to go to the Olympics,” and the coach trains him and inspires him and keeps that goal in front of their eyes.
Everybody has an emotional reason why. If you can’t find that emotional reason why, that’s why your patients are leaving. What they’re saying is, “You didn’t tell me why I should do this.” So for instance, once you go from pain into posture, you go through a coaching interview on a consultation, you have things like a woman could come in and I use this example. We are saying, “Hey, you have nerve stress on your neck,” or “Your posture on your neck is weak,” and that can cause, “Oh my God. I’m so tired all the time.”
Now, you speak to their emotion, “Wow, you sound really frustrated.” And they’re going to say, “Yeah, I don’t feel like a good mom,” or “Its affecting my marriage. I come home and I’m so tired. It’s hard to keep up with the house work.” You can just kind of get a sense, Hey man, maybe they don’t have enough intimacy in their marriage. Now, whatever service you’re delivering isn’t about change in their spine. It’s not about putting a curve in their neck. It’s about helping them have a great marriage, to feel like a good mom.
Now, if you can say, “Look, we can help you build your energy and metabolism,” she’ll pay you anything that you want because it’s not about a curve in her neck anymore. Now what it becomes about is she can feel like a fulfilled person and that’s life coaching. Now, one thing I did was I actually became a professional life coach. So I took life coaching communication and put that into a chiropractic consultation. I put that into a chiropractic exam and a pre-consultation.
That’s what coaching is. Every person has a reason why and when you find that reason why, their inspiration is going to go to a whole new level. Then the next thing is when you get into the ROF and you’re selling somebody their X-rays. Rather than you telling them what their problem is, you’ve got to see what they know. So, when you care more about what they know rather than what you know, then you’re going to start asking questions because we all know this stuff. “Hey man, how are you going to cure my neck?” I live by a chiropractic lifestyle. I know it. The thing is what do they know.
So again, when you start caring about what they know, then you’ll start to ask questions at your ROF. So you’re looking at an X-ray, “Hey, here’s normal and here is yours. What do you see?” Now, the funny thing is how many people in an ROF that you’ve shown, “Hey, you’re supposed to be curved and yours is straight,” and the patient says, “Well, isn’t it supposed to be straight?” They don’t get it. Have you run in to that before?
So then when you explain what that means, “Hey, a loss of a curve, major spines collapsing, the stretch is weak, you’re posture is distorted.” There are medical studies that show loss of curve is a weakened structure. Hey, that’s engineering and leverage.
And now, there’s also — when you lose a curve, it strikes the spinal chord and then it shuts down the conductivity. So you basically say, “Hey, you don’t have a curve in your neck. The medical research shows the stretch is a curve. You have degeneration. Medical studies show that degeneration leads to a shortened life span.”
Here is where knowing a little bit of research makes a big difference. So you basically say, “Well, if this is the truth then how is that energy going to move in your body?” Now, you could say that energy is not going to move in your body but when you ask them how is it going to move in there, they’re going to say, “Well, it doesn’t.” And then the third question about the organs that run off that life energy because they learned that on day one are depended on energy to keep you alive and healthy.
So, if they can’t move through this weakened posture and structure, then how is the energy going to bring health to your organs? Now, you can tell them, “This isn’t going to work,” but what if they don’t believe you? But when they say, “It’s not getting to my organs and that’s why I’m not healthy.” Here’s the difference and you know this from experience, Brian that when they say it, it becomes true. When you say it, they may not believe you. But it’s the funniest thing. When they say it, they believe it.
Now here’s a saying, “Rather than explaining to them for 20 minutes of how the body works, hey, just go look. Here’s what the research says about this,” and you don’t even have to use research but you speak in bullets and they go, “Well, what do you think that means?” And they’re going to say, “Well, that means I’m not going to be healthy.” Right there then you go to a consultation. That’s why you’re tired all the time. You have allergies. You’ve got in that car accident five years ago and in the last five years your immune system is weak. You get colds, you have asthma, and now you have heartburn. You’re on drugs, you’re on blood pressure medication, and you’re constipated. But it was all after you damaged your spine. Now look, this x-ray proves why that’s like that. Does that make sense?
Dr. Brian: Yeah, absolutely. So Fred, let me know if I’m getting ahead of myself here, getting ahead of you here. But I know that’s just from experience. I think it’s a really important point that you basically just explained like the woman that says, “I have little energy,” and then you go into that emotion and then that’s the why. You said that’s why they’ll do what you tell them they need to do eventually. It’s not the how, right? The how comes after the why.
Dr. Fred DiDomenico: Exactly. So regardless of what technique you use, and that’s exactly right. That is how. People don’t care how when they have why. I mean the person that says, “I want to climb Mount Everest.” Well, how hard do they have to train? They’re going to hire a coach to train them. That’s how they are going climb it. A person who is going to run Ironman Triathlon, all they care about is running through that tape. Now, what are they going to have to do to run through that tape? Hey, they are willing to go through hell and back on training to run through that tape. That’s exactly what you said, that having a better energy, to feel like a better mom, be more intimate with her husband. She’ll do anything hopefully to have that, right? And that’s when they’ll pay you anything.
Dr. Brian: So the thing is, is their why big enough to do what you need to do from the how perspective.
Dr. Fred DiDomenico: Exactly.
Dr. Brian: Cool.
Dr. Fred DiDomenico: Now the next thing and the last question on here, you have to show progression. But that’s not what’s going to make man make him pay today. So they have to know, “Hey, if I don’t fix this,” and the basically often say, “Hey, what will happen if you don’t fix this?” They will go, “Well, my health is going to get worse.” “Well, do you want that?” “No.” “How that makes you feel?” “Well, terrible. I’m tired of being of being like this.”
Now, progression is one thing, but progression is why they just paid off their credit cards and they won’t pay you. Why? Their kid needs braces and they’re going to do that first. These are all excuses. Why? We’re saving up for the family vacation. What makes people start today is urgency and here’s one of the biggest mistakes. All management groups use progression. Very few are effective at urgency. So what you say is as you’re standing there right now, everyday you allow your condition to progress. What’s happening to your health?
So, it’s not that it’s happening. The worst thing you can say is, “What’s going to happen in the next ten years?” What you just told them was, “I have 10 years to fix it.” So you have to say, “As you’re standing there everyday from this moment forward, what’s happening to your body?” Like from this moment every second, everyday, that’s urgency. That’s a huge, huge factor to why they’ll pay you today.
Dr. Brian Capra: Mistake Number 2 – Not focusing on organ problems
Dr. Fred DiDomenico: Number two is you’re not focusing on organ problems. Now, here is the thing, that’s the why. Studies show that the American population is pulling more money out of their pocket every year beyond their insurance company to get healthy.
So, the American public wants health. The baby boomers are driving the Gross National Product, same with the population driving Gross National Product for anti-ageing. People want to be healthy and that’s their why. It’s not, pain. People come in motivated by pain in the beginning but every chiropractor knows how long does that last.
So there is something a heck of a lot bigger than pain. When you can find that is when they’ll pay and when they’ll stay. So, a huge mistake is not focusing on organ problems, but focusing on pain and how their pain is affecting their life. Now, there are management groups that say, “How is that pain affecting your golf game and how is that?” and they’re trying to find emotional hooks to they’re pain The reality is that’s great, but once the pain is gone then there’s no emotional attachment.
So when you have an emotional attachment tied to organ problems, number one, that’s the principle of chiropractic and number two, you’ve got something much bigger, so let’s look at how do we do that. Number one, they have to buy something much bigger than pain and chiropractic spinal correction is a big part of that because in the principle of chiropractic, it’s optimal spine equals optimal health. The second thing is you have to have something tangible. Well, a pre and post x-ray is tangible. That’s one thing we specialize in elite coaching. It is showing people that have a desire to make structural correction.
We don’t have to be a rehab specialist, or have an engineering degree, or study years and years and years in techniques. There are a couple easy things that you can make with home care that can achieve that. You have to have something they can see. If it’s something they can feel when they feel good, they’re going to quit. It’s got to be something they can see that is tangible and they can conceptualize, okay? So, posture and spine correction is huge. We find once people convert that or have at least part of that in their delivery and that that’s something that’s beyond how they feel. That’s important.
So, people buy with emotion and justify with fact. Again, each patient has an emotional reason for long term commitment and we’ve gone through that. Our emotional commitment it’s based on our organ problem. It’s the guy that comes in and maybe he has neck pain or low back pain, and then I’m going through and teach him about posture and health going through the consultation and talk about organs. You find out if he’s got blood pressure problems or tachycardia. And then as you delv a little more, you find out he’s got a history of heart attacks, and then you find out you had two or three men in his family who died of heart attacks by the time they were 50 and he is 42 with blood pressure problems.
The guy is scared to death of a heart attack and he is coming in with back pain. You talk about that and then you find a cervical kyphosis, which definitely is going to cause stress on the heart and lungs and you talk about that, he’ll pay you anything you want. Every chiropractor has had the experience. Just adjusting people helps people get a blood pressure medication. That one is not even hard. A blood pressure and thyroid when you adjust the neck, those are very common. So you talk to a person about that, that’s an emotional hook.
