EPISODE 363: Is Your Practice Buc-ee's or Waffle House?

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.

Hey docs, welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. Today I'm bringing you a solo episode and my question to you is, are you a Buc ee's or are you a Waffle House? And I know that might sound weird, but I'm new to the Buc ee's scene, which is B U C E E S. It's kind of a really fancy gas station you're seeing, you see mostly in the South.

So I know. Uh, we have a lot of people that may not know, uh, what that is. And then most people know what a waffle house is, but we do have international guests and that's going to be a little bit more of a. a low end restaurant, but this Buc ee's thing is really taken off. And it's quite the experience.

It's a kind of, you know, first rate gas [00:01:00] station, but I bring this up because I had posted a sign outside of a Buc ee's that I found that someone had sent me. And it was a sign. Uh, you know, looking for to, to fill positions and I mean, it's, it's wild if you're a, a restroom crew, you get 20 an hour, uh, cashiers, janitor, warehouse, uh, grocery stock or 18.

Then it goes from there. I mean, the department managers get 25 to 33. Then we got full time assistant general manager makes 125, 000 plus gift manager, carwash manager makes 125, 000. Food service manager, 150, 000 to 175, 000. General manager, 000. Plus you get 401k with match, uh, 6%. Three weeks paid time off.

Healthcare part time available plus, uh, 2 an hour for overnight [00:02:00] shifts. And it just, I posted that sign and the pay is obviously really, really nice. And we'll, we'll dive into that a little bit, but the more moral of this story. And this episode is, you know, is your practice more like a Buc ee's or a Waffle House in what they're offering, right?

Some of the things, if you go to one of these Buc ee's, it's, it's just got a phenomenal, great experience. It's got great people working there. And I want to just touch on that for a little bit right now. Um, Transcribed You know, part of why it's got great people working there is that it does pay better than most, I mean, way better than most Castasians, way better than most chiropractic practices or chiropractors or a lot of professions.

And so they're, they're really going to get for the most part, great. People, but it's also got a great culture. It's clean and it's first rate. [00:03:00] I mean, you would really pick that place out and stop there and to go number two, if you had to, right? Like a lot of people won't go number two places, but that place, I think vast majority would it's, you know, it's clean.

I mean, they got a restroom attendant getting paid 20 plus dollars an hour. And so you can imagine the restrooms are probably a good place to be. And so the, the Buc ee's really stands out and it's remarkable, right? Uh, whereas a Waffle House, you know, nothing against the Waffle House, but it's not clean.

It's not a nice, it's not, you're not there for the experience. You know, the food may be good. Uh, typically my experiences at Waffle House, when I was at Florida State University, we had a lot of them around there in Tallahassee, uh, was when you were drunk and it was open 24 hours. So you went there. 2 a. m.

and got waffles and hash browns and you name it, uh, but the food, you know, maybe it's good. It serves a purpose, but would you, you know, would you recommend it? Like if someone was [00:04:00] coming in town, I was like, Hey, where do I need to go eat? You're not going to probably say the waffle house. Whereas, you know, people talk about and recommend a place like Bucee's and that's where we need to get to.

Right. Um, you know, like if you think, if you know Waffle House, like what's your perception of Waffle House? If you know Buc ee's, what's your perception of Buc ee's? And you got to start asking about your practice like that. Where are you closer at in that? realm. Like maybe you're like the wall files, maybe the food is good.

And maybe in your practice, the clinical is good, but is anything else remarkable and good about that. And, you know, sometimes it's hard, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg, right? Like in a chiropractic practice or Bucky's, do you need to pay really, really well? To get great [00:05:00] people to, you know, do you have to have the margin to be able to do that first to be able to pay more than most, right?

If you're a chiropractic practice and you're used to paying 15, I'm just going to use the front desk for, for an example. And you're used to paying 15 an hour from five years ago, and you can't, you just can't stomach the idea that you may have to pay. Uh, 21 an hour for the same position that you paid before, or the fact that you just honestly, you can't, you don't have the margin for it.

So you stay at that lower rate and what are you able to hire? Right? So we get a lot of complaints about the workforce and who we're hiring in our practices, but are you hovering? In the range of what you're paying, that's more in the Waffle House range, or are you paying? What's more in the, [00:06:00] the Bucky's range.

And then you might be saying like, oh, but I can't afford to, you know, to, to play that game. Or I can't afford, I'm not a big company like, like Bucky's, but you might just find yourself chasing that tail of not being able to fire, find great team because you're, you're not offering what's going to. Attract great people, and so you got to figure that out.

And the tricky part is, is that If you, if you waved a magic wand and you had great people in your practice, then you're probably going to generate more revenue and better profit margins. You probably can increase your rates a little bit. You probably can, um, you know, get patients to, to pay for. Shockwave or dry needling or other services that aren't covered by insurance.

You may be able to really generate a better experience that people will pay for and refer [00:07:00] to. And I know it can be hard where you say, well, I, I'd have to lay out that investment first and then hope it happens. Well, yeah, that's kind of the chicken or the egg conversation, right? It's like, okay. If you built a great practice that then had margin and then you could afford to hire the great team, then that tends to be what we think, literally thinking is like, okay, I could, I can, let's do that.

Or do you need to. Invest in a great team and then that will increase your revenue and profit margins. And then you're, you know, you're off to the races, right? So you've got to figure that out for yourself. But typically, um, if you say to yourself, , I can only afford 14 an hour. Uh, you're, you potentially are going to get, unfortunately, those kind of BNC players, and you're going to be stuck in the Waffle [00:08:00] House vicious cycle, and you're going to have a hard time providing great team and experience for the patients for them to want to.

pay more or refer more or, uh, buy more things from you or come in and adhere to their treatment plan, right? Like it's going to be hard for that to potentially happen unless you have just a phenomenal personality and a great skill set, you might be able to override that. But what we find is a lot of carpenters get stuck in that waffle house rut and can't get out of it because they're not willing to make that investment up front.

And having great team and building great culture to allow for a great experience for that patient and then allow you to have the margin to keep on reinvesting in your business, to keep on getting better at that experience and then breaking through that ceiling of complexity. And I think that's ultimately what Bucky's is proven.

Now I get it like they're large company. There's probably a ton of money. They probably started out with debt. They like, there's a lot of things that get, but [00:09:00] you get the point is that when you can get to the level of a. Bucky's. And as far as a chiropractic practice, that really, again, that means. You got a nice office space, you got nice equipment, things look good in there, your staff is great, they're friendly, you know, you're, you're feeling good about things.

You're not beaten down by low margins and cashflow crunch and just everything is first rate. Then that's going to really feed that and you're going to have that Bucky's practice. And if. But if you're not careful, you're going to be stuck in that waffle house for too long. And it's, again, you're wondering, why am I not getting patient referral?

Why am I not getting patients that are? Um, sticking to their, your care plans. Why am I not getting reactivations? Why am I not getting a raving fan base? Right? Like Bucky's has that raving fan base and, and Waffle House, I mean, it kind of does to an extent, but they've just done a good job of serving a purpose.

They don't [00:10:00] necessarily have a raving fan base like Bucky's does. And we got to get your practice, um, to, to be like that, um, on the, on the. point of great culture and also on, um, experience. There's two books I want to recommend. I just finished. The culture code, which was really cool by Daniel Coyle, a really good book, a lot of good stories.

I listened to it. I tend to read and listen books and, um, I listened to this one. It was a really good listen. I highly recommend it. And you start to understand what it takes to build great culture and it isn't always throwing money at it, like at, at, at team members, like you got to pay them well. But it's not always about the money that keeps them sticking around and keeps them engaged and excited about showing up to work.

So, read that book because that's going to be a big one with culture. And as far as experience, uh, you know, there's two books. We, we talk a lot about Never Lose a Customer Again, uh, which [00:11:00] I really like. That's Joey Coleman. Uh, so that's going to be great about the, the experience of the patient. But there's another book and in the culture code book, he references.

Uh, Danny Meyer, who wrote a book, he, he's a big restauranteur, very successful. Uh, but he had ended up writing a book, uh, Danny Meyer did called Unreasonable Hospitality. And he's done that in the restaurant business. And I think that's a great read for you to realize, like, we gotta be, uh, we gotta have that unreasonable hospitality in our practices.

So that's a good one. And going back to Joey, he also followed up his never lose a customer again with never losing an employee again. And in that book's really good as well to show that it's not always about money. It's about culture. And there's a lot of things that help you build a great team that, um.

His first rate, but it's really hard to expect to have a first rate team and sustain that [00:12:00] team and have longevity in a team. There's always gonna be some turnover, but it can't become a problem where it's chronic turnover. And part of that is if you're trying to compensate like Waffle House and expecting a Bucky's practice, it's not going to happen.

So you have to compensate well, but then you have to tackle those other things, right? So let's. Give a good synopsis here of Bucky's. Great experience, great people, great culture. It's clean in its first rate and you could stop there to take a number two. Hopefully your patients don't drop a deuce in your practice, but that's a different story.

But you get the idea of Bucky's is going to be a first rate experience. And I want to just touch on one more thing because you might be concerned about the finances of it. And I get it is that's where you have to really understand practice finances. And I highly recommend going back. To listen to podcasts podcast episode I had probably a year, year and a half ago with Greg [00:13:00] Crabtree.

You can Google that. You can go into our catalog on modernchiropracticmarketing. com or wherever you listen to scroll down, you'll see Greg Crabtree, phenomenal business mind. And then we did a two hour zoom training for our mastermind with him. I paid him to do a two hour zoom training and ultimately getting super clear on what your payroll costs should be.

Your labor costs should be based on your revenue. And so you can start to understand what you actually can afford. Some of you be surprised where you might scoff at the 21 an hour, the 25 an hour. Um, or an associate pay of whatever. Uh, but when you look at your finances, you actually could, you may have to clean up some things, but too many of you are, you know, um, kind of robbing the piggy bank in the practice and you're not, then you don't think you can afford, uh, that super qualified, amazing front desk person or CA or associate [00:14:00] or office manager and you actually could.

And if you made the investment and you also did the other things, like obviously. focus on patient experience and have great culture, you can have a great team. You can have the Buc ee's practice and you don't have to be the waffle house for patients. Cause a lot of you complain about your patient base, the price shoppers, and all they want to do is use their shitty insurance and they never want to come in for more than a few visits.

And they're just, you know, it's potentially attracting the wrong patient base. And you got to look at how you can. Uh, rectify that. And so that's my challenge to you. I'm just a little bit of a riff today on a interesting, the Facebook posts. Uh, I recommend going to our Facebook group, modern chiropractic marketing and request to join, or if you already remember, look at that post.

You can search for it. There was a lot of interaction, a lot of comments on it, and it was, um, pretty eyeopening. So, uh, let's turn our practices [00:15:00] into Buc ee's and not Waffle House. Have a great week. I hope I didn't offend any Waffle House, um, lovers. I love Waffle House, but I think you get the point. It's not Buc ee's.