You’re into the final quarter of the year, and your statistics are telling you where you need to pay attention to finish the year powerfully, and set the stage for a great year in 2008. Look at your bottom line – where are you up and where are you not up?

If you are growing nicely across the board, then add some juice to a favorite aspect of practice, to increase your energy field and make it fun and entertaining for you. If you feel you are falling short anywhere, then you’ll need to evaluate the weaker areas and take some specific corrective action to move in the right direction.

Before you fall into the trap of just scrambling to get more new patients, or start spewing chiropractic philosophy at your patients to educate them, notice the dynamics of your practice growth – is it a capacity issue or an attraction issue that is contributing to your present challenges? You can focus by comparing your statistics as follows:

If your new patients and PVA are both up, that means you have sufficient capacity to continue growing – think about the water glass, if you have six ounces in an eight ounce glass, you have room to add either new patients or visits per patient, so they will tend to move upward.

But if your NPs and PVA are moving in opposite directions, that means you’re up near eight ounces – if you try to add new patients to an almost full glass, then the new patients don’t make it in because there’s no room, and your NPs go down, while your PVA remains the same or goes up. But if the new patients do make it into your glass, to make room for them, some current patients have to spill over the side, and your NPs go up but your PVA goes down. This is a good general test for capacity.

On the other hand, if you want to measure your attractive force, look at NPs and income, both of which come to you from the outside, based on your application of the law of attraction. If they are up, you have attraction, if not, you don’t.

Striking the right balance between attraction and capacity turbo-charges your growth, and gives you a concrete way to establish your goals (which should already be in place for 2008 – if not, please get to it!) Become more comfortable and familiar with interpreting your stats – they hold significant opportunity for you to take control and move your practice in the ways you find most fulfilling.