EPISODE 448: Margin Expander: Finances

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 we are talking about the Margin Expander tool and how it relates to your finances. Uh, with our coaching clients and our mastermind members, we developed a tool called the Margin Expander, and this helps us get very clear on having more margin in our life.

It's not just about money. It can be about time. It could be about energy, kind of physical and mental. It could be about relationships, work, health, emotional capacity, leisure, right? And so we kind of have eight different. Measuring sticks of margin in our life. And if we can improve those, we can ultimately thrive professionally, personally, and feel good about our progress in life.

And today we're gonna use this tool and just kind of dive into the first one I have listed on the tool, which is finances. Uh, you know, financial margin provides security [00:01:00] and freedom to handle emergencies or invest in growth and. I think it, you know, it, it, it lends itself to some peace of mind, right? Uh, when you've got your financials squared away, I can take two people, two chiropractors, all things being equal, one with, uh, good margin in their finances.

And we'll define what that looks like, uh, and one that doesn't. And, uh, again, with everything else being equal, same, same person, uh, that other one's gonna, with the financial struggle is going to, uh, have a little more anxiety. Maybe a little more frustration on edge depression, um, you know, burnout, professional burnout.

There's a lot of things that come with lack of margin in your finances. So, and, and when we talk about these, I'm just gonna talk about five. And this is pertaining to your business and personal, right? Uh, and one is gonna be cash flow, right? Um, cash flow [00:02:00] crunch is not fun. We've all been there and, uh, you know, and I speak to you not as a.

A complete expert in all these things, but talked to a lot of chiropractors, talked to a lot of experts, been coached by financial, financial experts, been through all the things, financially good and sometimes bad. Uh, and cashflow is one of those ones that can be pretty frustrating, right? You know, uh, payroll's coming up and you don't have the, the money and the operating expenses and, uh, that is what cashflow is not gonna.

D dive too much into it, but you want to make sure you've got good cash flow. Uh, one, you know, can be very unpredictable in healthcare, so you can't beat yourself up too much. It happens, but one of the ways you offset potential, you know, cash flow issues, if some money's not coming in. Is that you would, uh, maybe have an operating expense account that has a basement in it and a ceiling, right?

Maybe you never let your operating account get below $15,000 and it doesn't need to get above $30,000. Just making [00:03:00] those number up, depending on this revenue of your clinic and the overhead, those parameters would change, but. You would have that kind of 15 K to 30 K in your opex account that it can, uh, withstand a little bit of a, uh, maybe a cash flow, um, crunch there periodically.

Okay. Second is margin, you know, profit margin. What's interesting enough is I could look at the, um, profit margin of a practice at the end of the year and it could look healthy 'cause say, you know, 20% margin, right. 20% profit, but you could have had some cash flow issues throughout that year, right? That can happen.

And you were like, oh man, it was such a struggle bust this year. But when you look at the end of it, the margin is there. Um, and sometimes it's not right, but we want to make sure we have healthy profit margins, and I do want you to have some grace in it. Realize in a given year, 12 months, there tends to be.

Two months that [00:04:00] are amazing financially. Two months are just completely not good. And eight that are like kind of your, your typical, uh, and that's not obviously across the board. Uh, but just realize that that does happen in certain parts of the country. Um, you might have seasonality, which you need to prepare for.

So you, like down here in South Florida, we have high margin. You know, let's call it October to June, um, but not any margin in July, August of September, there's only so much I can cut in those months. But you utilize some of the margin from the winter months, which are really busy down here, and we've got all the snowbirds to cover you in the other months.

That's what all the restaurants that down here have to do. Uh, I'm sure there's some that don't, but almost all of 'em have to. Uh, I bet you a lot of restaurants will lose money. In the summer. Uh, so margin, you wanna make sure you have some good profit margin. And, and a lot of us as chiropractors, you know, we're, we're hitting singles all day long.

It's not a, typically a high margin [00:05:00] industry like say plastic, plastic surgery or orthodontics. Uh, but we, we can do things strategically to have good margin. Um, and, and a lot of times it's, there's some fundamental principles that we need to, uh, work with to, to help out with that. Number three is gonna be cash reserves.

Imagine a life where you've got predictable cash flow, got a opex account that's got a little buffer, you feel good about your profit margin, and you've got a couple months of emergency savings and you got a sinking fund for some beer expenses. So you've got some cash reserves in case something happens.

That is a, a big one there. Um, provides a lot of peace of mind. Uh, Christine Del or um. Greg Crabtree would mention having two months of at least two months of business expenses, uh, a Dave Ramsey on your personal side might be all the way up to like three to six months in your personal life for cash [00:06:00] reserves.

I.

Number four is debt. And, uh, you know, there's different types of debts. Country student loan debt probably wouldn't sweat that too much. It is, you know, it's there. You're gonna, it's gonna take time to pay it off. Uh, or maybe you're given down the road it was the, uh, price of entry to, to get into this profession.

You wouldn't be in it without it most likely. And, and don't dwell on it too much. You wanna try to obviously pay down any type of consumer debts, credit card debts, uh, line of credit debts there. You know, if you have a a, a piece of equipment loan, you know you have a shockwave loan, but you're spending 400 a month on the shockwave and it's generating 4,000 a month.

That's not a bad debt. Uh, if you don't like debt at all, you could take the 4,000 you're making every month off the shockwave for a bit and, and you know, take all that money or some of the money and pay the loan off quicker. Uh, I'll let you decide on that, but, you know, feeling good about your [00:07:00] debt.

Um, you know, I think if someone's got a home mortgage, they got student loans and they've got some strategic debt. Not a big deal. Again, everybody's got a different level of comfort with debt. Uh, and or if you have some debt, you know, if you had to take out a business loan or you took, you know, you used some line of credit to, to buy some stuff for the, for the practice, uh, you know, and you got a payment.

Plan and set in your mind, you know, like, oh, I wanna pay $1,200 a month on this line of credit and, and get it done. Or your, your business Amex for whatever reason. That's fine. If you've got a plan and feel good about it, you just need to find what your comfort zone is with debt and tackle it. And then lastly is five is the, what I call the financial fortress.

I shouldn't say what I call, I heard it on a podcast and I can't remember who said it and can't give credit to it. But you wanna build that financial fortress around your family. Uh, that's little thing. We have a whole, [00:08:00] uh, document on this. Um. But basically life insurances for your personal life. Key PO key person policies in your business.

Disability insurance, if you get hurt, um, you know, investment funds. Maybe it's, you know, there's a lot of different things they're gonna go into building a lot of layers of protection. It could be a unused. A home equity line of credit in your house, uh, that you're not using, but it's there in case something massive happens in your house that you need to repair and fix, and you don't want to have any issues there.

So there's a lot of things that we can do to build kind of a financial fortress around your family, whether you are living or if you sadly pass away to where your family. Doesn't feel the brunt of it. And so we, uh, we talk about that often in our, uh, different programs. And, and, and that's a, that's a big one.

I think when I, when we talk about that one, [00:09:00] a lot of people's ears per perk up and, and really wanna learn more about it. And, uh, we are gonna cover that. We, uh, so we are having. Um, a Cash Confident Chiropractor online course. Uh, we did the, if you remember, last year we did an online course that was super successful.

I couldn't believe how many people signed up. And, and it was awesome. The, um, feedback we got and the engagement we got through. And I think we, we, we did a good job of making it more than just some kind of. Course you take on your own and, and you forget about it. Uh, but we're gonna be doing the cash confident, uh, online course.

And what it is, is, uh, it's six lessons dripped out every Monday for six weeks. The first one will be December 1st. Of 2025 and then it'll, every week there'll be a drip and then there's an associated zoom call with me on q and a and going over things. And then we also have a slack channel with all the members where questions can be ans asking answered in there as you're going along with it.

[00:10:00] So we build a little bit of a community and feedback around it. I'm really excited about the lesson plan for this. Uh, I'm actually tackling this. With Dr. Holly Tucker. Um, she's Profit first certified and a chiropractor and, and then we also have Christine Del. And so lesson one, again, this will be in December 1st, we'll be increasing revenues and profit margin.

I'll be doing that lesson. Lesson two will be with Holly Tucker, and that'll be understanding reporting, goal setting, and aligning practice potential to success. Call three will be understanding and planning cash flow. I shouldn't say call three, lesson three, uh, there will be a call with it, but understanding and planning cash flow.

So we mentioned, uh, having cash flow and how important that is. Uh, call four is gonna be the four buckets of finances in your financial fortress. So kind like I just mentioned. So what start, what happens when you have extra money? Great place to be and, and fortunately. [00:11:00] Uh, we chat with a lot of chiropractors are there, but you need a strategy of where to put that extra money.

So we talk about that. Then we talk about in lesson five, reinvesting in your business for growth. And then finally we build your 2026 financial plan. So the last lesson in Zoom call with that will be building your 2026 financial plan. So you'll go into the year. With a detailed financial plan that you'll feel confident about, and uh, you can check that out and register.

So the registration's gonna open. On November 3rd, which as this show releases was a few days ago, November 3rd to 15th is early bird pricing, and then November 16th to the end of the month, November 30th, we will close the doors. At that time, that'll be full pricing. And so we make sure you get into the early bird pricing and that's gonna, you're gonna find all that information at.

BI [00:12:00] t.ly/mcm cash. That'll be in the show notes and we'll be promoting it and letting everybody know and emailing. Uh, if you're in our Facebook group, we'll be putting in there. If you're on an email list, we'll be doing that. Uh, we're gonna make this like very reasonably priced. Uh, I want people to have this information.

I think this is gonna become the real foundation of your future understanding of both practice finances and how it relates to your personal finances. It's not gonna be anything about investing in Bitcoin and all the things that we're not accounting, we're not doing, but we brought in a couple experts.

Obviously Holly and and Christine have the chops. And then, uh, I'm not necessarily certified in anything financially, but, uh. Coach a lot of what the four lessons that I'm gonna go over and have tons of experience with it and been coached on it. And so you can go to Bitly bt.ly/mcm cash to [00:13:00] sign up for that.

Again, early bird pricing is November 3rd to November 15th, and then it's regular pricing after that, and the door is closed completely on November 30th. And then we release the first lesson on Monday, December 1st, just like we did last year. And it flowed well, and I'm excited to help you out as much as I can.