As you collect information about the area where your practice will be located, you’ll need to analyze the competition.

“Wait a minute!” you may protest. “I am doing something different. I’m a [fill in the blank with your technique] practitioner. I don’t have any competition.”

You may feel that this is true, but the bank where you will apply for a loan has concerns about competition for any startup business, and the people in the community don’t know the difference between chiropractors and the techniques they use, particularly when you’re just starting out.

You will certainly educate them about the benefits of your technique, but this will take time.

An article (“Effective Competitive Analysis”) in the Small Business section of American Express Business Resources says, “For your small business to succeed, you need to know almost as much about your competitors as you do about your own company and customers.”

So how do you find out about your competition?

1. Compile a list of all competitors in the practice area. Sources of that information include:

• Yellow pages telephone ads;

• The Internet. Go to “superpages.com” and type in “chiropractor” and the name of the city or county. Use their “Search Within” map function to see all of the chiropractors in the city or area on a map;

• Patients. As you are talking to people in the area who already use a chiropractor, ask who they use and ask about the service they are receiving;

• Competitor advertisements. Look in the local newspaper, radio station, TV station, and other print and broadcast media.

2. Compile all the information you can find about each competitor. To do this visit your competitors. See how they greet patients, how the office looks. Pick up brochures. Consider having a family member or friend do a “secret shopper” survey, if you feel uncomfortable visiting in person.

Or, attend events where chiropractors are speaking. These may include mall screenings, county fairs, or speeches they give to local groups, such as Rotary or Kiwanis.

As you gather information about chiropractors, find out:

• Their Unique Selling Proposition,
• The types of patients they prefer to see,
• The types of cases do they see,
• The techniques they utilize,
• The hours the clinics are open,
• The types of insurance they accept,
• Other benefits they offer patients (languages spoken, for example),
• The distance their clinics are from your potential office (if you know where this will be),
• Their advertising/marketing focus (yellow pages, local newspaper, radio, etc.).

3. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each of your competitors. Ask yourself: “What is this person doing that is very good? What is this person doing that is not good?”

4. Use the information to find a point of entry or a talking point. Is anyone offering something that you want to offer? If not, you may have found something special to offer people in this area.

If so, is there something that sets you apart from the competition in this offering? For example, if both of you offer evening hours, could you also offer Saturday mornings? Is there a way you could team up with this chiropractor for mutual benefit? (Read “Competitor vs. colleague,” from Chiropractic Economics, for an example:

In conclusion, the more you know about your competition, the easier it is to focus your efforts to maximize the “points of entry” or holes in coverage.

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