EPISODE 350: 2024 Chiropractic Yearly Planning

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of modern chiropractic mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie. And today I'm bringing you a solo episode, kind of piggybacking off of last week's episode where we did a positive focus on 2023. We're going to shift gears here a little bit. And start talking about 2024. I know it's hard to believe that, uh, it's going to be 2024.

Where's the, where's the time going? Right. Uh, but we, we can't ignore that the fact that it is coming and we got a plan for it. I don't want you to, um, you know, get too much into the weeds for it, but I think this is a great time of year to really get, um, set up for 2024. You know, it's in a lot of ways it shouldn't change.

I kind of look at it as it's, um, you know, it's a transition into a new, It's the second half or something, right? You get a little bit of a break here the next couple weeks, and then we gotta get back into it, uh, and really hit it hard. I don't want you, um, thinking that it's like a line of demarcation between 2023 and [00:01:00] 2024 to where you haven't done, you know, shit for the last six weeks because I'll just wait until 2024.

Uh, you know, Ed, my lead had a funny saying on his episode a few weeks ago and people have turned a holiday into a hollow month and it's, uh, it's pretty, pretty true. So, you know, take some time off Monday seems to be a day that we're going to have off for Christmas and for, for New Year's this year. Enjoy that.

If you got some other days planned, great. That's amazing. Um, but let's uh, you know, let's finish strong, but let's also plan for a great 2024 and hopefully you were doing a lot of great things to round out this year. And so, um, in our coaching group, uh, you know, we do a lot of planning for the year. Each, each week we've been really diving into that.

Uh, I do it for myself and, um, we're not gonna be able to dive into all the details of. These particular things you should be planning, but I'm gonna give you kind of a, an idea of what you should be doing for, uh, 2024. Okay? And if you want [00:02:00] to dive deep in these things, you could obviously reach out to us and, uh, we offer coaching and marketing and things of that nature to help get you jumpstarted, uh, for a great 2024.

And so first thing we do is a positive focus. We did that last week on the. on the podcast. So if you didn't listen to that one, do that. I'd like to really set a good tone for it. Okay. Um, the next thing you need to be doing is scheduling a team meeting, no matter if it's just you, uh, maybe it's you and your spouse, uh, or it's a, it's a well developed team is you need.

To be having a yearly team meeting. And in that meeting, uh, you know, I, I really like the book traction, some kind of give you just some resources, um, for it. Uh, that's a great book. Um, that's based on the EOS model or the entrepreneur operating system, which, which I really like. I'm excited. In 2024, we have Jay Greenstein coming to, uh, do a lot of that type of stuff, um, for our first weekend of the new West cohort [00:03:00] mastermind.

And you can definitely check that out at modern chiropractic marketing. com. If you're interested, the, uh, You know, the, the EOS is just really good information and Jay is certified in that and really has done a great job of applying that, uh, to the chiropractic profession. And so, uh, they talk about, you know, setting your quarterly rocks and, uh, you know, having an issues list, um, an indicator scorecard really.

I'm getting clear on that. And again, the book traction is a good resource. If you really want to dive into a great quarterly team meeting or yearly team meeting in this regard, but you should be doing these quarterly. Um, they also on, if you, if you look up EOS's website, they have a lot of great free downloads on there.

You can access. which I really like, but it's a great fundamental structure, um, to have a yearly team meeting. And that's what we use in our practice and some of the stuff that we, we coach our clients on. So make sure you plan a [00:04:00] yearly team meeting, whether it's at the end of December or the very early part of January.

If you haven't scheduled it yet, it might be hard to do it for, uh, this month in December. So maybe do it for, uh, January and get going on that. Okay. Um, some of the planning you need to be doing. Um, is, is definitely a full marketing plan. We dive into a yearly plan where we're kind of do a brain dump on that.

And then we tease it out for a Q1. You know, if you say you're going to revamp your website entirely, um, you may not get that to Q1, but you're just gonna put it on there. You're gonna start really on all the different categories of marketing. Right out the things you want to probably accomplish in 2024.

And then when you go to Q1, you know, January, February, March say, okay, yeah, we're going to. Um, start emailing our patients weekly in January. Great. We put that on for January and you want to get really clear on with your marketing as far as, um, what [00:05:00] the big projects you want to do in marketing against some of those one offs, developing a YouTube channel, start shooting videos, and then some of them are going to be, um, more continuous, like write one blog per month, post on Instagram.

three times a week, do, uh, you know, get more Google reviews, right? There's a lot of things that go with marketing. Again, another resource. If you want to pick up my book, doing it right, modern chiropractic marketing, you can get that on Amazon or from our website. The book is a book and a workbook and you can fill out the marketing planner on there and it breaks that down how to do that.

So you want to take the time in December. to plan out your marketing for 2024. You'd be surprised with how few people are doing that and they need to be doing it. Some of you all are like so busy with patients. You're like, shit, the last thing I need is more marketing, which is wrong thinking, but at least you're busy and hopefully profitable.

But there's a lot of you out there that are. Um, you know, complaining about your practice, not growing and [00:06:00] not being what it wanted. And you're just not doing anything. You're not doing your marketing. It's um, kind of shocking sometimes. And I know there's sometimes some stigmas around marketing or you feel like your clinical skillset should not warrant have to marketing or you, uh, still think chiropractic marketing is from like what the cheesy shit they used to do in the 1980s.

Um, but it's not like that. So you gotta be doing a marketing plan for 2024. Okay. Again, my book is a good resource for that. Next is, uh, you, you want to do a financial plan for 2024 and you want to do that in your personal life and sit down with your significant other. You know, what kind of things are you going to have for one off expenses?

You know, are you going to be remodeling the house? Are you taking a unique vacation? Or do you have something like, I remember 2022, uh, we have a high deductible insurance plan and our second child was being born in February. And of course, all those You know, doctors visits [00:07:00] that my wife had for the first seven months of the pregnancy went towards the 2021 deductible and it renewed.

And so, uh, I knew that baby was going to cost us 7, 500. Uh, that was our deductible. And so that's like a one off expense that we prepared for, right? So get your personal life finances squared away. And then. Uh, definitely your practice finances and then your practice finances, you know, uh, another great resource is Christine Odle's work, um, with, you know, she's got a book, you can just Amazon that Christine Odle, uh, I think it's rocking your business finances.

I send it to all our new clients. Um, you got other great resources out there like, uh, Dr. Holly Tucker or, Greg Crabtree as well. So we're doing for our mastermind group for both of them in 2024. This is probably worth the price of admission to the mastermind alone, but we are supplementing the in person weekend meetings with three two hour.

Um, zoom calls that are like real [00:08:00] detailed trainings of finances. So we're kind of layering on a theme of business finances, um, to our, our already scheduled program of in person stuff. And Greg Crabtree is going to be doing one of those. Uh, we've got another. Uh, person doing it and we're kind of rounding out the third, but ultimately you want to get super clear on your practice finances.

And that's where you're going to say, okay, is my emergency fund squared away? Um, how is our cashflow? If you know the great crab tree stuff, I had an episode with him. You can look back earlier in a year and he talked about the 2. 0 number, basically your labor costs in check. Um, you know, how's your profitability each.

Month and for the year, what are, you know, do you have a sinking fund set away for big expenses coming up? Right? So getting clear on your, uh, personal and professional finances is a great time for you to do that now. Um, in your personal [00:09:00] life, uh, we were lucky enough. In July in our Naples mastermind to have Kurt and Krista Kippenberger, Kurt's one of our members and mastermind is one of our associate coaches and they do something called vision casting.

And so they did that with our group and that was really good. Um, they're going to be doing that for our West cohort. In San Diego at the end of next year. So, um, our members will be able to really dive in great for 2025 moving forward. And my wife and I just did this, we went up to New York city for the holidays, but we took out specific times to really plan our future, you know, not just in 2024, but that was a big part of it because it's more, uh, pressing, but just like long term, you know, like, what are some of our things that we want to do, um, as a family?

And what are some of our goals and what are some of our. Um, value systems and, you know, schooling for the kids. What do we want to do? Like we got really clear on that. And so I would, I would recommend picking up that you could reach out to, uh, reach out to me if you're [00:10:00] interested, I'm not sure where you can get Krista's book, but she wrote a little bit of a nice book on this and you can get that as a resource.

Um, but yeah, you know, start planning out, like what does your family's personal life look like in 2024? Okay. Next is, um. What do you, what do you, is there any big projects for you in your business? Maybe it's your personal life too, but we kind of talked about that. But you know, are you, are you going to open up your own practice in 2024?

What does that look like? Right. Uh, are you going to renovate your office in 2024? You're going to hire that first associate. There's a lot of big things that happen as a. Uh, as you grow as a professional and, um, you got to get prepared for that. So start kind of reverse engineering, some of the planning for some of the big things you need to do.

Uh, I remember in 2022, we renovated the office and I remember sitting down in December, 2021, I started [00:11:00] planning it out as like part of it was okay. In January, we're going to start the refinancing of my. Mortgage to take out the money. I got a lower interest rate back in January, 2022. Luckily I did it. Uh, I actually went into a lower interest rate, probably not going to happen nowadays, uh, but I was able to lower the interest rate, take a little bit of money out to renovate.

And my payment was essentially the same each month. So it felt like free money almost. And. You know, you, you wanna start planning it. And now, and for us it was like, okay, you gotta do the financial part of it. Get that squared away. And then, you know, planning out the contractors and what we're gonna do.

And we worked with cross fields and they just, there was a lot of moving parts to it. So I planned that in December of 2021 because I wanted to do that in the summer of 2022, because the summer for us down here is slower. I wouldn't wanna do a remodel. in the winter, although some of it got pushed to the winter because of delay in a supply chain and all that stuff.

Right. So definitely check out some of the big things you may be doing. Uh, next is what are you [00:12:00] going to do to develop as a person next year? Um, I would say over the last five years, this has been something I've been really in touch with for myself. And I've mentioned that sometimes on the podcast, you know, like This past year, I was really, uh, doubling down on improving as a leader.

Uh, I think in many ways I, I do well as a leader and there's some blind spots and some things that weren't blind spots that I knew I had to improve on. Um, that's why I brought on Dr. Manuel Astruck for the year to really help me with that side of leadership, uh, which was great. Uh, the year before I jumped up a level of program and strategic coach, cause I wanted to do that.

I know the year before I also. Hired a public speaking coach as well. And so I'm always looking at how can I develop as a person? You know, like for you, it could be coaching, right? It could be, um, having someone in your corner to help you out. It could be going to our mastermind. That could be the next step for you.

Uh, you know, for [00:13:00] me, I continue to look and some of the people I had in my, in my past that have really helped been great. You know, Christine Odell had been amazing. I've had chiropractic coaches before that. I've done a lot of different type of coaching and next year will be will be no different. I'm kind of on the decision making of a couple different routes that I'll keep you informed with as I, as I go along.

But I'm always looking to improve myself as a person because that carries over to my. Um, obviously my personal life, but also the business. And so what are you going to do to take that next step and improve, um, yourself? And so definitely, um, consider that. Okay. And lastly, you know, um, it's been a tough week for me.

It's been a very, very hard week as I record this about, um, five days ago, one of my, my best friends, uh, [00:14:00] he was best man in wedding and, um, he, he unfortunately passed away in. The story is very, very sad. Um, and it just was, you know, passed away in his sleep. Um, and I won't go into the details, but, um, recently married, very, very, very recently had his first child.

Um, and you know, I just don't know how much, um, layers of, of protection there were there for his family financially with that. And so we're, we're kind of taking that head on. Um, but I've had, I've had this conversation with you before on this podcast. If you've been a listener and I had a, um, I had my financial advisor, planner, Michael Desonda on, um, and you could access that one.

But I, I think it was a couple. It was like a couple of years ago, I listened to a podcast and they talked about building a financial fortress [00:15:00] around your family. And I would say over the last four or five years, I'm 43 rolling up on 44, actually in a couple of weeks, um, after I had my first son, you know, I've kind of had been in touch with my own mortality over the last five years.

I think maybe just hitting. Getting close to 40 or hitting that you start to realize like, okay, it's a line of demarcation here. Right? Um, and so after I had my first son, you know, we sat down and we, we have a will and trust. I mean, it's really teased out. Well, uh, if, if, you know, unfortunate circumstances happen, we really have it all figured out even to the point where if, Uh, you know, if my wife and I were to perish at the same time, who's getting the kids and what that looks like, it's the will and trust really solves a lot of family concerns during a time of grieving.

And I've got plenty of life insurance. I've got a key person policy in my business. Um, there's just a lot of layers [00:16:00] protection. There's a plan in place. What happens? To the practice to the office real estate. And so I just want to, um, you know, when I had sat down to plan out this episode a few weeks ago, this one wasn't on the list, but obviously, given the circumstances, it made me think about it a little more.

And I just want you to, um, if you have any holes. In your, um, fortress. All right. To protect your family. Make this the year. I mean, start it now. Um, but make this the year you really get that figured out. I mean, everybody's different as far as what it would cost for like, say, just the key person policy, but I can tell you like a million dollars would, would fund into my business if I passed away.

And it's like 600 for the year. Right? Like, and I'm healthy, but you may be healthy. You may be younger. Maybe older or not, whatever it costs, like it's just the peace of mind. Um, and so I want you to, to make 2024. [00:17:00] the year that you, you really plug any of those holes that might be there, um, to, to protect your family.

Okay. And so, um, do that, do that for your family, do that for, for your loved ones. It just makes things a lot easier. Um, cause it's impossible no matter what, if something were to happen, but at least your family would have the space to grieve, uh, without worrying about the financial aspects and ramifications of it.

Okay. And so I'm gonna leave you with that. And. I know you're going to have a great 2024. I know there's going to be challenges. There's no doubt about it, but you're going to overcome those and we will be here for you in any capacity needed, whether it's just reaching out to me, whether you just listen to this podcast or you decide to, uh, join our coaching program or our mastermind, we'd love to help you out in any way possible to make 2024 your best year yet.