Trust Wins New Patients

Two chiropractors can offer the same new patient special, run the same Meta ads, and collect five-star reviews, yet one books 20% of leads while the other books 50%. That gap isn’t magic and it isn’t the adjustment. It’s trust, and it shows up long before someone ever meets us in person.

We walk through how patient behavior has changed in the digital age: people research everything. They check your Google reviews, your website, your Instagram, your Google Business Profile, and sometimes even the exact equipment in your office. If they find vague claims, stock photos, outdated pages, or anything that feels inconsistent, doubt creeps in and bookings drop. We also share a practical lesson from selling red light therapy, where patients compared devices online and used AI tools to judge quality, safety, and credibility.

Then we map the full patient journey that turns attention into appointments: the ad or referral, the landing page, booking and confirmations, reminder sequences, phone scripts, and the first five minutes at the front desk. We cover trust builders that actually work, like real visuals, doctor videos, office walkthroughs, team introductions, testimonials, and consistent branding across platforms. We also call out trust killers that quietly cost you revenue, including slow response times, generic auto replies, confusing prices, staff who don’t know the offer, and weak follow-up.

If you want more booked appointments from the leads you already generate, run the trust audit challenge and fix the friction points fast. Subscribe, share this with a chiropractor who needs it, and leave a rating and review so more clinics can build trust the right way.

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3. Book a free discovery call with Enrico to level up your business

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Will we give you ahead of the curve? Attracting more new patients and growing your business. Now here's your home. Dr. D.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Two chiropractors

Why Booking Rates Differ

SPEAKER_01 0:47

offer the exact same new patient special. Both have five-star reviews, both have nice offices, both run meta-ads. One books 20% of the leads, the other one books 50% of the leads. What changed? It wasn't the adjustment, it wasn't the doctor, it was trust. Welcome back to Marketing 101 for chiropractors, where we help you grow and scale your practice with effective and simple marketing strategies each and every week. Trust trust is the underlying foundation to all marketing. We've talked about ads forever. Ads is the fastest way to get in front of people. You pay for it, you get in front of them. Billboards, Facebook ads, Google ads, you try and pop up on their screen in front of them and

Trust Is The Real Marketing Edge

SPEAKER_01 1:37

just try and sell. You got 20 seconds to sell them on something. But what differentiates the successful practices in marketing and the non-successful practices, it really comes to trust. People no longer just click and buy, they now research. And especially with ChatGPT, Claude, Jasper, and even Google, Gemini, it's all right there. They can go back and they can check. And one thing that I realized a couple years ago was with our red light bed. I was so frustrated that I spent so much for a Trifecta 450 red light bed. It's like 68,000. I think they sell them for like 80,000 now. Put it in a room and it was generating. It was generating money. We weren't losing, we were generating. But it was, it was hard. It was just there sitting there and tough, tough to pull. You're paying the monthly lease on it. And we're going, and I realized something. Um, other people were buying other equipment, red light pods, red light rat, you know, other stuff. And they were like calling me up, like, man, no one like but I can't sell a package, I can't do anything. I'm like, have you asked the patients why they're not buying? Like, I was asking my patients why they didn't buy and they're like, it was cost, mainly my number one concern. But one doctor got back to me, it was like a month later, and he was like, dude, they're looking up my machine. They're like, it's a piece of crap. I'm like, is it? He's like, Yeah, I got it on um, he bought it on Alibaba, I think. Uh, I was like, Really? You bought a medical device off Alibaba? I'm like, who's the idiot for that? So they looked up, they took a picture of the when they were in there on their free session or the $29 session, whatever he was doing. Um, and they took a picture of it and they went and researched it. And then when he asked them, he's like, Yeah, let me tell you why. That's a piece of crap. It doesn't even, it's not even FDA approved. They gave him a whole thing. I was like, Oh my word, are people truly looking into this? And they are, folks. So when you're posting on your website the equipment that you do, post it like K laser, uh, you know, 30 watt K laser system for class four laser. You put it in there, you're like, oh, no one really cares. Yes, they do, because they put they copy and paste it, they go to Chat GPT and they're like, what's the best class four laser I can go and get at a medical office? And how is this one copy paste and chat GPT? Class four laser, make sure it's FDA approved, ones that fall under an FDA approved. This was the answer. Uh FDA approved list, and it listed seven lasers that are most common in offices,

When Patients Research Your Equipment

SPEAKER_01 4:04

and K laser was number two, right on the list. And I was like, okay. Then I did the red light bed, and then boom, the trifecta bed was like ranked number one for red light therapeutic. And that's why I think I had a little bit of greater success. I was like, oh, interesting. So there you go. So it was totally worth it. And that's where we're at now. Trust. People don't trust you off the bat, they don't trust anyone off the bat. So building that trust through your social media with success, testimonials, stories, cases, showing yourself working on people, that's where trust builds up. So when you're running ads and people go to your profile, you got nothing there, trust goes down. They can go to your website, but what they know you're you're putting up your best of the best on the website. So they want to see trust. And that's where social media has a lot of power is building that trust. That's how influers, inf sort, influencers are gaining so much traction online, is because they're building this facade of trust. They know nothing, they have no degree, they have no education. Literally, there's these people that just failing in life and opening up an Instagram account and then talking about how they reversed their failure in life and they're now doing this. I have three kids, I'm through my second divorce, and now I'm a fitness pro. I'm like, well, good for you, but where is your credentials? Failing doesn't give you credentials, you know, on a different podcast for a different day. Um, but that's where they're getting this fake, you know, leverage is this fake trust that they're creating. You can create real trust because you get real results. That's what this podcast is about. Marketing doesn't create patience, it creates opportunities for you to talk to new people. One of the biggest misconceptions in chiropractic marketing is believing that ads produce patience. They don't. Ads produce attention. Attention produces leads, and leads can be anything you want them to be. They can be an email, a phone, just a reminder, a billboard creates no leads. Billboard marketing has been around for 100 years. Still, you'll drive by your highways and you will still see billboards. They don't take these things down. They continuously have new businesses on there. They've been around forever. Why? There's no lead that's being generated from that billboard. There is no phone call. There is not nothing that's happening. What are they doing? They're planting seeds, they're planting brand recognition, they're planting a pain point sometimes. Dentists, dentists do great billboards. They have like an overhanging mustache and being like, ashamed to smile, get your get your teeth checked, or you know. Um, or a lady, a pretty lady smiling, she's missing a tooth. Hey, something missing. Question mark, dental, the the name of the practice. These are smart, smart marketing things that people see that

Social Proof That Feels Real

SPEAKER_01 6:52

way. When it comes time to look for a dentist, then when they match up their Google ads and their search engine optimization, and people are like uh dental implants, they pop up in the top three and they have some brand recognition with that. Studies show there's a 78 to 80 percent correlation that they're gonna click on that first. Ads produce attention. So we have the ad, whichever format it is, it leads them to the website or something where they research, a landing page. Now we have booking options and confirmations, and then they have a reminder sequence. The reminder sequence is congratulations, you're booked in for Monday, August 15th at whatever. Then you have a phone call, an office experience when they come in. That experience, it's an experience, folks. You should be training on this with your team, what it's like when somebody comes in through that front door. What do they get? What is the experience? Many of you don't even know. Report of findings, you got to have some type of report of findings. It can be on day one. Uh sometimes I do it on day one. I finish the x-rays and I stand with the patient in front of the x-rays. I'm like, I just showed you your scans as uh we were doing them, tons of thermal activity around your shoulders and neck, exactly where your pain is, tells us that that's a current condition because we have acute inflammation there. Now your x-rays are going to show us the history. And here we go. Complete loss of curve. See these two joints here. I'm gonna zoom in later and have a better report for you later, but they're dehydrated compared to the ones above. They're thinner, starting on degenerative disc. Here's a poster of degenerative disc. Where do you think you are on normal phase one, phase two, phase three, or dead? Where are you on this uh poster? Do you think by looking at that neck? And they'll look and they'll usually get it right. They're like, yeah, I'm phase phase one. That's kind of thinning. I'm like, you're actually phase two. There's some bone changes here too. So phase one is thinning of the disc, phase two is degeneration. And we go through this. So we have this report, then that's day one. And that's it. I'm like, let's go down, let's do finish this assessment on the table and do a chiropractic evaluation, some range of motion, may even give you an adjustment today if I feel like it's clear. They lie down on the table and we finish the day one. And then their report's done. And I'm like, hey, next time you come in, just like I told you on the virtual console, I do think this is gonna be on the heavier side. We're gonna start off at two twice a week, but we're gonna have to work longer because of the generation. Does that make sense? Are you surprised by any of this? They're like, no, you told me all that was a possibility. I'm like, yeah, exactly. So

Ads Create Attention Not Patients

SPEAKER_01 9:19

I'll put together a four-month plan for you, three, four-month plan. And we're gonna do this just twice a week. Just make sure you got time for it. And I have that all ready for you. They already might know a price point, they may not. Sometimes I print off the plan right there and give it to them on day one, but we do have a day one, day two. Financial conversation and then the retention. That's the patient journey in your office. They see an ad somewhere, they see your social profile somewhere. They were referred. They go and find your phone number, business card, whatever. They call, they book an appointment, the confirmation of the appointments confirmed, paperwork, reminder sequence, the phone call, the office experience, the report of findings, the financial conversation, retention for life. Every step either builds or erodes the trust process. That's why these are such important points in your business to have very clean and define you the best way possible. There's four questions every prospect is asking currently in 2026. Can you help me? Can I trust you? That's newer. I've been to coaches and and chiropractic seminars and part of groups and part of one-on-ones. And the the can you help me? How much is gonna ta cost and what's gonna take has always been taught from 20 years ago. They're like, Can you help me? We gotta answer that. The new one is can I trust you? Can I trust you? Will I be treated like a person? Is this worth the investment? That's where people are now. With the digital age, it's so easy for money to fly and purchase things that now they're like, well, hang on a second. I got all these subscriptions, I gotta clean up my accounts, I gotta they're shedding stuff and now they're protecting. So the trust builders most clinics ignore are professional photos instead of stock images. Don't use stock images on your website, on your ads, or anything. You want to be using you. You can even use professional photos of you, pop them into Chat GPT, and create AI variations of you adjusting, you in your office, you with kids, whatever. You can do that. Those are actually quite acceptable, but of you, professional doctor videos, office walkthroughs, meet the team videos, patient testimonials, before and after, functional stories, community involvement, community events, and consistent branding. People don't buy chiropractic, they're buying your confidence. Like we're here, we're loud, we help people, we do this every single day, we show up every single week. You're guaranteed to be happy if you come see us. And stop explaining chiropractic. No one wants an explanation of what chiropractic is. Patients don't care, patients only care about the outcomes. We correct vertebral subluxations, yes, it's great. Awesome. But lead with imagine picking up your grandchild without worrying about your back. Now you've got everyone over the age of 60 listening. So you want to translate your clinical expertise

The In-Office Journey That Converts

SPEAKER_01 12:32

into everyday benefits. And another great rule is that for the first five minutes of any interaction matter the most. The first five minutes of a new patient coming to your office matter so much. So much needs to happen in the first five minutes. They walk through the door, someone's there, greets them. Hey, can I help you? It's full life chiropractic. If they if they guess, they have to guess right. So I told my team, like, if you think it's Michael, the new patient coming in, you better guess right. We have too much activity in our office that we get it wrong, so we don't do that anymore. Like, hi, like how can I help you? Well, welcome to full life chiropractic. Like, yeah, hi, I'm Michael. And they're like, Oh, you you're in the right place. You must be the new patient here today at two o'clock. We're like, Yes, great, great. Thanks for doing the paperwork. I'm gonna be all ready for you. Can I offer you anything? Some water. We have uh bathrooms here if you need them, and then I'll take you on back and get you started with the doctor. They're walking in and they've been greeted, they don't have to wait, they've been offered something. If they need the bathrooms, like wow, there's no sitting like they do and waiting for someone to take care of them. The first five minutes, even on a phone greeting, uh, the ease of scheduling has to be super easy. When can we get you in? What days work for you during the week? We make the scripting important for them. What days work for you this week? They're like, uh, typically I have Wednesdays off and Fridays I can make work. Great. On Wednesday, I have a 9.15 a.m. and a 3:45. That's it. Two options morning or afternoon, or they ask, does morning or afternoon work better for you? Definitely in the morning. Great. I have a 9.15 and an 11 o'clock. Which one works best for you? That's it. Two options. Parking has to be simple. Front desk welcome, the waiting room, the smell, the music, the cleanliness, the confidence of the staff. That's what happens in the first five minutes. Certainty beats perfection every single time. I can I can attest to that. I'm sometimes I wonder how I'm successful. And sometimes I wonder why the heck I failed in some things. And then I'm confused about the success sometimes. I'm like, man, am I really working any harder than any of my other peers? Do I do anything? Am I smarter? And definitely not. Um, is there anything that it's the certainty? It's a certainty. It's the confidence. Fake it till you make it. Probably the worst advice I've ever had early on, but also good. Uh, because there's no other option at the beginning. Because if you don't fake it, you get anxious. Patients aren't looking for perfection. They know that. They're looking for someone who appears confident, organized, and capable to take care of them. If your team seems unsure, patients become unsure. And then the social proof that we have online, I know some of you like it, some of you don't. The social proof we have online is multiplication. One great review is nice. 50 recent reviews are persuasive. 500 reviews become a competitive advantage in your area, not against the other chiropractors, against any healthcare provider. They're like, Well, why is everyone going to this chiropractic office? Like, time out. What are they doing? Asking at the right time, video testimonials, Google reviews, Facebook recommendations, highlighting reviews on the website. These are all ways that you build trust. And then there's something I call the consistency test, consistency test. If someone sees your Facebook ad, your website, your Google Business profile, your Instagram, and then walks into your office. Do all five experiences feel like the same practice? Consistency creates familiarity. Familiarity creates trust. The branding matters. These videos should be cross-platformed. So if you got a YouTube video that you create, put it on Instagram, Facebook. Like they should see cross stuff of the similar stuff going on. TikTok should not just be funny stuff and then Instagram um videos and then pictures

Consistency That Builds Confidence

SPEAKER_01 16:36

on Facebook. They should crisscross on everything. But here are some common trust killers. Please note this. If this is one thing you're going to note from this podcast, because it's all common sense, it's the killers. The slow response. Someone reaches out on a Friday at 3 15 to become a new patient. They don't hear anything until Monday at 9 a.m.

Fast Trust Killers To Fix

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Or they leave a voicemail at 2 and they don't get the voicemail to 5.56 right before you guys are closing. Generic auto replies. Thanks for reaching full life chiropractic on Facebook, Messenger, you know. Confusing prices. Well, what's the price? Outdated website. Oh, this one kills me. It's always killed me since 2008 when I started. People with outdated websites. I'm like, dude, it doesn't even open on my phone. Like, I can't even move around on the phone and book an appointment. Poor lighting in videos. I mean, that just makes it tougher for branding. Misspelled ads, misspelling typos. Not the big biggest thing, but you definitely don't want typos on anything. Staff who don't know the offer. Oof. If you're anything like me and you run the marketing of your on the thing, you all got all these ideas going. How many times have I walked in on a Monday and my team's like, hey, there's this red light thing going on for $79? Oh, shoot, I created that on the weekend. I launched it. I didn't think there'd be two at two leads from it right away, but yes, we got a $79. Okay, I'll give them a call and I'll make sure they're coming in. Thank you. Staff who don't know the offer. Long hold times and no follow-ups. These are just trust killers. You don't follow up with a patient, you know, there's long hold times. Uh, most lost patients aren't choosing another chiropractor. They're choosing certainty somewhere else. They might call up the physical therapist. Like, hey, I was wondering, you know, I was trying to call a chiropractor for my knee. I was wondering if you guys help with knees. And they just did the right things. They're like, Yeah, we we got knee specialists here, PTs that do this. Uh, what days work for you? Come on in, boom, they got the paperwork there, they got their insurance confirmation done. They're they're like, that's it. I'm going to the PT. So here's the action plan. I'm going to challenge you for a trust audit on your practice. Do this today. Do this today or on Monday when you get to the office, or it's a great weekend task too. Just trust a trust audit of your practice. Call it. Get someone else to call your office on a Tuesday, uh, and just test the conversation, the tone, the emphasis. Fill out the website

The Trust Audit Challenge

SPEAKER_01 19:06

form. You do it. Send a test right right in the comment section. Testing this email form. It's Dr. D. Uh book an appointment yourself. Visit, you know, have someone else visit your office. Have a family member visit your office, a friend, pay someone to do it. Moms love to do this. You'd be like, hey, I get my wife to do it. Be like, tell um, tell Sally to just come on into the office and pretend to be a new patient. We'll refund her card if she goes all the way through the process and pays for it. We'll do it every now and then. And then report every point of friction that they have. And that's what your guest shopper can do for you. You'll learn more in one afternoon than for months of guessing. And it'll catch the things that we're all blind to. Your entire team has some blind spots to it because they just don't see it. That guest shopper that comes in will be like, hey, by the way, you know, there was this, there's uh like this whole thick piece of dust along that first hallway that I walked. So when I was walking and just putting stuff in my bag as I was walking, I could just see it up along that baseboard. It was kind of gross. And you're like, what? And you go look and it's the back one there. And like, who looks there? But yeah, why is that dirty? What the heck is going on? And you can fix that stuff. Marketing isn't about convincing people to become patients, it's about removing every reason they might hesitate. Every touch point either increases confidence or creates doubt. When you build trust before the patient ever walks through your doors, the adjustment becomes the confirmation, not the sales pitch. Give it a shot, see how it goes. Stay well, keep doing what you're doing. Reach out to me if you need any tips or helps with anything. Info at enrico d.com. Join Facebook 101 for chiropractors or sorry, marketing 101 for chiropractors on the Facebook group. Engage in there. We're there to help you. There's other doctors in there with some great tips as well. And keep doing what you're doing. Your community needs you.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to subscribe, like, there, and leave a reading. It helps get our podcast out to more listeners. Also, join Marketing 101 for Camber Practice on Facebook or visit them and recognise them for more information on Google and Google.