“I have been a member with Ben since the monthly teleclass came in the mail on cassette tapes. Listening to his advice has helped me mature as an accurate thinker and helped me position my practice as a trusted authority in my community. I am undoubtedly a stronger businessman by simply absorbing Ben's ideas and his understanding of the marketplace.”

“Thank you for selecting me as one of your "Members of the Month". I was looking back through some of of the initial paperwork I filled out and the transformation has been significant. I started working with Altadonna Communications in the end of 2008, before the PBA and I don't even remember where I first heard about Ben Altadonna. But it was definitely a change in thinking from my chiropractic experience. My wife and I graduated from Logan College and began as associates in a high PVA, low new patient per month office and worked with that DC for seven years.

It was a busy practice, but that DC had built it up to that over 30 years. It was a great experience and when we left we thought we where prepared to go out on our own. But starting out there was a lot of resistance to that type of practice start-up, not to mention I don't recommend starting a business during the worst economy in my lifetime! We did not have years to wait to establish that type of practice. As you say there is a difference between the should be world and the real world. We began with implementing the monthly newsletter and testing ads. It was an eye opening experience. As time went on we joined PBA and continued with emails, Modern Physician letters etc etc. Our practice has become so much easier to manage and last month referrals accounted for over 80% of our new patients. Over the last 3 months it's higher than that. We are not pressuring our patients and in return the referrals come a lot more easily...

Our patients feel free to come and go as they please. We still adhere to scheduling our patients (for my wife's sanity!), but as we have gone along patients know more and more that dropping in is ok! We work 3 full days (M-W-TH) and 2 half days (Tues pm and Fri am). My wife only works on our full days. Eventually we will move to M-TH, but right now I really enjoy my Tues mornings and Friday afternoons! It really seems to break up the week and help me stay focused! I know now that it is ok to adjust on the first visit and we don't have to have a "commitment" from patients to come for months and months. Some will continue care and some won't and that is ok. Anyway thank you for helping my practice, and a lot of other practices run as painlessly as possible. I appreciate you and your staff and wish you all the best! ”

“Ben, I just wanted to send you a thank you and a report from my practice here. I have been with PBA for right at a year I believe. It didn't happen overnight (I don't believe anything with lasting success does) but I am up about 30-40% in total visits from last year to this year. Specifically I went from 106 visits in Jan '11 to 166 visits Jan '12. From 132 Feb '11 to 200 Feb '12 and from 192 Mar '11 to 232 Mar '12. I attribute the improvements both to the PBA as well as the fact that I will have been in my current location 3 years on 4-15.

For the record I have only made the following small changes.

1. White clinic jacket and tie when I used to wear scrubs. I actually fought this and only started implementing in late December 2011. Coincidence with my success in 2012? Probably not. Wish I would have done it sooner. I went through a company called Tom James and had a few suits and french cuff shirts tailor made for me. Never thought I would give a shit about the shoes or ties I wear, but after all the comments you can bet I will never own a cheap tie or pair of shoes again. It actually helps me personally as much I it has the practice. Feels damn good to have people tell me how sharp I look. And its true. I look good in a suit!

2. Lowering my initial visit fee from $160 to $65 per Stepanek method.

3. And providing walk in hours Mon - Thurs from 9-11 and 3-5.

I have always been more of a visit by visit guy and try to get them well as fast as possible so that didn't really change just the way I went about it. I do ad lib some of the things I learned from reading the Stepanek stuff and I think that has helped.

I do send the email communications and always put new patients on my list. I also post on facebook, twitter and linked in our blog topics, newsletter stories and interesting facts from the weekly health updates. I know you are not big on social media but I do have people tell me they have seen my posts and like them.

Not sure if there is really much else I have implemented, but I wanted you to know that I believe this process has created an elegant and lasting improvement in my practice. So thanks again.”

“I have been practicing chiropractic for 27 years. Over those 27 years I have had the chance to use many different methods of marketing. In 2005 I had read a direct mail piece from Dr. Ben Altadonna that explained several marketing principles that made a lot of sense. I quickly ordered Ben’s material and put it into action. The results were incredible! We have been sending the patient newsletter every month, along with the physicians newsletter, weekly patient handouts, stick letters, etc. What we implemented 7 years ago has allowed us to prosper in challenging times. I believe success is just a decision away- if you don’t use Ben’s materials, call him NOW!”

“I have been a PBA member for about 16 months. I have been in practice for 14 years. I was an associate for almost 3 years and then opened my own practice in the neighboring town (which happens to be where I grew up). On my own, I opened a 100% cash practice and began educating my patients on the benefits of long term Chiropractic care. Within 3 years, I was seeing almost 700 patients a month.

Unfortunately, this was a very hard business model to keep up, so I added a "Wellness Coach" and a new "wellness system" to my practice. All new patients were put through a complete health assessment and lifestyle profile no matter what they came in for. I was basically shoving it down their throats. Slowly, my practice numbers began to slide and I was getting less and less referrals. After 6 years of no growth (actually declining 1-5% most years), I realized that this model was not going to fix itself and I needed a new business model.

I got a mailing from Dr. Ben about being in constant communication with your patients. What caught my eye the most was listening to what patients want and they will refer and even come back. I could still talk to them about other health issues and how Chiropractic could benefit them even without symptoms, but it was done at their pace through the weekly health tips and monthly newsletters. Not only that, but I would be in constant communication with medical doctors throughout my community. This sounded like a great way to communicate to past, current, and future patients and a way to be in touch with the medical community as well.

After reading the Fertile Ground manual and making changes both physically to the office but also mentally to myself and staff, we put things into action in January 2011. To say that the results were amazing would be an understatement. Our new patients were up 75% from 2010 and our total adjustments and collections were virtually equal to the the best year we have ever had. My overhead has been lowered, we are seeing more patients, and we are giving patients what they have always been looking for. We can do all of this and still stay philosophically sound to Chiropractic.

Thanks Dr. Ben for showing me how to run an efficient business model and have fun with Chiropractic again.”