EPISODE 450: Updates on Chiropractic Design in 2025 with Carolyn Boldt

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 excited to bring on a guest. Who, um, has been on before. Um, and she's helped me in my practice, my office and as Carolyn Bolt of Crossfield design. Uh, we did a full renovation, I shouldn't say a full renovation.

We did a pretty good renovation in 2022. Not of structures and layouts and things, but uh, we had a update, you know, we'd. 10 years in things start to get outdated and uh, you know, things started to get worn and we did a full remodel of flooring and paint and decor and, and all kinds of stuff, some office furniture.

And it really came out great and very excited about that. And we're gonna bring her on today to have some updates on chiropractic design in 2025. Like what's. You know, it, it changes. It changes and you know you'll be fooling yourself if you don't think having a nice [00:01:00] office with good design, whether it's the flow of the office, which they work with, or it's the decor or color schemes, office furniture.

It really makes a big difference. And we just, uh, wanted to touch base. On some updates in 2025, how it relates to, uh, chiropractic design. And it does have an ROI, it does have an ROI. And so sometimes you need to figure out when do I invest in that? And that's, uh, one of the topics we actually cover in our, uh, coming up online course called a Cash Confident Chiropractor.

Uh, you can register by November 30th, 2025. The first lesson comes out on. December 1st, and we cover everything from increasing revenues and, and you know, and profit margins. But one of the lessons we have down in lesson five is about reinvesting in your business, how and when to reinvest in your business in yourself professionally.

It's not a one size [00:02:00] fits all topic, but we can definitely provide you with some guidance and ideas on when and how to reinvest. Profits and or use some debt for long-term growth strategically. Um, and so that's lesson five, reinvesting in your business and yeah, you know, remodeling your office or updating your office is reinvesting in your business.

And we dive into that a little bit today. But if you're interested in the online course, go to Bitly, bt ly slash ncm cash. Sign up for that. You won't regret it. You're gonna really. Truly understand practice finances and how it also bleeds into your personal life by the time you're done with this six week course.

So check that out at B ly slash MCM Cash. And without further ado, here is my interview with Carolyn Bolt.

All right. Excited to have Carolyn Bolt on the podcast for the third time. Uh, surprisingly, I, I, I had emailed you to come back on and I didn't realize it's been three and a half years. Uh, I wanted to do an update show on just the, the [00:03:00] 2025 trends going into a. Uh, 2026. And so thank you for hopping on.

Just for reference, we did an for our audience in April of 2021. We had you on talking about the ROI of Office Space and Design, and then in March of 2022, we had you on the psychology of really nice office space and that those were really well received and wanted to have you come back on. So what's new in your world?

Carolyn Boldt: What's new? Um. Not a whole lot. Those two things still impact Every decision that we make is the ROI and the psychology. Absolutely. And I'm sure we can expand on that and see where we go from there.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And I'm sure you know, the psychology of an office space lends itself to increasing the ROI. Or decreasing the ROI of space and, and how that is interchangeable.

And I don't think, uh, chiropractors and, and frankly, most healthcare providers take that into consideration as much as they should.

Carolyn Boldt: Well, one of the things that [00:04:00] by that we did at the beginning of this year. Mm-hmm. So if you ever heard of evidence-based design,

Dr. Kevin Christie: no, I haven't.

Carolyn Boldt: So what's interesting is evidence-based design has been around for.

You know, 50 years. Mm-hmm. And it started with, um. Help with hospitals and started with analysis and a organization called The Center for Healthcare Design was created and they started doing all this research and a big research was done in 2000. It's called the Pebble Project if anyone wants to look it up, but it was a lot of different organizations coming together, but it was very, very much focused on hospitals.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: And how design. The design of the space functionally an aesthetically, how is it impacting the health of the PA patients in the space? And so there's all kinds of statistics and what happened is the HO hospital trended toward [00:05:00] changing their environment because of that. And what's interesting is that it is finally starting to trickle down mm-hmm.

To the, to the doctor's offices. Yeah. So when people in, we started this in 2010, just focused on chiropractic offices after doing all that work at Life University, , as I've told you before, we started just teaching. That, Hey, your office space impacts your success. It impacts your ROI. But what's interesting is the beginning of this year kind of led by some questions that came up.

I really started documenting the evidence. It's out there. There's a lot of evidence out there, but it is quality office environment will make you money.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And it's been interesting 'cause I've had a close family member that had, um, pretty big spinal surgery and the hospital, uh, that we were going to was very nice.

You could tell they remodeled it. And I remember just thinking it's like, oh, this is, this is, this is nice. You know, and it stood out [00:06:00] and then, um, same person went up too. Um, a physical rehab facility after surgery and decided to go all the way up 45 minutes away. Um, because had been to this place before for, for a, a friend and it's just nice.

And I went and visited and it's really nice and. You know, so, you know, it went 45 minutes outta the way to go to that facility because of the psychology around being at a nice physical rehab center. Um, is so, it, you could, you could just tell it makes, it, makes a big difference. So, um, let's, let's kind of go into some of the 20, 25 trends.

The last time we had spoke again was in 2022, and then you. And your team were kind enough to give my office a facelift. So just a little background on that. I purchased my office real estate in 2013 and did as much as I could at the time, as much as the loan that I took out. The, you know, it's always fascinating when you buy commercial real estate is, [00:07:00] um, you know, you, you agree to a price to buy.

And then the, the loan is a whole lot bigger than that because you're buying the real estate. The loan is including the real estate, the build out furniture, fixtures, equipment. Then they want you to take some overage just in case like it. Um, so, and they only give you so much for what you can qualify at that time.

In 2013. So I mean, I still spent like 125,000 on buildout back then, but had to definitely cut some corners. And then I came to you guys because frankly it had been about 10 years, um, since we, we did it. And in 10 years a lot of things changed, especially in commercial wear and tear, uh, design flows, things of that nature.

And so we. We redid our office. We didn't change the floor plan. I felt pretty good about that, but we really updated, uh, quite a few things and it's, uh, it's been really well received for sure. And I, is, is there kind of a long-winded way of going, getting into the, the point here [00:08:00] of 2025, but, um, is there like, is it seven years, 10 years, 12 years?

Like where people should really start thinking about refreshing.

Carolyn Boldt: Yes, you said it, it's seven to 10 years. Mm-hmm. And, uh, and it, if you think about clothing trends mm-hmm. It's the same thing. Any kind of design trend, any cars, any kind of thing that's designed that cycles every seven years to 10 years. And, um.

So, yes. And it's also interesting that how leases that people are in leases, how that kind of follows that, that trend also. So, I don't know, it's the chicken and the egg I guess. But really, um, interior design follows clothing trends. Mm-hmm. Clothing trends go move and change faster than anything. Interior design trends change slower.

But I, if you want me to give you some decorator things. So what I'm talking about is decor, the decorator part, not the flow part, but the decorator part, but some of the decorator things that we see. Well, the colors have definitely gotten warmer. [00:09:00] We've gotten away from the gray, gray, gray, everything gray.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: Um, things have become warmer, but they've also become lighter. A lot of white and a lot of, um. Just warmer brown tones. You'll see woods have come back in. They've gotten lighter again, and just softer palettes of. The muted colors. Have the color trends, have that been that way? If you's seen that, right?

It's funny.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. 'cause even we bought our house in 2025, or sorry, 2020. And so it's been five years. And when we bought it, we were strongly considering redoing the kitchen. And my wife now is like, we didn't do it 'cause it just, it was 2020. We, we had bought it like two, three months before COVID and then.

Obviously things got crazy and we're like, I'm not getting involved in renovating a kitchen in, uh, August of 2020. And so we didn't do it. And, and my wife now in 2025 is like, I'm glad we didn't do it because what I wanted to do then I [00:10:00] wouldn't want now. So,

Carolyn Boldt: you know, it's, it's hard. It's hard whenever you really, especially if you do something that's, I'm gonna call it trendy, right?

Yeah. So the trendy or something is. The faster it dates.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah,

Carolyn Boldt: the more traditional, obvious OB is a word I'm gonna use. The more traditional things don't date as fast.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: So, but it looks. It. The colors do. Colors will always date. Colors are the fastest thing that date, so yeah, they've just become warmer and, but yes, I remember the cycle between white and then dark kitchens.

And then gray kitchens, and now we're going back to white kitchens again. Yeah. It's a cycle. I

Dr. Kevin Christie: edited our neighborhood also, like everybody's painting their house white. Uh, so yeah, it's just, it's fascinating on the design thing. Uh, and then I guess also in a seven, 10 years in a commercial space, you're gonna get a fair amount of wear and tear, right?

Oh,

Carolyn Boldt: yes, definitely. Definitely. I mean, commercial products, like commercial carpets and things of that sort, they'll have [00:11:00] a 10 to 20 year wear, you know, wear on it. Especially if you do like carpet tiles. We specify carpet tiles a lot because then you can. Repurpose them and move them around and stop the wear.

But paint and walls, they need to be touched up on a, you know, every two or years or so, just outta the nature of. Durability. Right? Yeah,

Dr. Kevin Christie: I've noticed that. Yeah. We're we actually just rebought all the paint that the same ones that you guys had had, uh, picked out for us. I rebought it 'cause we're making some changes on the rehab side of things and equipment and it's just gonna be time to, to do some new paint.

Uh, not the whole thing, but definitely in the rehab area and some of the treatment rooms. So, yeah. Um, what are on, on the aesthetics? We'll. We'll just stick for the aesthetics for a minute and then, and then we'll move to the actual workflow of an office. But, um, on the aesthetics, what are some of the trends you're seeing in chiropractic offices?

Carolyn Boldt: Well, another one of the trends is we went from real minimalist. Very minimalist. Okay. [00:12:00] So like the white came in and it became very. Stark. Mm-hmm. And now what we're seeing is pops of boldness coming back into it. So we're not, it's not cluttery. And when I say cluttery, it's not, it's not lots of little things.

We've gotten rid of the little things and, but now we're putting some power back into it. We're seeing a lot of, um, a lot of use of mural wall covering. Oh, okay. Just to create a pop in a, in a, um. It just creates a pop in a room.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Carolyn Boldt: Besides the, instead of art. Mm-hmm. You know, that becomes the art, but it's bigger and bolder and it's more, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's in your face bright.

Mm-hmm. It's just big. Yeah. So we see a lot of big stuff happening, is what I'm trying to say, using big things. Um, I wrote down some other things. Let's see, the other, the other thing we talked about is a lot more texture. So when you bring in the warmth, so. So people understand that [00:13:00] nature in your space is healing, okay?

Mm-hmm. But being more purposeful and intentional about it is happening. And I don't know if that's, as I was telling you a little bit about that design evidence-based design is slowly coming down to the office. Mm-hmm. It's been in the hospitals for a while, but it's coming. I don't know why it takes so long to come down to the office, but it's coming down to the office, so we see a lot more wood, a lot more plants, a lot more nature in the space.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Nice, nice. And I'd say dentists seem to have figured this out also for a while. They, the last few dentists that I've been to, they've got nice offices and, uh, it makes a difference. My wife, uh, we just went to a new dentist as a patient of ours, and, uh, just a good trust factor there. I feel like you have to trust your dentist.

Uh, otherwise they're like filling cavities, they don't need to be. Um, but uh, so we went to a new one and go,

Carolyn Boldt: go into the dentist. I was just. Tell you something in a minute. So dentists really started their change about 20 years ago also. Yeah. And it was design firms. It was the [00:14:00] equipment suppliers were hiring design firms, ah, to help dentists compete with each other.

Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Carolyn Boldt: And so you see it and you go, you make a choice of going to this dentist. They say 75% of your decision is when you first walk in the door, before you even meet that person, what you're gonna, whether you're gonna be there. So yes, so we're seeing that and, and I'm gonna honestly say when we started this in 2010, 2011, we couldn't find good looking chiropractic offices.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I know it was very few and far between,

Carolyn Boldt: but now you can, 'cause I used to tell our students, don't Google chiropractic offices. Google to find your inspiration. Google, uh, dentist offices. But now you can Google chiropractic offices and find them.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. You know. One of the things I wanted to talk about was, uh, talent acquisition side of it, because, and I'll piggyback what you just said.

I graduated in 2005 and my, uh, first internship turned into a job. Mm-hmm. And [00:15:00] I remember the first thing I, that stood out to me about, uh, Dr. Wasserman's office was how nice it was. He had built it, uh, it was a building he built and he owned it, and he. Designed it nice. And it was, it was elegant, right? It wasn't over the top, but it was very nice.

And that, I think he did that in the very early two thousands. I, I started there in oh five and I remember thinking to myself, I was like, when I walked here that first time, I was like, I wanna work here. Um, this is a first class office and so not only does it matter to your patients, uh, but it also can help people like to work in nice places.

Carolyn Boldt: Oh, they do. And it represents who they wanna be. Yeah. And um, we had, I don't have it quoted exactly, but I have a, a doctor we finished in Fairfax. And um, that was one of the comments he made. He said, I've got people hammering to work here.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Carolyn Boldt: You know, and now I get to pick the cream of the crop instead of me trying to find that good associate, it's, they're coming to him because of his office.

I

Dr. Kevin Christie: love it [00:16:00] because, and it's not

Carolyn Boldt: just the look of his office, I mean, but when you walk in, he's got, he's a cash based practice and he's got a lot of of other modalities that he's able to offer. But it's the whole Wow. When you walk in that mm-hmm. That this is first class.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It is. And you know, especially if you have a particular niche and how you do it, you know, like we.

We have a lot of clients that we work with that have rehab and they, or even a clinic gym hybrid type of model. And so if, you know, the aesthetics are important to that, but let's now go to the, um, the flow, we'll call it, or the function. Right. And, and that's a, that's a big thing it seems like where people.

Are not matching what their, uh, ideal practice style is, or their niche or their offerings to the space to do that. Um, what are some of the trends you're seeing in 2025 as it, as it relates to the function of space?

Carolyn Boldt: I think the biggest thing we're seeing the it and it's being dictated [00:17:00] by all of the new opportunities.

Especially for chiropractors to expand their practice beyond straight chiropractic.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm. I'd

Carolyn Boldt: call it the next new shiny object syndrome. Mm-hmm. But it's like, let's try this. So creating spaces that have a lot of flexibility. Yeah. Um, that we're working with a doctor right now, just got finished working with them yesterday, who's in the middle of building a building and.

It's gonna be a year before he's in the space.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Carolyn Boldt: And so he's going, I don't know everything I'm gonna have in a year. 'cause I don't think it's been invented yet. So it's that type of mentality that I want. Mm-hmm. To have, you know, a space that's going to give me the most flexibility.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. No, that makes sense.

And that's one thing I like about what you guys do too, is, is kind of interviewing the doctor and figure out like, what, what do you want? Right? Like there's designing a practice for a straight chiropractor versus a, uh, rehab based chiropractor, or interestingly enough, we, um, we just ordered [00:18:00] one of those tonal, uh, fitness machines.

Uh, okay. I had a gentleman on, uh, it's, it's usually, it's the in-home workout. It's kind of like, think of, um. Think of the Peloton, but for resistance training. And it's really nice and sleek and it's very effective. But there's one doc I had on my podcast, he's got like seven of 'em, and he is running this whole gym thing and it's great.

Now he's kind of training some chiropractors to do it. And so we, we went, uh, one of our doctors went to that and learned about it. And that's part of what we're doing with our rehab space, right? And, and doing it. And so what I like about. You know, utilizing a company like yourself where you get to know what that doctor is visioning for their practice, and then be able to design the function around it.

I think too many times people don't make that connection.

Carolyn Boldt: They don't. They don't. And you know, it's a hard thing too. You were asking me, um. Another trend is, and is the economy has kind of [00:19:00] slowed down.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm. The

Carolyn Boldt: building, 'cause building is expensive. Yeah. It's very expensive. And it, you know, COVID kind of pushed it over the edge and slowed everything down.

Mm-hmm. And it's really never come back. You know, you think that COVID iss gone, but yeah. You know, it's hard and, and lead times on things has still is still out there. Yeah. You know, it's not as bad as it was with COVID.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. So

Carolyn Boldt: people are just. Doing more refreshing

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: Than they are building right now is overall

Dr. Kevin Christie: all, well, people are doing that in their homes too.

It's like,

Carolyn Boldt: yeah, yeah. You

Dr. Kevin Christie: know, it's like no one wants to get outta their 3% mortgage at their home. So there's like, it's like that show, you know? Love it. Or list it, I think it's called, where a whole lot more people are having to love what they got and, and it's an opportunity, right? Yeah. So maybe. Maybe you got 2000 square feet and in a perfect world, you'd, you'd have 4,000, but it ain't happening now.

And how do we optimize that? And so I'm, I'm assuming, this is a kind of a sidebar question, but I'm sure you get people come to you that want to [00:20:00] rework the function of their current space and their obviously in operation. How do you go about doing that? If they want to rework the, the function and they are, you know, a full practice, maybe they take a couple weeks off and get it done in two weeks.

Like how does that work?

Carolyn Boldt: Well. It depends on the extent of the renovation. Okay. Yeah. So what you just said, take a couple of weeks off and do some things that works if it's a couple of walls. Mm-hmm. And you can get everything staged ahead of time. And then just do a blast. But you had long, it took just to do the painting and the carpet and the flooring in your office, so mm-hmm.

That's probably what, couple of weeks or so of time to just do. Yeah. And

Dr. Kevin Christie: I was able to kind of do it on, you know, I paid extra to do it on weekends and nights and then kind of tease it out over different things and uh, right. To, to try to limit the disruption. But again, I didn't do any big overhauls other than Yeah, we did replace the flooring and, and yeah, you're right.

Yeah. So, so let's say the person

Carolyn Boldt: and you have to move out to replace the flooring. You [00:21:00] know? Yeah. You have to move out so you, but you can move out a piece at a time. But if you do a major renovation mm-hmm. Sometimes they have to go find temporary space to go function in. Mm-hmm. And that's the more you have to weigh everything out.

If they own their building, you know, they're more than likely gonna do something like that. If they're leasing, they're gonna wait for that. They're gonna do a patch until they get the right thing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Carolyn Boldt: You have to weigh all the factors out. But yes, there's um. Some of the common things would be like, we're working with a doctor that he's in Florida and he has a 2000 square foot and he is looking at a 1500 square foot expansion.

He already has the pad for it, owns the building, et cetera. And you know, it's kind of like we build that out, we move part of it over there, we do this. Some of that's the logic, but if you're not expanding, you need to find a place. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Because

Carolyn Boldt: you don't. You don't want that disrupt unless you can function in half your office.

Mm-hmm. Renovate and then [00:22:00] function in half, so, yeah. It's a process of working through it. There's not a

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Black, black and white

Carolyn Boldt: answer to that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. It's a tricky one. But if you do the math and if you've, if you're stymied and you, and you know that if you improve the flow and function in your office, you'd be able to increase revenue, then you, you gotta do that math and it, and it may make sense, right?

Carolyn Boldt: Yes, yes. Very much so. If you can, you know, if you can double the amount of patients that you see, you can pay off that. Renovation pretty fast.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Now are you seeing because of the cost of everything, people are trying to do more with smaller sizes in, in chiropractic.

Carolyn Boldt: Um, I think chiropractors have always tried to do the smallest size they can possibly get, you know, I don't know.

That's, that's a trend. Yeah, that's

Dr. Kevin Christie: a, you know, that's a 50 year trend.

Carolyn Boldt: It is. I think it's that, um. It's that mentality where every single inch of your space needs to be used for something. And it's like, well, sometimes space and margin actually helps [00:23:00] create the atmosphere, so don't fill it up. 'cause they wanna fill up functionally every inch and forget about.

What that does psychologically to the space, if that makes sense to you.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It does. And I remember when I, um, did my space, I um, I gave myself some outs, like known outs of like, okay, if we outgrow this, all I gotta do is knock this wall, take this bathroom out. 'cause I don't need a bathroom here. 'cause we have actually bathrooms because common ones right outside our door.

Um. And I can knock that out all the way into the conference room and I could expand the rehab area if, if needed. We haven't needed to do that. Uh, but, but we could, I have outs to, to really expand this space. Yeah. And that's been helpful.

Carolyn Boldt: So that's that what you just described is when we take a a doctor through a floor, plant floor plan, we do exactly what you said.

We look at all the different possibilities. Mm-hmm. So that there is. Our goal is to make sure that there's no, [00:24:00] you walk into the space. What if I had done this? We wanna answer as many what ifs as possible and give that kind of opportunity to expand. I'm also really big on all your offices being about the same size.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: So that is, I'm a, I'm a. I've coined nine by 12 is a perfect size office for anything. I'll be just about it. It's funny.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I'm glad you mentioned that. 'cause that's a question always people have always asked and I never found the answer to that. Uh, so nine by 12 Perfect.

Carolyn Boldt: Yes. And you know where that came from is when I, my, the first time I really did a clinic

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Carolyn Boldt: Was at Life University and we built out the whole public, the public clinic that they had. Mm-hmm. We had a building that already had spaces in it and they were, you know, as anyone, they're on a budget. So I ended up working with a whole committee of. They were professors or doctors mm-hmm. That were teaching clinic, just analyzing how much space you needed around the equipment, how much everything.

And out of that, we came up with this ideal nine by 12.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm. [00:25:00]

Carolyn Boldt: And so I can validate it Exactly. Yeah. How it came up with it. That's good. But it works for an X-ray room. It works for massage room, it works for adjusting room. It works for your, most of your exam rooms. It just

Dr. Kevin Christie: personal office.

Carolyn Boldt: Personal office.

Yes.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Um, and, and you know, it's, uh, you kind of mentioned like the different trends in chiropractic. You know, we we're seeing more people go into integrated clinics. You might need more space there. You might need sinks in rooms. Yes. You know, if, if you got some nurse practitioners stuff like that, we, I, I mentioned a lot of folks do the open rehab or the clinic gym hybrid.

So you gotta obviously plan for that. Uh, there's people getting a lot of modalities like shock waves and lasers and things like that. And do you want to. Eat up an entire room for a shockwave or if you had a more like a 20 by 20 room that could double as you got a table over there to do laser and then you got area to do rehab, like that might be something to consider.

Are you seeing a lot less people doing like the bowling alley office where it's just like a really narrow and [00:26:00] it's just a hallway with rooms on the side? Uh, are you seeing less of that design unless someone just moving in and not changing anything?

Carolyn Boldt: Wow. Lots of questions. I know. So I, so the one moving in and not changing anything has a lot to do with your finances.

Yeah. Okay. So it, and working with students and things, it's like. Just get up and go and mm-hmm. Get in as inexpensively as you can. Perfect. If you can make the space work, make it work. But there is gonna be a point where that space not designed for you is gonna start impeding your flow and your efficiency, and then that's when you need to.

Move or renovate or something of that sort. Does that perfect? Does that answer that question? Yeah, that, so here you are in the process.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And I guess, and then the second part of that was, is like, are people coming you to design their office and they're saying, yeah, I just want the hallway with the rooms all along the side, are they, are they saying, I want maybe this, this side of it, I want it to be this [00:27:00] open 15 by 20 to where we're gonna do multiple things there, but in an open setting and then I want.

Four rooms on this side for the more privacy side of things. Uh, what are the thoughts on some of that layout?

Carolyn Boldt: Um, I don't think that there's a trend one way or the other. I think it just depends on the doctor. Um, for example, you were saying there are some things that really do need to be in a closed room.

A shockwave is loud. It

Dr. Kevin Christie: is, and

Carolyn Boldt: it's annoying to other people, right? So being able to, and I, and anything that people disrobe at all and does need to be, well, a shockwave, we typically put in a drywall room with acoustics around it because it's so noisy and it's annoying to. Everyone in the space. Um, but if they don't have to disrobe, it can be in more of an open area.

Well, I'm, and if glad you if they do disrobe, you can put curtains around it. As long as it's not noisy. You have curtains in your space. Yeah, I do.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. 'cause we did that and we use it for laser for, uh, out there. Um, [00:28:00] but yeah, to your point. We have shockwave and we have it in a room. And as we reimagine our rehab area, we're gonna move laser out there.

We're gonna move certain things out there. We're not moving the shockwave outta there because it's, it is too loud. And, um, so if someone is going to want to get shock wave or multiple shock waves or have, uh, a shock wave and a laser, like you gotta take that in consideration in your design.

Carolyn Boldt: Exactly.

Exactly. So, and then trying to find that perfect size space so that. If there's a new laser shockwave combo in the future.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, you

Carolyn Boldt: have that space for that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And you gotta have flexibility.

Carolyn Boldt: Other bigger thing is decompression machines. Oh my goodness. Decompression started like just bigger than a table.

Yeah. Now we have the ones that, what are they? Like 15 feet wide? They're just you. So Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: So you probably have some people where you have to like design a room just for the decompression.

Carolyn Boldt: Just for the decompression. Yes. You too. Perfect. [00:29:00]

Dr. Kevin Christie: Um. Do you find chiropractors making mistakes on having enough space for, uh, I'm gonna get a two part question.

Okay. A is for storage, and b is for team members. Are you seeing, you know, like people making mistakes there? Uh.

Carolyn Boldt: Um, storage is one of those things that when we do our analysis mm-hmm. It's an item we already have in there, is storage. We talk about, you know, what are you storing? If, if you're selling products, do you know, are you gonna have to keep 'em in your space?

Are you gonna, if you've got marketing, big marketing stuff, what are you gonna do and keep in your space? Mm-hmm. What happens as. Pretty much, I'm gonna say it's a natural tendency to underestimate how much space you really need to do what you wanna do.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: And so what tends to get squeezed out is storage, which is sad because what happens is then it ends up clutter all over the office because you still have the stuff.

Mm-hmm. So we see less obviously. Well, I'm not gonna say, obviously there's still [00:30:00] people with travel cards out there, but. But most people don't have files anymore. It's all digital. So that's helped with that storage. We used to have to plan filing rooms, you know, to make, to handle that. So

Dr. Kevin Christie: I had one doc that also, um, he just bit the bullet and he had a storage unit offsite for things that were not.

You know, if, if there was a water issue in a storage unit, 'cause that can happen, it wouldn't be the end of the world. But you know, it, it was particular things and I'm sure you've seen that before too.

Carolyn Boldt: Yeah. So things that we talk about that depending on what your lease rate is or how much money it is, you've gotta, you don't wanna store stuff.

I mean, use marketing material. For an example, if you're gonna use marketing material and you're only gonna use it once a month, why are you it, when I say material, I mean like tables and banners and Yeah, banners and tens. Whole trade show stuff. Things that really take up a lot of room that you know not, it depends on your rent, right?

It depends. If you're in a high rent district, you don't wanna spend that square [00:31:00] footage money on

Dr. Kevin Christie: stuff that you're very true. And how about team? I'm sure your friend

Carolyn Boldt: had did a same similar thing. Okay. Yes. You're gonna ask me what team members, how

Dr. Kevin Christie: about the team members? Yeah. Are you seeing people, they get the littlest

Carolyn Boldt: space, they possibly.

I mean, they're little bitty cubbies. Yeah. Multi, multi-doctor rooms with, you know, they get maybe four feet that they can work and yeah. No one wants them in there. You know, the doctors that have team members, they don't need to be in there. They don't need to be in there, so they need to be working with patients.

So, yeah. Yeah, the team members get squeezed a lot and we don't see, we don't do a lot of independent doctor's offices either.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Unless like yourself,

Carolyn Boldt: you're, you have a reason to shut the door and be in a private room or meet with people in a business setting.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: That's different than your typical just being a doctor where you just need a space to, yeah.

To do your reports if you've followed me.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, no, for sure. It makes a lot of sense, so, all right, perfect. Now, uh, kind of lastly, like what's your compelling pitch on the importance of, of [00:32:00] really having a, uh, an office that you're proud of? The, the functionality is what you need, and then the aesthetics are fresh, nice, and it's remarkable.

Like what, what, what's your pitch to the chiropractor that's always like, ah, you know, I don't know if I wanna invest that kind of money to do that.

Carolyn Boldt: Well. When I went through this Evide, we created a new report called the Design Trends of 2025, and it was all based on this evidence-based design and some of those things I've talked to you about.

But when you start to really look at the statistics that hospitals have looked at for 20 years to make money, you understand that great design will make you. Yeah,

Dr. Kevin Christie: it will. And I, and I guess you're probably also, you know, I, I will say I, and I'm glad a lot of chiropractors are starting to charge more money.

Um, and when I say that they're either not taking insurance at all, which means you're charging more money or they have higher rates, and it's really hard to. Charge more or [00:33:00] be quote unquote expensive or, or you know, not the most affordable and your office kind of looked like shit. Like that's a hard combination to pull off.

Carolyn Boldt: Well, I think we probably talked about this when we talked about in psychology. Yeah. Because if you think about when you walk into a store. Did we talk about the difference between Walmart and we may have, I'll just talk about it again. Just

Dr. Kevin Christie: go for it. Yeah, do it again. You walk,

Carolyn Boldt: you walk into a store. So your doctor's office is a combination of retail design and hospitality design.

Mm-hmm. Retail is that first impression. It's the package around the product that you're selling. Mm-hmm. And if it doesn't match what you're selling, it's a disconnect and it makes it harder to sell. Gotcha. So think about if you walked into a Walmart. And you wanna buy a diamond ring? Yes, you can buy a diamond ring in Walmart, but are you gonna pay the same price as you would if you walked into Neiman Marcus to buy the diamond ring?

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. No.

Carolyn Boldt: And is the quality that much different? Do you know what I'm saying? I don't know. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm not a diamond. Probably not. [00:34:00]

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Carolyn Boldt: But it's the idea that what you have to offer is packaged in something that's respectful and appreciated that people will pay for it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep. And they will.

Carolyn Boldt: We, we've got, we've got testimonies of, I have one that,

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: She was the associate, she's an associate doctor and she was saying that when she, they just moved into, this is the same Fairfax office. Mm-hmm. I was telling you earlier, but they, when she was doing a presentation report of findings and she presented the care package plan, yeah. She said she looked up and behind her there was this beautiful wall covering and she said.

She just stopped and they bought immediately. She said it was so easy, but it was her. I'm worth It changed. Do you know? Because she felt worth it. So there's a, that, it's hard to say. Is it change to the doctor or is it change the patients or a little of both. I'm sure it's both.

Dr. Kevin Christie: There's a lot. And even like the referability, [00:35:00] right?

Like I, I went to a, I had to get a quick dinner last night before doing a little talk, and I went to this little Italian place and the, it was like a real small mom and pop Italian. The guy was nice, the food was good. Fi uh, prices were fair, but it was kind of a dump, you know, like, and I know my wife just wouldn't eat there.

Like, I, I kind of like dumps, like I, I always joke around. It's like I can, uh, I can eat at a roach coach, you know, construction, mobile, and I can eat at a five, you know, I can have a. A $60 steak or I could sleep at the Ritz Carlton, or I could, you know, sleep on the floor in a, in a camper. It doesn't matter to me.

I, I have this wide range, but I do appreciate nice things. Uh, but a lot of people, like my wife, like she just wouldn't want to go to that Italian restaurant 'cause it wasn't nice inside. It wasn't clean really. And, you know, and, and that's same thing is, is referability is gonna increase when people walk in.

It's like, wow, that is, that is nice. Um, and it's a good doctor. You gotta be a good doctor. But it's nice.

Carolyn Boldt: And it, it, [00:36:00] it's, that's another documented thing is people will refer because they're proud. They're proud. Just go, you know, go to your doctor. Something else we talked about is that, um, the doctor that's been in business for, you know, 20, 30 years and he hasn't changed his space and he's got a good living because he's got patients that love him and come to him on a regular basis and all of that.

Now he wants to sell, you know, and he's got a patient base, but those patients come for him. So when he's not there, you know it, that's a hard transition, right? Mm-hmm. And the cost of that, the, the practice value is lowered because of what the doc, the new doctor's gonna have to do to it to bring it up to speed.

So it's an interesting, there's a lot of doctors that don't feel like they have to do anything because they're doing fine.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Carolyn Boldt: But there will become a point. You know where they're gonna have to. It's

Dr. Kevin Christie: multifaceted, that's for sure. And it's, uh, and I, and I, and I wanna be also cognizant of the fact that [00:37:00] not everybody listening to this can frankly afford it right now.

But that's why it's so important that you, you know, you build a thriving practice that has good profit margins because it's not just that you're. Hiding money under your mattress, you're buying the, you know, the Maserati. It's that you need to be able to reinvest and have capital expenditures into your practice Yes.

Into your team, so that you're growing. And that's why it is important to, to become even better because as, as you're saying, as the evidence shows, is that people will get better in their health by going to specifically design type nice places that they feel good about.

Carolyn Boldt: I will. So we didn't really talk about this.

Mm-hmm. But I do have a free resource that, for that doctor that really doesn't have the money. Yeah. What, what do I need to do? Perfect. And it's five ways. The name of it, I'm gonna read it. Five Ways to Instantly Upgrade Your Office Image. And I will give you a link to, to download it. Yep. [00:38:00] Um, that you can share in the show notes.

But what it is, it's basically a checklist.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: That as a, as a designer, it's the first five things we look at. And we always tell you to, and it's in this document, it's like you can't look at it. You gotta bring someone else in because you've lived in it too much. You don't see it anymore. But bring in another person that's trusted, ideally, someone that's gonna be just like your ideal patient.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Boldt: And walk through this checklist. But cleanliness, wear, and tear. Things like that, it matters, you know, is it dated stuff, lighting, there's things that can be changed pretty cost effectively, and, uh, awesome. Make a difference.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And then how can they find out more information if they want to get in touch with you and and, and get this figured out for themselves?

Carolyn Boldt: Get that figured out. So our company's name is Crossfields, and our website is crossfields design.com.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:39:00] Perfect. Well Carolyn, this was great and uh, we'll have to do another one on more updates as we go along, but thanks for sharing a lot of good new information and I really was appreciative of the evidence behind this.

That's good stuff.

Carolyn Boldt: Good stuff. Yeah. That's one of our free resources too. I'll send that link to, so that

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect.

Carolyn Boldt: Thank you very much.