EPISODE 359: 5 Keys To Good Chiropractic Business

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today I am bringing you five keys to good chiropractic business. This is a solo episode that I'm going to go over with you. There's probably other keys to a chiropractic practice, but I think these are very fundamental and cover a lot.

There's probably subgroups were there, and I'll get into some of that. Uh, but as you know, this is a podcast and, uh, we just try to give you as much information as possible, but can't give it to you all in one show, but it will be a solo episode. Before we dive into that, uh, just a couple little, um, housekeeping things.

I hope I get to see you in Parker Vegas. If you're there, I am speaking on Saturday, early afternoon on modernizing your practice. So we're gonna a new topic. If you've seen me speak before, this will be a little different. Where we're gonna talk about modernizing your practice with marketing and, uh, come say hi.

If you [00:01:00] attend, come up, say hi. Ask me questions. If you see me at the, I don't know, in the expo center or having a drink or something like that, come say hello. I'd love to meet you, but I will be in Parker Vegas on Friday and Saturday and I'll be speaking on Saturday. So hopefully to see you there Also.

Cool little thing. Uh, jay Greenstein and I are hosting a salon. I. Dinner on Friday night, and it's gonna be eight of us. We kind of selected a handful of chiropractors and if you're not sure what a salon dinner is, it's uh, where, you know, they've been doing these for the history of time, maybe the last few hundred years or so, but they kind of went, uh, the way of the dinosaur.

But they've kind of come back where it's an organized dinner where you have a guided conversation on a particular topic. I mean, it could be. Politics or history or whatever, religion. But we're gonna make ours, obviously about chiropractic and really, um, some of the things that we as a profession, uh, could do to, to really [00:02:00] improve the lot that the evidence-based chiropractor has and have more+ thriving chiropractors.

And so we kind of hand selected, uh, some guests and Jay and I are gonna host that. And, uh, it'll be exciting. So it'll be the first time I've done it. Uh, I heard someone. Talk about doing that on the Tim Ferriss podcast. And so got that idea and asked Jay to co-host that with me. And so, uh, I'll, I'll let everybody know how that goes and, and the theme of it and how it worked out after we.

Have that, uh, actually this episode probably comes out the day before, uh, the, that we're in Vegas, so hopefully you listen to it and, and can, can meet me there. So, uh, next is we just got back from our first Mastermind West cohort, and that was in Phoenix, Arizona. What a great group. Uh, started out with 11 of us this year, back in 2022 when we.

Started the east group, we had 14 and that went really well. And, uh, I think everybody of that particular year returned for the next year. So we went from [00:03:00] 14 to twenty-two, and, and then now in twenty-twenty-four. The East group, um, is at it's max of 25. I don't make it any bigger than twenty-five per group.

Uh, 'cause I want it to be a true mastermind. You know, there's people out there that, uh, say they host masterminds, but it's really more of a. Seminar or workshop or conference, and those are fine, obviously, but I think the essence of a true mastermind is where it's a smaller group and there's a lot of conversation and dialogue and everybody is contributing.

It's not one person and it's not about me. It's it's not one person that's um. It's centered around the entire time. There's plenty of dialogue and working through things. We have certain things like hot seats and each one teach ones and all the fun stuff. But it was a great first weekend in the West because we had to launch a new group since we maxed out the east and we decided to do it geographically.

And it was, uh, uh, it just was a full success. I mean, I, I got a lot of great feedback. Jay [00:04:00] Greenstein was our guest presenter for that weekend, and it just went, uh, really, really well. Looking forward to the next three weekends we have for the West Cohort, which will be in Denver in May. I. Uh, Jackson Hole in August, and we'll be in San Diego in November.

Uh, put 2025 on your radar. There's obviously some slots available for next year. They, you know, if it trends like it did on the east group, they will fill up and there are some requirements to join our group. Uh, but uh, definitely look at that. You can go to MODERNCHIROPRACTICMARKETING.COM to get an idea of what the 2024 looked like, and then put it on your radar.

Uh, sometime in the early summer I'll be reaching out. And doing some personal invites to folks, but keep that on your radar for next year.

Alright, so what is good chiropractic business?

You know, I want to first kind of give a. A couple traits I think that really help to [00:05:00] develop, um, to then be able to do the next five things. And one is leadership and the other is a growth mindset. As I mentioned, we had Jay, uh, present to our group and it was all about his chiropractic entrepreneur framework, which is, uh, mindset.

Uh, it's gonna be process people.

Sorry, I'm having a brain fart on that. Um, gimme one second. Becky. Lemme just redo that. As I mentioned, we had Jay Greenstein present at our West Mastermind about his chiropractic entrepreneur and framework, and a couple of the key variables were mindset and then also people and process and, and ultimately when we talk about mindset, we dove into growth mindset, and you have to have that.

To really have a good [00:06:00] chiropractic business because you're not gonna graduate knowing all those things. And so you first have to really focus on a growth mindset. And if you do have that, you're gonna improve your leadership skills and you're gonna need to do that as well to be able to do these next five things.

And so I'm a big proponent in improving your leadership. And also, you know, and having that growth mindset and realize that you're gonna be able to do things or develop things, um, in the future as you get better. That you may not have the capabilities now. 'cause a lot of you are like, you know, I, I can't imagine having.

A team of 10 in my practice, it just doesn't, I, I can't handle that. I don't know how to handle that well. That's a fixed mindset, and so you really need to come at these next five things with the fact that, uh, you need a growth mindset. You need to have leadership skills. If you're lacking in leadership skills, you can improve leadership.

It's a slow. And methodical process, but you can get better at it. And so I wanted [00:07:00] to just start out with that as the context for these next five things, because if you think you're struggling with them or your, uh, particular situation, your practice is not well, it doesn't have to be like that. And if you can provide good leadership to your patients, to your team, to your family, and have a growth mindset, you can improve these.

Alright, so number one, I want to really understand, I want you to understand that patient outcomes is the key driver. Um, for good chiropractic business. It's not the only thing. We know a lot of chiropractors that have great businesses and their patient outcomes suck, but as an evidence. Space evidence-informed chiropractor and our audience.

Um, we want everything to be centered around patient outcomes, and then everything else flows from there. So when you hear me talk about. Finances and marketing and [00:08:00] communication and report of findings and this like, it's all with the, you know, or like patient adherence, right? Like you talk about, you know, having effective treatment plan frequency and duration, and then ultimately making sure that patients adhere to that.

It's because we need great patient outcomes and the science, the evidence shows that. Proper treatment planning is going to improve outcomes. If you're under dosing your treatments, you're not gonna get the same outcomes. If you're having problems with patient adherence, you're gonna have outcome problems.

So you need to have good patient outcomes, and you need to do the things that are going to get that, and that's gonna definitely keep on getting better clinically. So keep doing that. I'm not gonna. Um, you know, dive into that right now. But, you know, like that's the table stakes. Like keep getting better clinically, get efficient clinically, and that's gonna help your outcomes, but also your communication with the patient is gonna help their outcomes.

Your [00:09:00] team, making sure that they adhere to their treatment plan is gonna improve outcomes. Having, uh, you know. Better. You know, being able to afford better equipment might improve, might improve patient outcomes, right? There's a lot of things that go to that, so we just, I just wanted to make sure, like that's number one, right?

That's the first step. That's the big domino. It's patient outcomes. There's certain things that fall underneath that. Everything else flows from that. Right? And the next one, number two on this list is the patient experience. And I'm not gonna. Lump in the clinical into that, it definitely is, right? Um, and so that's again, table stakes.

The patient could be really excited about your nice new office, your friendly staff, your good looks, all those things. But if they don't get the outcome, obviously the patient experience isn't gonna be there. So as I talk about this particular aspect of patient adherence, uh, sorry, patient experience, let's put away.

The clinical just for [00:10:00] right now. And so the patient experience is gonna be things like. How friendly is your staff? How nice is your office? Uh, do you have a team around you? Uh, do you communicate effectively with that patient? Um, do you have a, a new patient tour? Maybe? Do you send a welcome letter, uh, to them?

Do they get a birthday reminder or thank, do they get a birthday, uh, text or card in the mail? Uh, do you send thank-you letters when they refer to you? Right? All those things that are gonna improve the patient experience, it needs to be. A remarkable experience for them, and obviously getting good clinical outcomes, but you gotta start getting better with the patient experience.

And that really is a fundamental thing for good chiropractic business because so many people think you have to be a shark or a snake to be good at business in chiropractic. Like doctors can't be good at business and fundamentally. Being good at [00:11:00] business as a doctor is providing the ultimate inpatient experience and obviously outcomes.

And so those two things are so huge, in my opinion, on what good chiropractic business is. So if you wanted to say, you know what I want, get good at chiropractic business, keep good and good at clinical, and then try to be an exceptional place. For that practice to go to or that patient to go to. Right.

It's good music. It's good energy. Uh, you know, you go to a restaurant and there's two people sitting in there and it's got like a, a bad lighting and it's just got no energy. The food could be good, but it's just kind of like, uh, why isn't there anybody here? Right. Um. When you go to a nice practice that's busy but not crazy, but got people in there and there's a team and uh, you know, they could just tell there's good music and good lighting and good energy in there, that makes a big difference to the patient experience and that's gonna grow your practice.

So you really gotta tackle that. That's something we tackle with our, uh, coaching clients all the time. [00:12:00] Number three is team culture. And, and frankly, um, if your team culture is bad, the patient experience is probably not gonna be good. So team culture is gonna feed that. Uh, but you also need to make sure that everybody gets along and, uh, you know, there's just, I'm not gonna necessarily dive into all the strategies of what a team culture is, but you kind of know when you have bad culture.

One of the things that we discussed in our mastermind in Phoenix was the. The nine box, uh, which is, um, you know, an XY axis on one is gonna be your employees or team members values, and the other one's gonna be performance. And you would grade them A, B, and C for each. And so, uh, you might have an employee that is a, a on performance, but a c on values, uh, that's gonna erode.

The culture of the team, right? You might have someone that's a, a values and kind of a BC, say [00:13:00] clinically on performance, but they're new, right? They're a, a recent graduate and they've got the capabilities. You gotta coach them up, right? But the killer for a team culture is when you get people with the values that are in that b and c.

And that you can't get them to become an A player from a, from a value standpoint, you gotta get them off your team, even if they're performing well. Alright? So you gotta protect that team culture. That's gonna be the third key to a really good chiropractic business. Okay? Number four is financial literacy.

Really understanding business finances is gonna be so important to you. There are certain scenarios where certain chiropractic practices are just. Money's coming in hand over fist and it covers up bad fundamentals of finances. But as you know, most chiropractic practices are operating on lower profit margins, so it's gonna be very important to understand.

Practice finance. Is that something that we [00:14:00] talk so much about in our coaching and also in our mastermind, we're actually doing part of the 2024 mastermind group. We're doing three supplemental Zoom calls. We have one, um, coming up in February now with Great Crab Tree, who's been on my podcast talking about, um, his.

Business fundamentals and his framework. And so you need to have a framework. I know Holly Tucker does great with the Profit First model for chiropractors. Uh, we've got our kind of own financial framework that we teach chiropractors. The Great Crabtree has his, and ultimately if you can get really good at that, it's gonna help you with smart.

Kind of scaling to, to really, you know, grow your practice in a way that's going to, you know, the term scaling gets thrown around. It becomes a cliche, but you do want to scale for future preservation and ultimately your enhanced culture. Right? Like, I [00:15:00] think too many chiropractors struggle. Um. With finances and they never build a team around them because of it, and they end up doing everything for forever, right?

Like they're Forty-five years old, you know, and, and they're still doing all the stuff and they have no help and they get burned out. The chiropractors that I've seen do well over time have put a team around them, and it takes smart. Scaling to do that and understanding kind of your hourly capacity and, and revenue and profit margins.

But ultimately they're able to delegate a lot of the things they don't like doing and they're, they're going to work every day doing the things they love doing as that strategic coach's unique ability. And so you really have to get clear on your financial literacy so that you can smart. You can scale smart and be able to hire a great team and pay them well so you get great culture and great patient experience and great patient outcomes, right?

A lot of that is dependent on that. And then obviously for your future Preservation, by being able to offload [00:16:00] things you don't like doing anymore. Right. You may love doing rehab right now at 28 years old. Are you gonna love doing, getting on the ground and doing rehab at 48 years old with a patient for 30 minutes?

I'm not sure about that. Uh, you may, but I'm not sure. That's why you need to be able to afford to hire someone to do the rehab for you so that you can Maximize your license and do exam and functional assessments and the manipulation and, and whatever else. Um, but that is just one example, right? Um, I don't wanna do my billing and.

Bookkeeping and half the, like, I don't do hardly anything in the practice as far as like I do provide leadership. I provide patient care and pay the bills and things of that nature, but there's a lot of things that I just don't do anymore and it took a, um, a level of profit margin to reinvest into the business to grow that.

Alright, number five is marketing. You do have to have effective marketing. Now there are gonna be some outliers. That, um, just have a huge busy practice and it's all [00:17:00] referral-based and that's awesome. But typically what I find where that kind of. It's a roadblock is when you try to hire associates and you know, basically get them busier.

It typically will take a level of marketing to do that, and it's gotta be elegant marketing, not the cheesy stuff. And obviously that's kind of our bread and butter is teaching content marketing and how to position yourself as an expert and ultimately drive in business to the practice. That's kind of a flywheel effect, so it's not so reliant on you.

Going and really dragging people into the office and such, but it's just like you just feel confident every month you've got 40 new patients and you've got all these rat reactivations. 'cause people are seeing your content and you're just pro, you're essentially, the way I try to look at it from my practice is I want to be a leading educator.

In the community. And that's my goal. That's my goal with Content Marting. That kind of was my goal when I started this podcast seven years ago, right? Was just like I wanted to be a leading educator in the chiropractic, the evidence-based chiropractic [00:18:00] profession on all things practice growth. And I'm not sure if I'm there yet or not, but that was my goal at least, and that's why I produced episode like this every week, is to become a.

Leading educator in the chiropractic community around this information. And I want you to do the same thing in your practice, in your community, right? Is become a leading educator, and that's gonna be really good marketing. Then you can do all the campaigns and tactics and strategies that are outside of that, but think of yourself as a, as a leading educator, build content around that and you'll, you'll really build a good practice and, and I think that rounds out five key aspects.

Of what good chiropractic business is. It's patient outcomes, it's patient experience, team culture, financial literacy, and marketing. I'm sure there's others. I'm sure you could talk about communication, right? We could probably layer that into leadership and other ones, but those are the five I wanted to chat about today.

It doesn't have to mean that you are a [00:19:00] shark or a snake and you're doing things that are, you know, bad. You're, you're doing everything for the money. It doesn't have to be that way. It's such a misconception. We preach that we are patient-centered. What I just talked about today is a patient-centered approach.

You're not giving recommendations based on money. You're giving recommendations based on outcomes, and the money will flow from there and your life will be a whole lot better. Hope that helps. Lemme know if you have any questions, and again, stop and say hi. If you see me at Parker Vegas.