Activate Your Practice Podcast
The Activate Your Practice Podcast is hosted by the Chairman & Founder of Activator Methods, Dr. Arlan Fuhr. This podcast will cover a variety of subjects. Dr. Fuhr will interview guests from different backgrounds and professions, as well as talk about his 50+ years in chiropractic care.
Activate Your Practice Podcast
The Public Perception & Narrative of Chiropractics with Dr. Sherry McAllister
What if you could elevate your practice and transform public perception within your profession? In this week's episode, you'll discover just that as we welcome Dr. Sherry McAllister, President of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress. Sherry brings a wealth of knowledge on the incredible strides the Foundation has made in promoting chiropractic care over the past 20 years. From significantly reducing negative media coverage to launching massive campaigns during events like the FIFA Women's World Cup, Sherry reveals the strategic efforts and resources the Foundation provides to help chiropractors succeed. Get ready to be inspired by the Foundation's ambitious initiatives and learn how you can benefit from their research-based content, infographics, and social media support to enhance your practice.
But that's not all—gear up for an inside look at the much-anticipated Chirathon event coming to California in October 2024! Building on the success of the inaugural Chirathon in Florida, which captivated 78,000 viewers and raised $173,000, we're aiming even higher for next year's event. Hear about the goals, sponsors, and the impact this event aims to have on a national scale in promoting the benefits of chiropractic care. Sherry's dedication and the support from the Foundation are key to making this event a monumental success. Don't miss this chance to be part of something bigger and learn how you can contribute to spreading the positive message about chiropractic care.
Hi, I'm Dr Arlen Foer, the chairman and founder of Activator Methods International, and our podcast is Activate your Practice, and today we're honored to have Sherry McAllister, who is the president of the Foundation of Chiropractic, and so I want to interview her today and I want to ask her some questions because I, as I said to her just a few minutes ago, that people don't know what the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress is, and that's what we want to cover today. So welcome, dr McAllister.
Speaker 2:Such a pleasure to be with you, dr Foer.
Speaker 1:And let me ask you first what's the mission for the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress?
Speaker 2:Number one mission simple increase utilization of chiropractic, and in doing so, it's through positive press, and so our goal is to capture as much positive press for chiropractic and share the benefits of chiropractic care on a global scale.
Speaker 1:Well then, how has the foundation made progress over the last years?
Speaker 2:Super excited to tell you this because we just celebrated in August our 20th anniversary and that was a big milestone because you can remember many of us thinking about all the negative media we had to go through.
Speaker 2:It was a barrage, in fact. When I started practice I could easily see one to two negative chiropractic pieces a week and as we progress over the 20 years you'll be lucky now to get one, maybe in three or four months, and it's capturing the hearts and minds of healthcare professionals. So we start from the top down. Make sure in your community you're reaching out to someone to talk about the benefits of chiropractic care through research, quality research and opportunity. So the last 20 years has really been capturing the media with positive information so that when the negative comes we can go back and quote that negative that came out and we bring it back to the positive. So I know there's a lot of people out there thinking, oh, the negative media is always bad. But listen, negative media can be spun in a positive fashion if you're ready and you're willing to participate with the foundation.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what initiatives and campaigns has the foundation launched to promote chiropractic care?
Speaker 2:This is the year that we're really pushing to meet the needs of a hundred million people, and we did the million dollar match campaign to reach a hundred million people. Now let me go back to one of the pieces that we did just last year. We placed a 30-second commercial during the FIFA Women's World Cup for a full month, from July 20th to August 20th, and what was interesting is we didn't know how big the viewership was for FIFA as a whole because we were thinking, well, it'll be good, but how good will it be? Listen, it went. The FIFA viewership went from 2 billion viewers in 2022 to 3 billion in 2023. We captured a moment in that epic movement. And ESPN was amazing. And Fox Sports.
Speaker 2:It's not easy, if you're listening now and you're thinking, where are my dollars going For you to get on ESPN you get scrubbed really hard and you get chosen and for us to get that phone call to say we're going to place your ad on ESPN.
Speaker 2:That makes us all think are we making progress? And I hope the answer in your mind is yes, we're making progress. So this year, as our campaign, arlen, we want to go bigger, we want to go better and we want to go bolder and we want to capture that, the numbers and the viewerships of top ranking sports viewerships and that's going to surprise a lot of your listeners and I'm going to talk a little bit more about what that is going to be. But I'm going to say this year's campaign is made possible by chiropractic care and how we capture the hearts and minds of those hundred million is getting into these very competitive places and showcasing, both social media and on national mainstream TV, the epic moments that no one knows about because they're not paying attention. In sports we're going to do golf, pickleball and rodeo. Those three sports alone will capture over a hundred million people watching that and I can't be more excited because we have some very big names that are that are really supporting us in this mission.
Speaker 1:What resources does? Does yeah, does the foundation provide for chiropractors to help them promote their practice?
Speaker 2:This is the critical piece and it is like a trifecta of the community that you're going to reach. So you want to hit the social media, you want to be able to be active on your website and you also want to be in your community. If you can do those three pieces, we support you every day in every way. Let's talk about social media. We'll give you infographics, and those infographics will be short and sweet and right to the point about why chiropractic should be main part of your healthcare regime. The second part cover story. When you need a cover photo for your Facebook, we've got you covered. You may not want to put all that time and effort in. That's why you come to the foundation.
Speaker 2:We're a nonprofit and the number one thing that I want to stress to your listeners today is no one is making money from you. We're building this profession together and when we build it together and you don't pay for the outside market, you use the materials that we're bringing to you and for you and we're using the highest quality. We've got 20 schools that work with us and researchers that give us their papers to build that positive press. We're not talking about puppy dogs and butterflies posting on social media, although I love both of them, we're talking about real meat and potatoes. What does the consumer need and why do they see you as the expert?
Speaker 2:So, infographics we do a full roadmap for the month. So we do what's called proactive media. We also have reactive media. What happens if something negative happens to your community? Do we have your back? A hundred percent From infographics, social media accelerators. On LinkedIn, we have a podcast that we love. That's called Adjusted Reality, where we bring influencers, thought leaders and healthcare professionals and they tell their story about chiropractic so that you can share this with your audience. The last one dropped yesterday, which is the body-friendly golf, and it's chiropractic and how we look at golf. So we want you to have everything you need from PowerPoint presentations to go to your community, everything on social media and something for your website. They can listen, they can learn and you can be the expert using our materials. That's the latest information out there.
Speaker 1:How can chiropractors get involved?
Speaker 2:Well, as you know, I know you're busy in practice and your hands are technically on the patient and you're very deep in the job that you do because you're running a business. We want to make it easy for you, so our value proposition is this you come in as a gold, silver or bronze member, which is like $25, $50, $100 a month and you can easily go and look at our website, f4cporg. You want to look at the packages available for your office f4cporg slash package and there you can find the gifts for your clinic. You can have your front desk download the infographics, the roadmaps. We have a monthly podcast just for the doctor. It's literally two minutes long. They'll know exactly what's happening and they can put their staff to it.
Speaker 2:Where in chiropractic can you go where you can get a plethora of information easily downloaded? That's supporting back the entire profession so we can put commercials together, billboards, train wraps across the nation. That's where they need to go, arlen. That's how they can get involved. Spread the good news of how fabulous chiropractic is, and do so with your money and your hands.
Speaker 1:How does the foundation advocate for chiropractic care within the broader healthcare community?
Speaker 2:This is an area that we absolutely need to be in and the foundation prides itself with going on events. Last year we held a hospital round table. We brought in 18 of the top hospital administration why? So that we could hear their needs on what's happening with their employees. We didn't come in with a selfish attitude. We came in with an open heart to listen to their concerns, their biggest concern hospital burnout. Our questions were poignant how do we help you, provide better ability to help your employees be the best they can be? And the outcome was astronomical. They opened their hearts and they opened their mind to what the research is saying about burnout and how small things can make big changes in people's lives, and chiropractic could be that and we share the return on investment.
Speaker 2:Mental health is a big struggle and it's a crisis. Those employees they need hands-on chiropractic care. They need a whole person approach and, arlen, when we go to we went to John Hopkins Masters of Nursing and the nurses love us. They love us and we need to get in the hearts and minds of those nurses, share the evidence and make sure your community card is there when they need to refer someone out. So the question is what are we doing? We're reaching out to anybody and everyone that will listen and one of the big wins we had Ireland last year. We went to the NASDAQ and we went to New NASDAQ and we went to New York Academy of Medicine and we shared Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month, which is September.
Speaker 2:People need to know we're a better approach than opiates and the Lancet finally stood up and told the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth in June of 2023. And they finally admitted that opioids should not be the first-line approach. We waited for that for 13 years. I want to say it was a celebratory moment, but it was not. It was frustrating. I was angry and disappointed that our healthcare community was duped into hearing that opiates are a drug approach that can be managed and it's non-addictive and it's wrong. And everyone listening today join with the foundation get those opioid toolkits out, because people are still suffering, they're still addicted and they're still in pain.
Speaker 1:What has the impact been on the public perception of chiropractic care and what are the future plans and initiatives?
Speaker 2:Well, this is a great opportunity to share with you our upcoming Kairothon. Now, what is a Kairothon? Well, the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress actually owns the trademark word Kairothon. It is, for those of you old enough perhaps to remember, our good friend Jerry Lewis, who ran the billion-dollar enterprise on helping people understand muscular dystrophy. Well, the time is now, arlen, that we get to showcase chiropractic and the benefits on a national scale.
Speaker 2:So Chirathon this year will be in October. You invite your patients, you invite your friends and your family and you take yourself to it, because it's so motivational. The first one we held was in Florida. We had 78,000 viewers. It was streamed on 12 different social media sites and it was amazing. We raised $173,000 in three days and these, dr Four, are $5 investments from patients. We're bringing chiropractic benefits to them. They show up and they get excited about what we do.
Speaker 2:So please look for the Chirathon in 2024. It'll be in October, it will be in California and I tell you it's going to blow the socks off of anything we've done before. I would love to have half a million viewers, I would love to make half a million dollars, but the only way we can do that is if you're willing to participate as a doctor of chiropractic. To hear the good news, you go online, you stream it on your website if you want to stream it on your Facebook. And we have 12 sponsors all of the publications Dynamic Chiropractic, chiroecho and the American Chiropractor. They stream it on their site. Sponsors like Standard Process Biotics, foot Levelers, ncmic. They help us get the good word out to the consumers. So that's one of the big campaigns we want to educate and celebrate what we do as chiropractors.
Speaker 1:We'll put Activator on the list because we've got about 38,000 people on our list.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Dr Fork. We'll be glad to help you.
Speaker 2:Wonderful See, we've already made progress today. Foundation for Chiropractic Progress Exactly.
Speaker 1:And Dr Sherry McAllister, the president of the foundation. The work you do is just great and thank you for being on. The work you do is just great and thank you for being on my pleasure, Arlen.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
