EPISODE 484: Positioning Yourself In Your Community with Beau Beard, DC

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Mastery 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. In this episode, I have Dr. Beau Beard. Uh, I'm gonna be interviewing him, and I wanted to have him on the show. He's someone that is, um, doing a lot of things, uh, in the profession and for chiropractors on the education side, but has also built a really good practice.

And I wanted to tease out . what it took to position himself as an expert in the community. And when you do it well enough, and, and this again may not be your goal, but when you do position yourself well enough in the community, it sometimes it will transcend the community, and you can, uh, find yourself with side hustles that can sometimes turn into main hustles or give you a sense of purpose, and we dive into that as well.

But the, the, the real meat of what we talk about is how you can position yourself as the expert in particular niches in the community. And really, uh, I, I like to unveil what the early... as like Beau [00:01:00] talks about, kinda that first five years of a practice. Uh, because a lot of times we see, uh, e-established practices, and they look great, and they're busy, and the doctor might be carving out, uh, their next phase in s- in, in a way, or they don't do, uh, some of the things maybe they used to do.

And you don't, but you don't see what the first five years looked like. And so sometimes if you're not careful, you think it's, um, the practice just comes with, like you're just busy, you know? It's like, oh yeah, you just, I'm gonna open up a practice and, and, and in 15 years it'll be busy. You have to see a lot of times what that first five years looks like, and it can be challenging.

So I like to try to give you that perspective with some of our guests. And, and Beau and his wife have built a, a great reputation, great practice, and, uh, just, you know... And he's got his own podcast, which we talk about. And so he's doing a lot of things now that serve a purpose for him and [00:02:00] for other people there.

So without further ado, here is my interview with Dr. Beau Beard

 All right. Welcome to the show, Beau. I really appreciate you hopping on here and, uh, telling your story and getting a little bit of, uh, information on how you've grown your practice and positioned yourself as an expert in the community. Before we, we dive into that, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice a- as it currently is.

Beau Beard: Yeah. So, uh, thank you for having me on. Our practice has been around since 2014, and my wife and I, Sloane, started in 2014, not on purpose. Uh, we kinda got our backs to the wall, and that ended up being the best decision longterm. But, um, we thought we wanted to go work for somebody, and then, you know, kinda get our chops and go start a practice.

But luckily, uh, yeah, over a decade in practice now here in Birmingham, Alabama. Uh, started, I think like a lot of people, you know, very sports chiro-minded, came out of school adjusting, ART, basic rehab. And it's kind of evolved as techniques and [00:03:00] concepts have evolved, and, uh, very heavily involved in, like, the DNS world.

We had an office at a, um, Greystone Country Club with Mark Blackburn, who's gotten pretty popular here nowadays. And so involved in a lot of sports, running, golf. Uh, my wife is a collegiate gymnast, so gymnastics. But the further we've went, the more it's become ... Like, I, I think this is an evolution for a lot of docs, is we just see a lot of stuff now.

'Cause if you get good, I think you get referrals for everything. Um, I still love treating athletes, but it's become more of a general practice the further we've went into it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Yeah, I actually had a cool opportunity in Birmingham back in 2011. I was traveling on some PGA Tour events. This was a Champions Tour event.

I forget the name of the course there that's really well-known in, in Birmingham, but it hosted the Champions Tour event.

Beau Beard: Yeah, so Regions Tradition is the Champions Tour event. Now it's at Greystone. It may have been at Shoal Creek at that point. Shoal Creek. But ... Yep. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, it was at Shoal Creek. That was a really cool experience.

I got to stay at a house of a guy that lived there that [00:04:00] hosted not only the golfer, but me, and, uh, it was nice. Birmingham was nice. It was a cool area.

Beau Beard: Oh, yeah. We love it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Are you from that area originally?

Beau Beard: No, I'm from Illinois, and my wife is from Tallahassee, Florida, and we broke down on Highway 65, which cuts through Birmingham, um, actually going back from Tallahassee to St.

Louis, where we went to grad school, and spent a whole day at a car dealership or auto body shop, and they got us back on the road. And we're like, "These people are nice." And we came back and visited. She applied for some jobs, and that's ... We literally knew not a soul here, and our parents both thought we were crazy, but here we are, you know, 12 years later, so.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's the best story I've heard of how you ended up in a, in a city.

Beau Beard: Yeah, we always say we broke down, and people are like, "Ah, come on." I'm like, "No, there's a newspaper article in the lobby out there. Just go check it out."

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's amazing. And, uh, did your wife go to Florida State?

Beau Beard: No, so she's the only person of her family that didn't go to Florida State.

She went to Ball State because, um, she would say the same thing. Not that she wasn't good enough to do gymnastics. Florida State, they didn't have a gymnastics team. [00:05:00] Um- Right ... so she had to go out of state, and, uh, ended up in Indiana, which is also why we didn't end up staying in the Midwest. She was kinda done with the Midwest after going to Logan.

She's like, "Get me back down south." Yeah. Yeah,

Dr. Kevin Christie: okay. Yeah, I went to Florida State, and I can- I can attest there's not a gymnastics team there. I, uh, I had a cool opportunity to be on the strength and conditioning team as, as a volunteer, as a student volunteer, and, and worked with, uh, all of the sports except for football 'cause they had their own program, and I think it was baseball had their own, own program.

But, uh, yeah, no, no gymnastics, but a lot of other sports, so.

Beau Beard: But they do have a circus

Dr. Kevin Christie: training- They do ...

Beau Beard: uh, yeah, something there, yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Circus college? It's, it's actually- Yeah ... yeah, it's really big. Um, and maybe that's why they don't have gymnastics. They did the circus instead, and I had a fraternity brother that was on the...

I don't know if it's called the circus team or, or just say he was in the circus, right? Um, but we used to, back in my day, JD Drew was a baseball player there. Yeah. Yep. He, he had a great Major League career, but he used [00:06:00] to hit balls into the circus. Uh, it was in right field, uh, over a street- Yeah ... and that's how far he would hit them.

Beau Beard: So

Dr. Kevin Christie: All right. Let's, uh, let's dive into some of the, the fun stuff there. One of the things that I've, I've, I've just, uh... You know, I've been practicing for 21 years now, and over time I kinda see people come and go and do things. And, uh, sometimes... I mean, you and I have never met in person. We are gonna have dinner next week, which is cool.

Yeah. And, and I've, I was a guest on your podcast, and I know we've kinda come across each other online and stuff. But, uh, I've, I noticed some of the things you were doing some years ago, uh, early on in, in your career, and it's been cool to see how you've, uh, positioned yourself in the profession. But, uh, before doing that, like most people, you've, you've had to pr- you know, obviously, uh, position yourself in, in your community.

Uh, what are some of the things you did early on, uh, to do that? I know you have kind of a little bit of a niche in working with runners [00:07:00] and things like that. Mm-hmm. But what, what would you do to establish... I mean, obviously we- we've already set the context that you, uh, you weren't from the area. It was new to both of you, and you came in and kinda guns a-blazing.

What were some of the things you did to, to accomplish that?

Beau Beard: Yeah. So if you've ever read the book, uh, Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, the starter or the founder of Patagonia. Uh, I happened to read that book, not because I was getting into business, just happenchance when we started our practice.

And I already kinda had this idea in my mind of kinda guerrilla marketing, of, like, an anti-marketing. Like, "Hey, let's not do all the traditional stuff." Part of it because we didn't have the money. We didn't have the budget to go out and buy ad space, and, you know, at that time, radio and traditional ad space and all that was still in play.

And Google, SEO, YouTube was just kinda up and coming. Um, so it was kind of a necessity that we said, "Okay, what can we do?" Well, we're both athletes. Um, you know, we... I was really getting into running, especially trail running, which was also experiencing a boom as an industry at the time, which was a, a [00:08:00] good stroke of luck as well.

And I honestly just started, you know, asking if we could go work races, and I... That's what I had done in St. Louis as a, um, a student, is help with, like, the Go St. Louis Half and full marathon. And- I thought, you know, that's all I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go work these big events, and these patients will just flow in, and that's, w- you know, you know that's not just how it works.

So I was like- Yeah ... "Okay, what are we gonna do different?" Well, it became two things. It became, uh, I got to go beyond the elevator pitch, so I got to show them why we were different. You know, we talk about injuries, "Hey, get on the table. I'm just gonna do a little something, try to work you up, and then, you know, hey, come to the office."

So it's kinda like a working interview environment for us. And then the other part was me being, you know, an athlete and being competitive, I was like, "Well, I'm gonna go out and try to win these races, get on the podium, wear a farm shirt." Mm. And I kinda maybe stupidly over-pressurized myself to win these races or do well, which did work out 'cause I did okay, and it did kinda put us in a position like, "Oh, you're a good runner."[00:09:00]

Now, you know, you know like I do, just because you're good at a sport does not mean you're good at treating that sport, but it does help, and I think it did help me have some sort of a pseudo expertise in running. And then I did like running, and I wanted to continue to learn. So I just kinda realized, like, okay, I'm getting pretty good at running, but I'm not elite, so if I wanna get good, I needed to learn more, and that was kinda like chiropractic.

I needed to understand how to get better at the thing, and as I did, it kinda evolved into, okay, I understand why maybe runners are treated in such a way that isn't getting them better or keeping them better, and maybe I can change some things in our practice, and that's kind of evolved, you know, into a course called Rethinking Running Rehab and how we kinda go about treating our runners here.

And it's, it's just been a... Yeah, it's been a really fun thing 'cause it's something we already do. And if I can tell a quick side story on that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Beau Beard: We got... We were very lucky that we were both athletes. So Sloane got involved with CrossFit as CrossFit was booming. I was doing running, so we [00:10:00] were just involved.

Well, then we got busy in practice. Mm-hmm. And we got busy, and about nine months into the first year of practice we were like, "Man, this stuff's slowing down. We're not seeing as many new patients. Like, what, what's going on?" And we both just looked at each other one day. We're like, "We're so busy that we're not doing the things that we're involved in from a marketing standpoint."

I wasn't going out to these running clubs. She wasn't going into the gym as much. She wasn't doing as many competitions. I was like, "We need to literally look at that time as marketing and make sure we make it to the gym and make it to these run clubs," and literally it flipped. So that's something I've always advised, you know, interns and new docs with us, is like, "Hey, can you just pick something that you're truly interested in?

Don't just do it to market or people are gonna probably call your bluff, but just be active in that group, immerse yourself into that group, and, you know, if it's authentic, I think people will see, like, oh, he's interested, she's interested. They, they're marrying that with what they do professionally and it's just like, it's kinda you're already gonna be doing it, so why not, you know, spin it into a marketing play as well?"

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. You know, and to your point, [00:11:00] interested, right? I, uh, I definitely agree is if you're good at something, and again, whether it's yoga, fitness, tennis, golf, running, whatever, there's a lot of things that you can get involved in and be active in. If, if you happen not to be, right? So, like, I, I am not a runner or a triathlete, but I did, I've done really well over the years with that group.

It was because I was interested. I, I, you know, I was ART certified and I... But I really learned back in '06, '07, '08 in, in particular, the first few years of all of the types of injuries, all the things they're dealing with. I knew how to speak the, the language, right? And all that, and so they knew I was interested.

They knew I knew about it. They knew I knew how to treat it and assess injuries, and it was, it, it did provide me with, uh, the ability to overcome the fact that I wasn't involved in with it. So it definitely helps to be involved, right? Like, the- Mm-hmm ... the CrossFitter chiropractor always does better than the non-CrossFitter chiropractor.

Uh, but you can still, uh, you can still do [00:12:00] it, so that's one thing. And, again, you can... Like, let's just use the golf one, 'cause the, the golf one can be tricky because it's so hard to get good at it.

Beau Beard: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Whereas, uh, other things, you know, like tennis, not easy, pickleball, you know, easier. But you don't have to be a, a five-handicap golfer to, uh, play golf and to treat golf injuries.

Just you really do have to under- understand it, and so that, I'm glad you, uh, I'm glad you brought that up. Now- Um, I also wanted, I want to pick your brain a little bit on that idea now that it's 2026 and you guys have a, a pretty robust practice. But you had mentioned where you get busy and you start to, um, uh, get, uh, you know, lose some of your time to, uh, to markets like that.

I know you two have, I think, two ch- two children now, right? Mm-hmm. Yep. So you got the fa- family thing going. Ha- have you guys been able to carve out time now to do marketing? I know you have team members now. Are you delegating- Mm-hmm ... a little bit of that to them? Tell us the progression for the [00:13:00] chiropractor that no matter where they're at, but early on you have to do a lot of things.

Mm-hmm. And maybe you have time to do more things, you don't maybe have family yet, uh, you're not busy yet, and then you get there. What's the progression from where you were then to, to now, how the clinic is able to be marketing a lot and, and say grassroots, but maybe it's not on your shoulders or Sloane's shoulders only?

Beau Beard: Yeah. If I start kind of at the end, what I tell our docs now is use the brand that we've built instead of trying to market yourself. Like, you do need to market yourself, but, like, y- we should have pretty good notoriety within the community. Like, try to... You know, we had to cold call a bunch of people. Uh, like, people were like, "What do you do?

What, what's the farm?" And it's like, okay, it's, it exists. It's a brand. So use that. So it's a little bit easier to open doors now, but we give, you know, the docs now the same advice. Like, you know, we tell them two things in particular, like pick something and get involved, right? Try to be as authentic as you can within that.

But also w- that's, like, a big part of our marketing budget is, like, [00:14:00] we'll pick a group of people to treat for free. You know, that's like a specific type of gym owner. Um, you know, whatever it is, a club or something. We'll say, hey, that's, like, those are dollars lost per se, but that's also time in the clinic where you're not having to go outside and market if you get them in the clinic again to get that working interview.

Yeah. Um, but in the beginning, yeah, we... I kind of feel like the old guy sometimes and like, "Oh, these, these new doctors or interns don't realize how much we did up front." And it's like, I mean, we were at, you know, maybe an event or two a week in terms of a dinner or, you know, some sort of networking thing, plus working a race or an event almost every weekend.

I mean, all the way to, you know, uh, community fairs at churches and, I mean, stuff that's kind of goofy and you're like, "Okay, I'm never gonna do that again," but you're just kind of doing a little bit of everything. And then you start to figure out, okay, what are higher va- value events in terms of like, okay, people will come from those things.

Mm-hmm. Um, lower value events, but also we've al- we've had some of our new docs, like, recycle those. [00:15:00] Like, hey, go hit a touch point of something that seemed lower value, but you kind of need to go back through the process, and then we try to get them to understand- There, you know, one of our mutual friends, Brett Winchester, told me early on, he goes, "Those first zero to five years, you have to work harder than you ever imagined, but it sets you up for basically, like, letting the gas off for every five-year period after that."

And I took that to heart, and we just kind of, you know, went hard in the paint when you can. Mm-hmm. Now it's kinda interesting because we have more time from the, not the necessity to make money on, based on what we're doing in the clinic, per se. So I tend to be out in the community as much as I was in the beginning.

It was like right in the middle, I just got in a, a vortex of, like, I'm super busy, I gotta be in the clinic, and then I'm doing all my other stuff I wanna do. And now it's like, okay, I got kids and stuff, but I'm not seeing, you know, 100 patients a week like I was. It's kinda dialed back, so it's kinda, it's coming full circle again.

Um, but yeah, it's, the evolution was just do everything [00:16:00] you can. Start to figure out your own funnels. Solidify those funnels. But I'd say every, I don't know what the timeframe is that's perfect, but every year to two, recycle some stuff or do something completely different so you're not just stuck. Like we've, we're so well known in the running community, if we go work a race, it's, I don't think it should be considered marketing.

It's like catching up with people. So it's-

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah ...

Beau Beard: we know most of those people, so I'm like, all right, is this good marketing or is this just, you know, face value? It's good face value for the community, um, but it's not a lot of new faces to the farm.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, for sure. And then sometimes what happens is early on you get a lot of new patients from it, and then later on you say, "Oh, I'm not getting a lot of new..."

Like, there's a triathlon group that I've sponsored for 13 years now, and, and I don't get a lot of new patients from them now. Uh, they've kinda struggled a little bit, but not too bad. But I got so many of them early on, but now the, like, the whole group's been a patient of mine, so now they, they'll still come in, but they're not new patients anymore, so it feels, it feels differently.

Mm-hmm. But it's good to stay top of mind. [00:17:00] Like, I just was at a little mixer they had to do that, so that's cool. Um, but yeah, I wanna touch on a few things you said there. You kinda mentioned a career arc, and that's one thing I try to make sure younger chiropractors understand, is that there is this career arc.

In that first handful of years, let's call it zero to five, it f- y- sometimes you find yourself saying to yourself, like, "God, do, do I have to do this for the next 35, 40 years," right? Like, it's a, it's a, it can be a grind and you can't r- you don't... If you're not careful, you don't realize that there's a career arc and that, like, early on you're doing a ton of stuff, and then you get that momentum going, and you build it, and then all of a sudden you get to carve out what the career- Mm-hmm

looks like for you. And we're gonna kinda talk about that, how now, like, you know, i- if I asked you in 2015 or 2016 to start teaching chiropractors things, you'd be like, "I don't have time to wipe my ass, let alone doing that." But you get that career arc going and, and you can start to do things that kinda fill a, a passion within the profession, which is pretty cool.

Um- [00:18:00] Mm-hmm kind of recycling. The other thing that I, that I thought about when you mentioned recycling that is also if, if you are a owner doctor in established practice or you are a younger DC in a, in a practice, is you could also recycle some of the old points of contact, let's call them, whether they're MDs or coaches, golf instructors, yoga joints, whatever, that the clinic had at, at one point, but now the owner or owners are too busy to really, really reconnect and facilitate those.

And so I always recommend that the owner and the, and the, the younger DC or the associate DC collaborate together to take some of those historical contacts that the clinic had and try to, let's call it refurbish that a little bit, and maybe you start to build a, a book of business there. And that's one of the benefits of, like you mentioned, kind of that intrapreneur, like building your practice within the walls of a, an existing brand or a clinic that's been there for a [00:19:00] while, is you, you can kinda hyper-speed it a little bit if, if you're strategic with it

Beau Beard: Well, that's something that I look for now.

You know, when you look for a new doc or, you know, interns, you're not really getting, uh ... It's not like you're interviewing them for a job so you get, you know, a lot of people in the doors. But when we look for docs, like, yeah, you want the technical competency and a good personality, but then you're also

One of the biggest things is, you know, kind of like the Disney World mentality, like if there's a piece of trash, like pick it up without you being told to. And then what I've found is that will parlay into marketing. So they'll, "Hey, who could I contact? Hey, I saw that you used to work with these people.

Um, do you ... I talked to this person. Do you know them?" Um, and I tell them, I'm like, "I said, like we can make it s- 10 times easier than it ever was for us, so just like use me as a resource. But I don't, I won't be able to just give you a booklet that delivers this plan. You can go out and kind of like explore."

And they'll be like, "Oh yeah, we know them. We can connect you here. I already got that [00:20:00] one." Like, so yeah, it's just faster. Um, but yeah, I've looked for those personality traits of like self-starters, you know, not needing to have every direction told to go, and I find that to be ... You know, that even goes for learning.

Like you're gonna be, you know, cr- that self-learning journey keeps going. So that's really important to me because, you know, like we all have, you, we get a variety of people through the office, and sometimes you see somebody that wants more time outside of the office early in your career and you're like, "That's fine, but like you're gonna define what the next 10 years look like by this first year, and I'm trying to get you to flip that around," like you said.

And, um, yeah, we've just kind of had to learn the lesson, you know, the hard way sometimes. Like, okay, it's not a great fit based on what you and we think is good marketing, and then how that, you know, transfers into the clinic.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think, um, one of the ... It, it ... You know, like if you're a DC listening to this and you aren't in your first five years, um, or [00:21:00] maybe you're not even in your first five years of owning your own practice, right?

You're just, you- you're, you're 10 years in, give or take, but the practice isn't going the way you hoped it would or wanted to. You may have to be honest and say, "Okay, I almost have to pretend I'm back to year zero-" Yeah ... "and I'm gonna, you know, and I'm gonna ... " If you're, if you're married with kids or whatever, you're gonna sit down with the spouse and say, "Okay, yeah, like I, you know, I gotta pretend like this is a new clinic and I, and, and I gotta put this zero to five years work into this and jumpstart it."

It's kinda like, um- You know, you, you hear chiropractors, uh, people that are, you know, in their early 30s in a particular career, we've had a couple recently, interns, that, uh, they were in a different career and they, uh, they went back to chiropractic school at a, at a later date. And, you know, they're, they're saying, "Okay, we're going back to zero to five years, but I mean, I know in the long run this is gonna benefit."

Mm-hmm. So if you're 35 years old and the clinic's not going the way you want it to, just say, "You know what? If I really buckle down and I, and I- Mm-hmm ... and I [00:22:00] really do this, and I pretend like this is the first year I've opened this clinic, by the time I'm 40 I'll have something that's awesome, and then I have bought back my time, and, and I've obviously still got plenty of career left in me."

So I want to make sure people understand that. And then the, the other thing I, I wanted to kinda mention from what you said is part of why I wanted to have you on too was that there's always in our profession There's this, um, you know, there's this misguided thought that to, to really build a practice and get out there and do marketing and do all that, you kinda have to be, uh, you know, cheesy and do all the old-school cheesy stuff that chiropractors have done.

And I think what you've done well, and what I w- I like chiropractors to do well is, is one, take massive action to build relationships in the community, and two, treat yourself and your clinic as a leading educator in the community, and that can be done in person or obviously through marketing and social media and video and [00:23:00] email, whatever.

Uh, you've done a good job of that, and I want people to start understanding that's really what it takes to, to do that. Um, what were some of your beginnings on creating content? 'Cause I think you've done a good job over the years to creating content. Uh, was it something that was, uh, easy for you, or did you have to kinda, you know, swallow your pride a little bit and get out there and start doing it?

What, what were some of your early beginnings of that?

Beau Beard: Yeah, so I stumbled upon, uh, I would... You know, YouTube, so, you know, in 2000... We graduated in 2013. Around 2014 and '15, YouTube videos were the biggest SEO push just overall. I didn't know that, and we were... I was shooting videos to be able to send people videos for exercises, and we had an Excel file with hyperlinks, and I wasn't even publishing the YouTube videos publicly, which was...

You know, looking back, I'm like, "What was I doing?" And we'd send those out for rehab, and then I was like, "Oh, I'm just gonna make all these public." And then, um, I mean, I [00:24:00] start- You know, I made eight bucks maybe the first month I did that or whatever through, you know, Google Ads. And then, um, you know, that started growing.

That's never made us a ton of money, but one of the things that I had to kind of realize was I was making these little exercise videos for my patients, and people loved them, and then I'd get frustrated and be like, "Why isn't my YouTube channel growing?" And I, I wasn't entertaining. I was just literally delivering information.

I was like, oh, you gotta be realistic about the expectation based on the product I was delivering. So that's one of the things that, if I'm being honest, I think had, you know, if you hindsight 20/20 go back and be like, "Okay, I would've done the YouTube different," used... really leveraged that when it was hot versus kind of this slow trickle over a decade, 'cause we have a decent YouTube following.

It makes money, and, you know, it gets us, you know, some virtual consults. But that I kinda tripped upon. Um, you know, the social media thing, we've always kinda tried to stay I, I wanna kinda say above the [00:25:00] fringe. Like we didn't try to follow trends really hard. We didn't do a bunch of the goofy stuff, and that was probably me being prideful of, "Oh, I don't wanna, you know, do that," but also I wanted to kinda be portrayed as, okay, we're, we're professional.

We can still have fun, but we don't have to kinda do what everybody else is doing. And that's probably not got us a huge following, but it's built a really loyal fan base that knows what to expect when they look at our content.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Beau Beard: Um, and then the other thing that I've always enjoyed doing was writing, so I started a blog Before we actually opened, 'cause I started the website, did a blog, got a really decent kinda following with that, and then parlayed that into some early magazine contributions.

Um, yeah, and just kinda, it, it was... I'm, like, a shotgun approach guy. I like doing a lot of different types of stuff. I love, you know, video and photography. I like writing. So I've always tried to use those, and it, yeah, it takes a lot of time, but like you said, those first two years, like, I'm gonna do a lot.

And it's paid dividends in terms of [00:26:00] content built that's backlogged, but now I know a process, too. Like, I built a really strong process, and I haven't had to have a huge team to keep that process up 'cause it's pretty efficient and pretty lean. Um, uh, we could always do things better, a million times better, in terms of social media today, but now it's a decision point of how much do I wanna put into that versus an established practice and, you know, I might get one of my new younger docs to kinda school me up on what I need to be doing now to make the social media boom.

Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: So he's changing, right? Yeah,

Beau Beard: 100%.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's been the, that's been the hard part of, uh, naming my company Modern Chiropractic Marketing when I did- ... 'cause everybody expected me to keep up with all the modern stuff. Still don't do TikTok, but we're there. Um, so let's, let's transition a little bit 'cause, c- you know, mentioning content and creating content, you have also done some things i- for the profession, which is pretty cool, in, in teaching that.

You, you had a, you have your own podcast. Tell us a little bit about that podcast. I know I was a guest on it, but give our audience a little bit of a, a [00:27:00] update on that.

Beau Beard: Yeah, so I started, uh, podcasting I think in 2016 'cause we moved into a new office and I had a r- little room that I could do it out of.

And I, again, it wasn't that podcasts were new then, they were fledgling, but I got really lucky 'cause I got people like, you know, Kelly Streb, Brian McKenzie, just cold, honestly I think, DM-ing these people. That, I mean, that doesn't happen today. Like, I try, you know, I'm trying to get some bigger- It's hard

guests on the next podcast round and it's not that easy anymore. It's

Dr. Kevin Christie: hard now.

Beau Beard: Yeah. So I got lucky and did that, and I've kinda went on and off, but now it's called the Farmcast and we have another season that we're gearing up for. Um, but yeah, I've tried to get, you know, all the people that we probably know of, a lot of people we respect in the profession, people outside the profession, um, and just kinda have conversations, either in their area of expertise or even trying to get them to kinda cross-pollinate.

And then this next round, I'm really trying to get people outside the profession that are working on expertise and mastery and what can they teach us in terms of, [00:28:00] well, how do we just do this, you know, walking the path to mastery for the rest of our career and the rest of our life? 'Cause that's what I'm interested in.

So as Tim Ferriss say when he writes a book, like, I'm scratching my own itch, and that's what the podcast is now. Um, yeah, and then in terms of, you know, other things for the profession- I've been lucky enough to, you know, teach at some of the bigger stages, and I got involved with, uh, Rehab to Performance early on, which put me in positions to kinda teach and be in front of student bodies.

And that kinda led me to developing some own- my own coursework that I was just kinda interested in. And again, slow playing that. I've n- you know, haven't pushed all my chips over to the education realm. Just kinda a hobby. Um, but it just, it keeps me sharp. I think that's one of the bigger things of me being on a stage or me talking to students is I don't

You know, I always kinda tell students if they are interesting in teaching, whatever your subject matter is, imagine that the world expert is in the crowd, and whatever you say, they're getting ready to call you out on it. So, you just wanna be, like, as up-to-date as you can be, as [00:29:00] sharp as you can be, and be w- you know, willing to get called out, be, be able to have a, you know, a good conversation about it.

And that's what I've tried to do, so it's just forced me to kinda stay ahead as much as I possibly can, um, which feels impossible sometimes. Yeah. Um, yeah, I like doing it, so that's ... You know, I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. That's good. And, um, you know, it, I think it gives people ... Again, part of that career arc, you get a certain level where the practice becom- like Strategic Coach talks about having a, a self-managing business, and then they talk about the higher level being a self-multiplying business where it can start to grow without you having to do everything, essentially.

And when you can get that career arc going there, then you can start to do things, like, that maybe fill the other bucket up professionally, the, like teaching or whatever it may be. And that's ultimately, uh, that's how MCM started, and it was just a kind of, uh, something that I, I did, I was doing for free for a couple years, and then, you know, listened to my audience and [00:30:00] developed a, you know, kinda wrapped a business around that.

So, it's, uh, it's cool when you can kinda get outside of the four walls of your practice sometimes and enjoy doing that, uh,

Beau Beard: teaching or whatever it may

Dr. Kevin Christie: be.

Beau Beard: I, if I'm kinda the guy, if I can create variety, like, you know, this week we, you know, I started out, you teach a couple clinics to local groups. We're doing FMS screens for firefighters.

You're bouncing around to different... Like, doing a podcast. Like, that's what I want my weeks to feel like. That's not reality year one, two in practice for most people, 'cause you are just grinding seeing patients. So it's, I look back and I'm like, "Okay, I, I'm glad I did all that, 'cause it's got me where I am."

And it, you know, it can feel like a grind now just doing all that, but it's much more suits my personality, which also kinda multiplies my energy so I don't get drug down into the, you know, the grind. Um, so yeah, uh, I'm, I'm- Yeah ... where I wanna be right now, and, you know, I'm only the controller of my destiny, so hopefully I don't put myself in a position I don't wanna be.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and ironically, it, it can help stave off burnout, [00:31:00] right? 100%. Like, it sounds like-

Beau Beard: Yep ...

Dr. Kevin Christie: like, oh, that's a lot, doing a lot of things, that probably would burn me out, but it actually, in a lot of times, if you're, if you're working on the things you wanna do, it actually helps prevent it.

Beau Beard: Yeah.

Yeah. If I, if you had to put me w- you know, and I would do it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Beau Beard: So we've talked before, you know, Sloan and I will sit around at dinner, and I'm sure, like, something will come up tonight. We're gonna go out to d- on a date for the first time in a long time, and we'll be like, "God, if everybody left, like everybody quit or something,"

like, could we go back and see all these patients? I'm like, "Oh, man." Yeah. I would, but I don't want to. So it's, you know, always work. I like the, I heard Joe Montana talking about, like, have a plan and have a dream. Like, I can have a fail- fallback plan, you know, and I'm always kinda thinking for that, what we call, like, a black hat pivot.

Like, eh, if this went south, could I be in a position to still salvage it? But the dream is to keep moving further away from that, and you, you just gotta kinda check yourself every once in a while that you're not getting too far in the clouds. Um.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. That's, I love that. I think it was either, what, being [00:32:00] attorney or something, or be a- Yeah

quarterback, and the, and his dad was like, "Well, being a quarterback in the NFL, that's, that's a dream. But let's have a plan also."

Beau Beard: And he still became an attorney while in the NFL

Dr. Kevin Christie: which is- Yeah ... wild. Yeah. I think that, I think it was Steve Young, right? It was Steve Young? Or Steve

Beau Beard: Young. Yeah, sorry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, Steve Young.

Yeah, I think it was Steve Young. Um, but yeah, I thought that was a pretty cool, uh, interview, for sure. So, uh, all right, cool. Let's, uh, let's transition into what's the future like? What... Tell me about what you guys are thinking as far as the, the practice, uh, you and Sloan, uh, maybe your just, your professional career goals, what you're looking at as far as a vision.

I know you, you are a vision-driven person, and I'd love to hear what that looks like.

Beau Beard: Yeah, so for the clinic, I wanna turn it into more of a, a teaching center. I mean, we're lucky enough to, like I said, be involved with the R2P group, which keeps a decent flow of students coming in, and interns, and preceptors.

But I'd like to see us ho- host more courses in general, [00:33:00] but then also kinda be sought after, whether that's both online and in person, of a kind of a teaching center where people matriculate through. We almost have a bit of a curriculum even for a day shadow, right? That it's not just, "Hey, show up and watch what's going on."

So I'd like to work on that, and that takes, that takes team, right? I, I can't handle that 'cause I won't always be here. So that's one thing with the clinic, and then, you know, we, we could house one more doctor right now. I think we're humming pretty good right now with four of us, and Sloan only practices actively one day a week.

Mm-hmm. Um, that's working, but there's capacity for one more, and then that can grow to two more probably in the next three years. So we're not looking to just... You know, I'm also very realistic for what I want. Mm-hmm. When I think about a huge practice, that kinda to me, like, I get a little, like, anxious thinking about, like, 10, 12 docs or multiple locations and- Mm

I mean, some of my friends that are in other business, you know, avenues are like, "Why aren't you doing this? Why don't you open a second location?" Anytime I think about it I just get anxiety, and maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm [00:34:00] s- you know, self-sabotaging. Um, but I think a big part of that is I like to do all these other things, so I'm trying to build...

The farm is the educational center institute for a lot of the things I wanna keep teaching, and we literally use the farm as, like, the testing grounds. Like, hey, if I'm gonna teach people about world-class assessment techniques, are we actually doing that? I'm pointing at a whiteboard that Kevin can see behind me.

Like, are we actually implementing this in our own clinic, or are we just out here teaching something that's, you know, not real? So I'd like to see us really become a, yeah, kind of a centerpiece even though we're not near a school. Um, I guess there's a chiro school in Alabama that's opening up next year down in Troy.

That's

Dr. Kevin Christie: right.

Beau Beard: Um- How far

Dr. Kevin Christie: is that from you?

Beau Beard: It's, like, three hours. Um, and we've talked to, uh, Tim Stark a little bit, just kinda, you know, saying hi, and we're here and available if anything, you know, you need us. So I'd love to see, you know, more things happen with them, but, you know, we're not in the backyard of a school and it's not super easy, but that's something I wanna build for the future for sure.[00:35:00]

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. At least you're in Birmingham. It's not too hard to get there.

Beau Beard: It's not, and I mean, we're kind of in a s- a, a center hub, if you looked out at a bunch of schools. And we have a ton of shadows come through, and- Yeah ... I'm always extremely thankful and kind of flattered that they'll fly in for a day or two or drive, you know, on the way home or back on a break.

Um, yeah, so I hope we keep that up as we, you know, as our other docs get busy and, um, they get further out from school. You know, do we keep those younger contacts, or do we kinda, you know, get further away? So I need to build a program to keep that going.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, definitely. And then what kind of, uh, courses are you teaching?

And I know you mentioned R2P, but anything else? Uh, uh, maybe your own running cour- Are you still doing running courses?

Beau Beard: Yeah, I'll be teaching one in Columbus in the first weekend of August. And I started teaching the, uh, I call it Rethinking Running Rehab or Rx3, I wanna say in 2019. And from that course, I kind of had an epiphany that, oh, I'm really teaching a lot of assessment, like how to look at things differently or how to [00:36:00] have a system applied to your assessment.

Out of that came The Art of Assessment, which is kind of my now overarching theme. And we're, you know, I have online courses. We have a course coming to St. Louis and one here this year. And I'm really trying to bulletproof Our systems, and we, we call them ecosystems, and we're just... I'm trying to kind of, and this is my own faults, I'm trying to tell students they're coming out with way more information, tools, and techniques than I did.

I know that I felt lost when I was first in practice. So I'm like, "Well, who's actually teaching you to be a clinician?" Like, and that sounds a little, you know, like I'm demeaning the clinicians they had worked with. That's not at all, but it's like how do you integrate this stuff? How do you create a plan?

How do you work from the beginning and end? I definitely didn't have that. I don't see that happening a lot, and I'd like to help students, new docs, and then even, you know, myself. This, you know, is birthed out of my own need of, you know, can we [00:37:00] clean up the process? And I think your job gets a lot easier and a lot more fun when you don't just kind of walk into every visit like, "Okay, what do I do now?

What do I do now?" Like, how am I going through this methodically, and how do I tighten my feedback loops?

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. It's, I, I'm glad I'm old enough to where when I came out just knowing how to palpate, adjust, and some soft tissue was, uh, all you, all we were really getting pretty good at, and then I was able to layer on after the fact so it wasn't, you know, just kind of swimming in six different types of methodologies- Yeah

and not knowing how to put it together.

Beau Beard: Huge, I mean, huge blessing. I tell all our interns and shadows the same thing. They're like, "Well, how did you put this all together when you came out?" I'm like, "I didn't have all this." I, it was one piece at a time, and then it, like you said, when you're in active practice and you get something, you kind of even while you're being taught it know where you'd apply it.

You frame it different. Um, so yeah, I j- you know, Brett Winchester again says that you're like, you know, people are swimming in information or knowledge, and they're just drowning for application. And that to me was like, okay, like what can [00:38:00] we do about that? Um, so yeah, I hope I do a decent job, and I hope it keeps getting better as we hone the course and sharpen it over the next few years.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's awesome, man. Well, this has been a, a pleasure. If they wanna reach out, whether they wanna shadow, intern, or if DC wants to attend one of your, your courses, how can they find out what you're doing?

Beau Beard: Yeah, so the practice website if you're just ever wanted to check that out, chirophrm.com. Uh, the educational site is thephrmuniversity.com, and then you can always just email me.

It's drbeaubeard@gmail.com. It's all over the internet, so it's not hard to find. Um, and literally I have, you know, students get ahold of us, and y- everybody's welcome to come shadow. It's like a door's always open policy.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, keep it up. It's, uh, it's exciting seeing what you're doing, and I'm, I'm looking forward to having dinner with you and Rich Holm here in a couple weeks or a week.

Beau Beard: Absolutely. Be, be good to meet you in person finally.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, absolutely. Well, have a good one, and tell Sloane I said hello.

Beau Beard: Will do, man. Thanks for having me on.