AcuDoc's Excellent Adventure: Living the Good Life...

Couple things I forgot to mention.

Buy about 5 small to medium size locks. In my case these will be for two desk drawers, wardrobe and two drawers under my bed. You need two minimum, that is all I have but at times wish I had a couple more. I do know people that have things taken from their rooms. I lock all valuable up whenever I leave my room. Do not bring anything like an iron, teapot, cup warmer etc. as the will be confiscated for fire safety reason.

The Dream off Belize Earlier This Week

Local Bar in Belize City

View from my favorite place for fish tacos, $2 each, in Costa Maya

Spa Girls Natalie and Sophie stopped by last night

to see if I wanted to go to the show

WORK HARD

Now lets talk paperwork. I’m a fairly organized guy, somewhat metal in TCM. The night before embark I post my schedule on the spa computer, my Macbook and organize my weekly work sheets for each day. Theses are appointment sheets with times available to book people throughout the week, essentially my schedule. I use a pencil to write down the name and cabin number of the patient in case of changes and I use a yellow highlighter to mark times that are not available such as lunch, dinner, time off, seminars etc.

During embark and throughout the week I use this to book consults and appointments. As soon as I do during embark I tell the receptionist on duty to enter it into the computer so it is not double booked and the rest of the week I enter the information myself.

This gives you three points of reference, the spa computer, which I constantly check throughout the day for added appointments. The spa computer is the master schedule and my Macbook is the slave and I post appointments on it according to the spa computer.

My daily/weekly worksheets are used to book appointments during my seminars, embark etc. Always transfer appointments to the spa computer making sure you were not booked. When I give seminars and book appointments after them on my daily sheets I tell the patient that I will check the spa computer and let them know if the time had been booked during the seminar and will call if there is a conflict to reschedule. This happens very seldom but it does happen. You must keep in mind that the “master schedule” is the spa computer, not your personal computer or worksheets. I’ve found this system to be very easy to use and avoid any scheduling mix-ups.

During the seminar I also have a sign up sheet for those that attend. I have them fill this out while I am waiting to give the seminar. This enables you to see who is at the seminar and why. This way you can gear your talk to address their specific needs. I usually have a very high percentage of those at the seminar sign up for consults or appointments.

The problem I am having is getting people to the seminars. This has just happened over the last few weeks and we think it is due to the “spring break” demographic. That and the weather has been exceptional so everyone is outdoors enjoying the sun. We have done cabin drops, display boards talking about seminars, the morning show…everything but to no avail. They are just not showing up.

What gas carried me through is I have had very high embark numbers. That is until this week. This has been the slowest embark since I joined the ship. Very few people on the spa tour and very few of them interested in signing up for free consultations or the 20% discount we began to offer for embark night only.

Usually how I now start my embark speech as I have few little time with the guest is to say “My name is Larry and I am the onboard acupuncturist. It is my job not only to welcome you aboard but to also tell you how I can make your cruise and your life a little nicer. One way is to relieve any stress that you may be going through. They other it to relieve you from any pain you are experiencing. Acupuncture is good for any type of pain form back, neck, shoulders, knee, elbow etc. Are you experiencing any pain?” Usually they will say yes and then I say “there is no reason to answer yes etc.”. Then follow up from there telling the person how you can help them. I also always have my testimonial book with me and show them what others with similar conditions have had to say and how much I have helped them. This is very important and has helped my book a number of appointments. Remember you only have minutes to get the point across that you can help them.

That is it for now. Let me know if you have any other questions etc.

PLAY HARD

Right now I am sitting in the local crew bar/hangout in St. Maarten and decided it was time to catch up a little with my blog.

Boat ride to St. John

Yesterday while in St. Thomas I decided to take a boat to St. John. Once in St. John it was off to Trunk Beach, which has been rated one of the top 10 beaches in the world. If it wasn’t for all the people I would have agreed. It certainly was beautiful and the water was an amazing color and was unbelievably clear.

So without any further talk I'll let it speak for itself….