066 - The Power of No: When to Hold Back So You Can Move Forward

I find it very easy for me to say yes or no to opportunities, even some great opportunities, because I just look at how aligned it is with my vision of what I'm trying to achieve. Life by design. You can design, live the life that you want. You can do anything you want. Can't do everything, but you can do anything that you want. So I think that's why it's so critical that you define what it is that you want. And what it is that you want is usually going to be something that's aligned with your core values.

Hello and welcome to Build you'd Remarkable Practice Podcast. This podcast is dedicated to chiropractors who are in the seasons of launching and building their practice. Join myself, Dr. Lona and my co host, Dr. Bobbi as we have conversations each week as it relates to building the practice of your dreams. And remember, you can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. We are here to lead you on the way.

What's up, team? Welcome back to the Build your Remarkable Practice podcast with a fantastic Dr. Lona Cook and myself, Dr. Bobby Lajasovic. Dr. Lona, what's going on? You've had a busy day today. It sounds like you've been on Zoom call since 10am and I'm assuming now it's well past 10am how are you feeling?

Yeah, you know, I love getting to connect virtually and the opportunities it brings, but by the end of lots of hours on the computer, I'm like, whoa. So, yeah, it's been a good day. It's been a full jam packed day. How about you? It's early there.

Well, I'm only just getting started, but it's been a full day already. Or full morning. It's 7:45 here, so I've also been on mastermind since 6am But I am in that morning peak hit, right? So I'm rocking and rolling, firing at all cylinders. So that's why I cluster my book. I'll be done with my Zoom calls in the next two hours. So zoom fatigue is a real thing. Lorna, let me tell you.

There'S a lot of chiropractors, so it's funny. Isn't that interesting? Well, today's topic, guys, what we're going to be talking about is something that, you know, what if you're a business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, or even if you're an associate, this is something that I find a lot of humans do, I should call it suffer from, or a lot of humans, you know, fall victim to. Or a lot of people have trouble with. And that is that in life you have opportunities presented to you, and sometimes things can appear as an exciting, shiny silver thing. And we're really inclined in life to say yes to a lot of things. Yes to this, yes to that. And I think it really stems from. From childhood, like this fear of missing out. You know, I remember London when I was in year nine, year ten, and house party started happening, right? You're like 14, 15, and, you know, if you didn't get invited to a party that everyone else is going to, there's a little bit of a chip off the shoulder, right? It was a little bit of a, oh, man, I'm not going to get invited. And part of that was like, am I going to miss out on something? Right? Am I going to miss out? I think it's going to be really cool. You know, the rest of the grade's going to be there. So my friends are going, and I'm not good with that person, so I didn't really get invited. There was this FOMO fear of missing out, you know, And I think that there's multiple opportunities like that to happen through life, and I think a part of that then filters through the business where people get this opportunity. And it's like, you know what? There's a new location you can open, there's a new person you can bring on. There's this new business opportunity that gets presented your way. And most of us are optimists by nature, so as an optimist, we think, yeah, yeah. My initial impression always is like, that's cool. Yeah, that would work. Maybe I should do that. But then I also learned in business. Loan up. That one of the most important skill sets to develop in business. Okay, one of the most important, if not the most important, is what I call sequencing. And sequencing means that there is a million things that you can be doing to grow, but that doesn't mean that you should be doing all of them. Sequencing is the process. And do you have a process of how do you filter the different opportunities, different things that you could be doing, different ideas that get presented in your way, and then how do you sequence them where you say, okay, but this is important right now, and these are the next three steps that I'm going to be doing. Right? So why don't you share with us an example, because I know you recently had a story that you want to share with all of us about how this happened to you and how it presented in your life. And I feel as though we can all learn a lot from this. So why don't you take us through. How did you learn this lesson in recent times? What was the story you want to share with us?

Yeah, I will. And you know, I was thinking about this too, of like, yeah, when you say no and you're clear of why you're saying no, then many times the right opportunity shows up right on its heels. And Bobb and I were chatting about this offline. And before I share my most recent story, I want to share probably my most impactful saying no. Because when I was growing the school based practice, it was like a side project, a side hustle, if you will, which sometimes can distract you from the main thing right, until you build that out. And I was at that point where I realized I need to hire an associate to run the school based practice. Like, we can't keep going at the rate that we're going right now. So I was clear that I needed someone, right? I was clear that an associate needed to be hired. And out of necessity, out of probably burnout, I had interviewed a gentleman, a chiropractor, who I thought it was okay. I thought he was pretty good. Like, I was feeling good about the possibilities of him being our hire. And I remember my office manager at the time, I think wanted to strangle him. And because I was really feeling like I needed someone, I almost made that higher, right? And then I really sat back on it for a little bit and I realized, like, even though I feel like we need someone yesterday, if I bring someone on, that's going to upset this other really pivotal person on the team. Like, this is probably not what I need to do. So I. And part of what was happening at the time is as we were looking at contracts, we could not get on the same page for the contract. So that was my other sign that I was like, okay, like maybe this is slowing down. So that I pause for a second rather than being a bull in a china shop and just trying to make it happen, like, I need to slow down my onboarding here. And so we ended up pulling out of that deal. It didn't sign a contract, did not hire that associate. And it was within a month or two that my now business partner, Dr. Amanda Haynes Blonigan, she had come up to shadow the practice, had no intentions of moving to Wisconsin, saw what we were doing in the schools and said to me, hey, I actually think that I'm supposed to come up here and join you. And I never thought she was even looking for an associate position, but she had Someone I already had a relationship with. I was like, really inspired by like what she was planning to do post grad and so post chiropractic school. And so she ended up moving on and it was like divine timing for her to come up and visit. And so I look at that like the universe gives you away, especially when you say no to what isn't quite the right fit, that then the right opportunity finds you that much easier. So from a hiring standpoint, knowing that too, that sometimes saying no is the best thing you can do to get your actual right. Yes, that's an important thing. So that, that's my first story there, Bobbi. I don't know, any thoughts on hiring with saying no and then saying yes when you actually mean it?

Well, yes. So I guess my question to you is, do you have a process around that? Because a lot of people get faced with opportunities or business opportunities. And I just find in my experience in chiropractic, talking to chiropractors, people branch out and do side projects way too soon. And they take their focus off the primary thing. They haven't actually built anything of, of substance really, that's reliable, that's durable, not reliant on them, it's profitable. And then I take their eye off the prize way too soon, way too quickly. Because the universe presents them with opportunities and they view those as, wow, I've got this lucky opportunity. You know, for some reason it found me, like, I'm so lucky, it seeked me out. Right. So then I guess my question to you is, do you have a process then around when you have the opportunity to do something. And it could be as little as, you know, you're building your practice and somebody contacts you. And I remember, for example, this happened to us, the local gym, which was quite a big gym, contacted us and said, we've got an opportunity where you can put, you know, your advertising on like our plaques that are inside the change rooms. And you can have like a 15 second infomercial that runs on our TV to the gym. And that comes obviously with a cost. I think it was like five grand. And you know, there's this opportunity where like, wow, it's, it's a really busy gym. We can get onto the TV of the gym and we can also, you know, have plaques in the changing rooms and there's this opportunity. Do I take this opportunity? So what is the process through which you filter things through that you work out? All right? Yes, this is something that I do want to do and I want to act on or no, this is a distraction and maybe it's a later thing.

Yeah, it definitely comes back to your vision and your values and how it fits into like where you're headed in the short term. Vision. Right. So for me at that time, if I go back to that, that story is like we were all in on doing the school project. It was growing as well as I knew that the practice was growing. So I just knew that we needed another doctor to, instead of the school project being a side hustle, it could actually expand into like what it needed to become. But I was clear at that point that it wasn't going to happen from me. So part of it was just weighing that with not only my personal vision, but my vision for both practices at that point and getting clear about how do I make this decision. While this person actually isn't in alignment with, you know, some of the core established people that already are in alignment, well then it's probably a no, right? And versus Amanda who was a right fit. And we knew we were looking for someone at that point. So it fit into the vision of where we were going. So using your vision story to help you define where you should be focusing instead of just saying yes to whatever opportunity comes your way, I think is a critical piece.

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And I hope people are starting to see the theme here, guys, because if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll see that we continually come back to this idea about what's your vision story. And I hope that at this stage it starts to, it starts to stick out and illuminate for you. That vision story isn't just this thing that, you know, you do once you put a bit of thought into and you write it down. That's my vision story. And the quicker that somebody realized that there's this proportion, there's this direct proportional success between clarity of vision, how much effort and energy you put into that and how much success you're going to achieve. Meaning that it should not be this thing that is a once and done, it should be a process that you build into your rhythms, whether that's your daily rhythms or weekly rhythms. I have daily rhythms around how I'm rowing to mind about. Let's try that again. How I'm reminded about our vision and what it is that we're trying to achieve. And I've recognized and realized the closer that I keep that vision to me, the higher probability of achieving it. So I keep it so close that I review it inside of my daily planner a minimum of five times a day. And am I perfect with that? No way that I'm perfect with that. But you know what I realized the days that I don't. Yesterday is one of those days. Yesterday, one of those days that I wrote down my daily plan. I wrote down my vision the night before. I wrote down what is it I'm trying to achieve. Okay, I got to the end of the day last night, 8 o', clock, reviewed my daily planner. Of my four action steps on that list, I completed two and two were incompleted yesterday that I looked and I was like, how many times did I look at this daily planner? And the answer to that question was once. I looked at it once. So I looked at it in the morning when I got up as, as part of my routine. That's, that's the only time. And then the day happened, a few things went sideways and I didn't look at it again. So I've come to realize that it's directly proportional that how much I keep it front of mind and look at it then the more chance of me achieving what's in that vision. So same thing when you have opportunities. I find it very easy for me to say yes or no to opportunities, even some great opportunities, because I just look at how aligned it is, my vision of what I'm trying to achieve. Life by design. You can design, live the life that you want. You can do anything you want. Can't do everything, but you can do anything that you want. So I think that's why it's so critical that you define what it is that you want. And what it is that you want is usually going to be something that's aligned with your core values. Because if you look at your core values, that's going to give you a good idea about, all right, what you want in life and what inspires you, what motivates you, what keeps you in that energetic zone. Because I believe that the number one asset of a business is the mojo of the founder, I. E. The mojo of you. So if you're doing things that you're inspired and you're like love and doing, and you've got a great mojo about it, that's going to reflect in the results. And if you're doing things where, well, I'm doing it, but it's not necessarily like I love doing it, that's going to reflect the results equally.

So good. Yeah. And Bobby is looking at his five times a day, which is why Bobby gets the outcomes that he gets. I probably look at mine once a day. It's usually front, front and center in the morning where I just do a little journaling on it. Like, where am I going? What do we, you know, what are we working towards? How do I envision that playing out? And when I've had periods of life where I get further away from spending that time, for me, it's really about writing. Like, it will feel like we lose. We lose that, like directional compass. When I say we, it goes back to what Bobby just said. Like the mojo of the visionary. And the practice is critical to how everyone else is also energized on some level. That doesn't mean that you have to be like, you know, spoon feeding it to them every day by any means, but it is energetic on some level.

So.

So the things that keep you really energized and excited and seeing the potentiality and the vision then help you then attract the right opportunities and also know when to say no to the ones that aren't for you.

Yep, yep. Spot on the mark. Exactly. So rule number one. How is the way that we know to say no inside of an opportunity or if an opportunity Rule number one is clarity with your vision story and get really clear about what it is that you're trying to achieve in your life, especially next three years from now. That's number one. Anything else, Lorna? Any other things that maybe by default, you don't even realize you're doing?

Yeah. So, you know, having mentors or coaches that help you when you deviate, because we're all going to make missteps along the way, perhaps that were lessons we also needed to learn. And, you know, Dr. Pete Cameiolo I've coached with for five or six years now, and last year an opportunity came our way that financially looked really exciting. It was something that was going to happen in the space next to us that I did not have plans for that space yet. And as I was looking at making this arrangement, this contract with this other business that was going to become a partnership in our practice, he really just called me out and he's like, lona, was this ever part of your vision? And I said, I don't know. Let me think about that. But the real answer would have been no. Up until that opportunity coming close to me, I had never thought about it. And, you know, I spent some time because his just asking me that question, that pause. He wasn't telling me what was right or wrong. It was just a question that was asked. And then it allowed me to really reflect on it. And it's like, no, this really isn't actually part of my vision. I don't know what we're going to do with that square footage yet, but this probably isn't it. You know, having a mentor that is able to ask you hard questions or maybe even be a pattern, interrupt you, you know, in a way that you don't desire sometimes is worth its weight in gold in business.

Yep, I agree 100%. Having somebody to just say things out loud to on the sounding board, someone's going to a. Like you said, be willing to hold you accountable and call you out on your stuff is really, really key. And not telling you what to do. But in essence, you actually know yourself if someone points it out to you, because that's the first thing I always go back to. What is your vision story for success? What your core value is and is it aligned with those things? And if the answer to that is yes, go ahead and rock and roll and make the investment. Take the risk, okay? Because everything is a risk. You've got to, in business, get comfortable with taking risks because your level of success is also directly proportioned to your level of risk taking. Okay? So if you think about it, from day one, opening up a business is a risk in itself. The risk doesn't stop there. All right? You'll be continually, every day and every week faced with risks. And it's your ability to be able to assess those risks accurately. Okay. Align them with, is this something that I want in my life? And then take action on those that will be dictating the success that you get. Right. So are you taking risks for something that's completely out of line with what your vision, core values are? Because then you're unnecessarily creating stress for yourself because you're taking risks on things that aren't any way going to bring you fulfilled or aren't aligned with what you're trying to achieve. And that for me, is the biggest, the biggest disappointment.

If I do that.

Last thing, if you're like, well, what brings. Brings me that clarity? And that vision is like, find the stuff that you enjoy that you truly love about practice. And then when you're in that state, that's when you should envision, right. So many people try and spend time with their vision when they're not maybe in the right state for it. And that feels hard then, too. So, like, vision work should be when you're in an expanded state, when you're chasing down the things that you would do, maybe you wouldn't even be paid for them, you'd still want to do them. That's probably because it's meant for you. Right? That's how I feel about it. Anyways, what gets you up in the morning, what gets you excited?

And also, I'm just going to add one more thing to that. So we spoke about two things we said. Number one, get clarity, vision, story, and your core values. Right? That's where it starts. Number two, mentors. How important is to have mentors there on the sidelines cheering for you that are going to help you see things maybe you don't see in the moment. And here's number three. I got reminded of this. This is number three for me because of what you just said. Does it tick off these three checkboxes? You ready? The checkboxes I look at is, number one, am I hugely passionate and love what this thing is about? Okay, that's the first thing. Like, am I hugely passionate? I love what this thing is about. And I look at that and go, tick. I think you shared an example there previously of a PT maybe coming in, physical therapist for me personally, I look at that, I go, does that excite me? And I hugely Passionate about that. No, I'm not. I can't be like, I'm not. So I'm like, so it has to tick all three. So it has to tick that. All right. Then the second thing that it has to tick is am I uniquely positioned in a way to execute this? Because what I'm looking at, and this is why I would never open up. I shouldn't say never. I wouldn't open up businesses that are very easily commoditized businesses. Right. It's like a commodity, a petrol station. It's like. Well, it's like flux. I'm just going to go to the cheaper place. It's really hard for me to market that. It's really hard for me to differentiate myself. And I know there's a model, but it's going to be very hard to beat someone like Shell, who's an established operator in that market for so long, unless I have some special fuel that they don't have. So I've got to be uniquely positioned or qualified to do that as well. And then the third tick that has to happen for me is that it makes me a ton of money. Okay. Because you can be super passionate about something uniquely positioned. But you know what? You struggle to bloody play the bills. And you know what? You're robbing Peter to pay Paul. You got this business that's successful. You're setting up the side project which is just always this starving thing and always wants money from the main business. So it's like that, to me, is not sustainable either, unless you're at the point where, you know, it's completely 100% altruistic setting up foundations. Right. That it doesn't matter what happens. Although, mind you, even those foundations have profit margins. Charities do not exist without a profit margin. Let's be very clear. Okay, so that's the third thing. Right. So, number one, am I hugely passionate and excited about this? Number two, my uniquely positioned to execute it. And number three, does it make a ton of money? If that's a tick tick, tick. Fantastic. All right. There's a confluence of three things. I'm going to look deeper at that opportunity.

Yeah, that's great. So now, you know, a lot of times you are saying no, and that's okay.

Exactly. So I've got a potential associate that I might add. Okay. Am I super enthusiastic, passionate about another associate? Yeah. We're going to double the amount of people that are coming here if I were a single, single man operator. Yes. Am I uniquely positioned? Well, I am, because we have a practice that's growing. It's in a position where I'm at capacity. There's great new patient flow, there's great systems, there's a great team. We have a great environment for an associate ticket. Is it going to make me a ton of money? Yes, it is. If it's done properly and done right. Me and them, I'm like, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Beautiful.

Let's take that risk and let's start going hunting for an associate.

Perfect. Thanks, Bobby.

All right, so there you have it, team. So when do you learn to say no? I find that that system very, very much helps both Lono and myself. I hope that it helps you because it's not about saying yes to everything and spreading yourself too thin. You have a certain amount of time, energy and money. So saying yes to the right things is what's key. Lord. Any final thoughts you want to add, people?

No. I was impressed by your brain. Your brain, how it rattles things off as it's just like an amazing thing.

It doesn't happen by chance. All right. Happens by great mentors.

All right.

And pouring into myself just like you know, and just like you do as well. So on that, guys, if you want to see how we put all together, please follow us on Instagram. Dr. Lohna Cook or Dr. MabilaJastvik. Follow us Instagram. Send us a message. If you want to help grow your practice, send us a message saying, help grow my practice. And let's have a conversation. Let's see if it's something we can help you scale and get to the next level. Otherwise, peace out. We'll catch you on the next podcast. Have an amazing week.

Hey, everyone. Please listen in for this next bonus interview of one of our remarkable success partners. They all help us help more people find the benefits of chiropractic. So listen on.

Hey, guys. Dr. Pete Camiolo here in the studio with Dr. Myles Bodson and Holly Jensen from Cash Practice. I am super pumped to be with these guys and I've had an opportunity to work with them on and off over the years. And many of the doctors who I work with, who work with them are just so thankful and grateful to have Cash Practice in their corner and in their world. And we're thrilled because they are one of our remarkable success partners, experts in this area. They've been there and done that and you guys have so much to learn from them and they're super pumped to share with you today some things that are on their heart. But I'll let them introduce themselves so you get A little bit of an awareness of who this is. If you don't know who they are, haven't heard them before. I'm sure most of you have, but maybe you haven't. Dr. Miles, I'll throw it to you first. Share with us a little about who you are, a little bit of your background, a little bit of background of your company and then we'll throw it over to Holly.

I'll keep this really brief. I'm Dr. Miles Bodzin, founder and CEO of Cash Practice. Dr. Pete, thank you so much for having us and hosting us. We really appreciate being part of your tribe. I've known Fransen for over a decade and it's just really great to be part of your group. As far as background, I practiced as a chiropractor, like everybody listening right now for about 20 years. I'd love to say it was always successful. I struggled at the very beginning and reached out to a group and eventually got some help. Turned the corner from going from struggle to great success. And I will say the cornerstone of what changed that for me was learning how to do some of the things I'm going to will share with you today. And that is care planning was a big cornerstone of that. That without care planning, you really kind of struggle. And when you're successful at doing that, we rock and roll. I'm happy to introduce Holly Jensen here with us. I'll you take it away in a second here. I'm so proud of Holly who's been working by my side for over 20 years now. I think 23 years now. We're going on now working together. Holly's our chief operations officer at Cash practice and prior to that served as my office manager in the chiropractic office for nearly a decade. Has extensive knowledge in the world of helping chiropractors and cas Rock and roll. And Holly, take it away from your a little bit about yourself as well.

I mean, I'll just add I'm the only former ca I know who has an actress portray them in a movie.

That's true.

Yeah. So if you want to check it out, the calling movie.com you can stream it for free. It's actually a movie. A short, really nice, well done film. True story. That shows the story of Dr. Miles being called to become a chiropractor. So I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that. But it also has in there the story of a patient who comes in for pain relief and turns into a lifetime wellness patient. And it shows the story of little Holly Jensen being called to serve alongside Dr. Miles at the capacity that I was in back in that that day. So yeah, the movie was over 20 years in the making. But I highly encourage your listeners to go check it out. It's a nice, inspiring, feelgood film.

What can you one more time state the way that we find it out? It's like the calling you said.

Thecallingmovie.com it's not the one with Susan Sarandon. This is the one with Dr. Miles Spodzen and Holly Jensen.

Nice.

Okay, well, thanks for sharing that. Already learning more about you guys. And it's an honor for me to be with these actors on this and you guys are famous film stars. So thanks for being here today and for just even what you said at the beginning. Dr. Miles, going back to you, you know, the struggle is real. You know, and I think the reality is, is in business, if we are brutally honest and we can raise our hand and say, hey, need some help? And you kind of shared that a little bit in your story and just saying, hey, need help? It's amazing how things can change. Turnaround for you. So can you talk about that a little bit more maybe, maybe through the lens of your story, your own journey from that struggle to success and specifically with Cash Practice, how did that birth from your story? Because clearly it birthed from some pain. But it became so important to you that you needed to give this to other people. Maybe just a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely. And Holly, thanks for bringing up the movie, the calling that you go watch that movie and you'll. And you'll see well portrayed this entire story. But I'll give you the Cliff Note version. And that is when I got out of school in the early 90s, I was wanting to do a wellness type practice. In fact, the name of my practice back then in 1994 seems a while ago now. 1994 was the chiropractic Wellness Center. And that name is pretty common today. We see it all over the place. But in 94, when I named my practice that the word wellness was nowhere to exist in chiropractic, at least in San Diego. When I named my practice, I went to the city of San Diego to register the name with the business name.

Literally.

There were no other businesses with the word wellness at the time. We were the very first. This is a time period when you looked at the advertising of chiropractors and it was all about back pain, neck pain, car accidents. You looked at the yellow pages at the time and that's what it was. All about. And there was another big thing happening in the early 90s, which was this thing called managed care, which is everywhere now. But back then, it was brand new. And here I was, this young kid out of school wanting to do wellness. I wanted to do the insurance thing. Everybody else was doing insurance. They were killing it. You know, the local chiropractor had been there for 20 years, was driving his Ferrari around, you know, killing it, doing insurance. But I tried to get involved in it, and I couldn't. They weren't letting the new kids into the managed care program, so I couldn't get into it. And so the scenario was is everybody has insurance with a managed care program that I'm not part of. I want to do wellness. Everybody thinks of chiropractic for back pain, neck pain, and car accidents. And I ran into a brick wall. And what changed that was I got some assistance on, like, how to sit down with a patient, communicate with them, with them at a day, one day, to how to talk with them and get them to say yes to a care plan. And what I learned was what a lot of chiropractors learn. I learned how to sell care. I learned how to get really good at that. And I got great at doing prepays, which is a common program out there in the world of chiropractic right now, or it has been forever. It's not a new idea. And I got good at it. And then one day, Pete, I had the experience where I had three military families who all prepaid me, get orders to leave San Diego. So what did I have to do? I had to write a bunch of refund checks. So I had the pleasure of writing about $10,000 in refunds that week. And it dawned on me, like, well, this really sucks. This really sucks that I'm living on borrowed money. And I got to figure out how to change this. And that's what started this whole process of cash practice. I started going, all right, there's got to be a better way of doing this. And I learned to do monthly payments, basically, is what I learned to do. And I wanted to, at that time, say, well, there's got to be an easy way to do this. There's got to be an easier way to do this. Because Holly remembers this day back then where we used to keep credit cards on file and have her sit at the front desk for an hour or two typing in credit card numbers to run payments. And this was back in the late 90s, early 2000s. So I started developing software. I have a background in Software engineering, or electrical engineering, I should say, in software, prior to chiropractic. So I started building software for myself to use in practice.

I'm giving you the very Cliff Note version here. I went from that struggle to having some success learning how to do care planning to having greater success putting people on monthly payments to eventually developing software to make it easy to do that. So that's what led to where we are today of cash back is like, I got to create some stuff for myself and, like, a lot of great ideas that are done for yourself. Other people catch wind of it, and they want to use it, and that's kind of the beginnings of this whole thing where other people wanted to start using what I had created, and it's blossomed into this thing we have today. But it all started out of a. Out of, you know, the pain of not being able to have success in practice and eventually learning what it took to be. To be successful. And that's really kind of the Cliff Note version of that story.

Yeah, no, I think it's important, and I love speaking about this, the principles of business, too. Like, the reality is the opposition was your way. That was your path. Instead of it being the, you know, the thing that deterred you. It was actually. It was the way, like the storm, you know, the only way through it is through it. Like, your challenge was your opportunity. And I think for all of you who are listening, whatever is going on in your business, in life right now, like, whatever your current challenge is, I just want you to hear what Dr. Miles said. He just said, basically, lean in. Lean in and don't give up and see what's going to come out of this. You use another language. Earlier in the call or during this, our time together, you said called to serve. That language is really important to me. Those three words, called to serve. Okay. There's a calling on your life. If you're listening to this. I just, you know, we're on a podcast. We have an opportunity to talk shop. We get Opportunity to talk real. You're talking real, and I know everybody who's listening. It's like, oh, yeah, everything is really. Everything is roses and. And, you know, green grass and sunny days. Everything's going great. Money is just flowing in. It's awesome. It's like, yeah, okay, well, what if it's not? Then you're listening to this. I just want you to hear what Doc Miles, you said, which is, don't give up. Stay the course. And by the way, there's. There's. There are ways to get there to, to improve, to see the, to see things improve for you, whatever area it is in your life. And so with that, you know, and thinking about this care planning thing, I had a guy actually recently reach out to me actually just in this week when we're recording this and really struggling with this. It's the second person in two weeks and they're like, hey, I'm trying to figure out the care plan thing. I'm trying to figure out how to do it all. I have insurance, but I also want to be able to do self pay and all this stuff.

Right?

So they're in this game and they're trying to figure it out. Can you guys talk to, you know, the problems that you're solving for chiropractics very specifically, practically in a day, in a day office. I don't know If I'm going Dr. Miles. Dr. Or Holly or both of you guys to answer this question, but can you talk a little bit about it? Because I think at a high level we understand what you're doing. You built this amazing software. But talk practically like on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, like specifically how is this and what you guys have built and continue to refine and optimize over the years. What, what are we doing as far as solving problems, real time problems for real chiropractors in business right now, in 2025, when we're recording this in 2025, what kind of, kind of issues are we seeing and what are you guys helping solve?

I'm going to go ahead and address this head on and I'm going to turn it to Holly to talk about how this helps CAS as well the problems they deal with in practice. As I see it, we saw four key problems. There's four key problems we solve. Number one that we solve is enrollment problems. If you're challenged with enrolling patients in care, it's beyond. There's a variety of things that we that, that, that play tribute to whether you successfully enroll someone in care or not. And part of that is how good are you at your care planning now? Part of it obviously is your communication. Your day one, your day two, all of that communication stuff. But the actual mechanics of how you build your care plan plans, how you present them. In fact, I believe we even have something we can give everybody as a free, as a free resource of better presenting your, your financial plans. We'll share that with everybody when we're done here. But from the standpoint of like what we solve, if you have trouble enrolling people in care, it begins with care planning. The second thing, we help doctors. And I know for a fact we do this over and over and over. We see it routinely, and that is we help doctors skyrocket the retention across the board. When doctors apply, the care planning that we teach them to do, their retention goes through the roof. I have seen many practices have great conversion process, a good enrollment process and not have good retention. It's, it's very easy to do that. You could easily sign up lots of people, but still not retain people long term. But I will tell you, I've never ever seen a practice not have a good enrollment and have a good retention. Like retention is based upon you having good enrollments. And when you use our tools, you will improve your enrollments for sure. And especially if you couple that with the trainings you guys do for their day one, day two, 1,000%, you're going to be knocking it out of the park, enrolling people in care. The question is, are you retaining them? And what we found is your retention is impacted by four key things, which is a separate topic. I'll just mention one of them is care the way you care plan. And number two is how you collect that money. That business model has a tremendous impact on your retention. Think of the days of Netflix versus Blockbuster, right? There's a difference in your subscription to Netflix versus you going to Blockbuster and buying a, you know, and renting a dvd. Think of those two different business models. Same thing in practice. The way you run that business model will dramatically impact your retention. The third thing we solve is simply insurance headaches. And I say that because, not because we help you with insurance, but just because when doctors use the stuff we, we teach their cash revenue dwarfs, dwarfs their insurance revenue. We see practices going from 100,000 a year, I'm sorry, 100,000, you know, 100,000amonth in, in or a year per, in cash collections to 2 million a year in cash collections. Not over the course of a year, but over the course of many years, growing that cash revenue. And as a result, I think if a doctor is collecting a million, $2 million a year of cash, their, their concerns about insurance become less and less burdensome. Let's just say that. And the fourth thing we help with is freedom. Doctors find a tremendous sense of freedom that when they build their business models the way we teach, it gives them the freedom of flexibility to vacation from their practice without worrying about numbers dropping. It gives them the freedom and flexibility of having location independence. They get their time back. And those are the. I say the doctors Listening right now if you're struggling with those areas, those are all things that if you use the things we teach and the things that we provide in our software and our company, no doubt you will see improvements in that. Hol, I'd like you to chime in as well because I know you'd love to share with like how this impacts our, the people we can't do this without, which is our team. There's no way us doctors can do it without. We do at the level we do without an A plus team. And I wanted to hear from you, you know, why don't you share some of the things you say as well?

Yeah. Thank you Dr. Miles, as far as like a team standpoint. And, and I'll just add for your listeners, Dr. Miles and I are not related. We're not partners or we're colleagues. And, and I want to put a highlight on that because normally when you hear of a team member who's been working alongside their doctor for over two decades, they're normally married. And that's not the case here. But what, what we've been able to cultivate is an atmosphere in the practice of not only loyal patients, but loyal team members as well. Because when practice is fun, when we have high patient retention, not necessarily high volume of patients, but high patient retention, we are truly witness the miracles of chiropractic because patients are following through and they're getting better clinical outcomes. And as a team member, that is very rewarding to witness. Now you have to have systems in place in order to execute that vision. Right? And the vision is high patient retention, patient retention gets better clinical outcomes, world a happier place. Right. So you have to have systems in place. Systems create behaviors, behaviors become habits and habits drive outcomes. Whether it's the outcome is having more cash flow in your practice, the outcome is having more patients be compliant and follow through and finish their treatment plan. That's the habits that we want to create and we can't just do that willy nilly. We have to have structured discipline and systems and, and cash practice provides those systems to help execute those four things Dr. Miles outlined that we solve.

And Pete, I want to add one thing real quick and that is you mentioned a doctor who came to you or several doctors these last couple of weeks of having these challenges. Here's the thing, doctors don't have to refigure this stuff out. They don't have to like be lost. Right. I go in some of the Facebook groups and questions get asked all the time by doctors about this stuff and unfortunately it's sort of like asking Facebook for your legal opinion. You wouldn't go to Facebook for your legal opinion. You'd go to an attorney. And when I see in the Facebook groups these kind of things being asked, more often than not the information being shared is because we're dealing with finances, is not compliant, not legal, that type of stuff. So I encourage the doctors, don't try to make this stuff up on your own. There are right ways to do it and there's a lot of wrong ways of doing this stuff too. So I just want to point that out as well. It's not just about the systems and all the stuff doing. We're talking about that there's literally rules you have to follow when it comes to building out your care plans properly.

Yeah. And our whole philosophy on this has always been, you know, using leverage. You know, you want to, you want to leverage. You have a business, cash practice that exists to serve you and help you with this. Why would you try to figure this out? Why, why would you try to do this on your own or refigure these things out? It's already been done there. And, you know, so again, it makes so much sense. And that's why for me, as I'm getting all these questions, I just say, hey, you need to go talk to, you know, cash practice. So that's what I do. I send them, send them your way. It's just an easy one. I don't, I'm not going to sit here and say I've got it figured out. I don't. I let you guys take care of that.

Right.

So I can focus on what I do best. And when you guys are focusing on what you do best and together we're going to help more people, Help more people. Which is at the end of the.

Day, what we need.

We're already playing, we're already swimming upstream. It's already a small in fish and a big pot. Like, we have so much more work to do and we just need to have more help. More chiropractors become more successful. So when you look ahead, right, we're in 2025. You guys have been doing this for two and a half decades or more. So when you look ahead, well, basically based on what you said, 1994, I think I said, you said, yeah, you've just eclipsed a three decade mark. So.

Wow.

Thank you.

Yeah. So. So looking ahead as you, as you look at the next five to 10 years, how is the direction of our chiropractic profession going based on your opinions and what cash practice is positioned to help doctors do? How are you going to help us be more successful in the future even than we are now? What would you guys say as you look at the landscape of the way the profession is going?

Here's what I can say is I know students are graduating with more debt than ever. I know insurance is getting harder and harder and worse as the decades continue. I saw this 20 years ago when I might, where managed care started in Southern California and it spread across the nation like a cancer. I mean, that's where it all began. So we've been witnessing the worsening of insurance for doctors, and we're obviously seeing doctors coming out with a bigger burden, a bigger financial burden. As far as, like, the direction of the industry, I wish I could say I have my finger on the pulse of, like, the philosophy of what's going on. I can't say I can say I have any knowledge beyond what everybody else does, other than I will say when we visit the schools, we will say there's a lot more female students than there were when I was in student school there. Definitely that is a trend you could obviously see as well. So without bringing out a crystal ball, those are the things I can observe and that I know that's happening. And the way we help, quite frankly, is that, listen, doctors, you cannot let me back up. Here's another thing I see, and I've seen this for a while now. There's no middle class in chiropractic anymore. There's either the doctor is really killing it, or they're struggling. The days of just graduating, hanging up your shingle, seeing 100 visits a week, making a really good living, not, you know, and those days seem to be gone except for maybe small little pockets throughout the nation. It's either you're really killing it, you're doing a million, 2 million a year, or doctors are really like, I can't figure this out. Like, I'm struggling, right? So this whole middle class thing in chiropractic is kind of. It's not common anymore. So you gotta. If you don't want to be the one struggling, you gotta learn what it takes to be the rock stars. And there are some core basics that, when you're a rock star, that means you've mastered the basics. You've mastered the basics of running that business. Your acquisition is great, Your conversion is great, your retention is great, your business model is great, your team building is great. All of those things are just massively successful. Otherwise, you're going to be part of that Struggling group. That's probably the best way I could say that.

I see going on that struggling group. I see all the time in these different chiropractic forums. Chiropractors are struggling with the whole business side of practice. And so one of the things that they're doing is like, trying to find a side hustle to also do in addition to chiropractic. Right. Or they're trying to implement some new therapy or some weight loss drops or like there's something they're trying to add in because they're not laser focused on building the business that they have. And so I don't think that's going to change. Even with all of the technology and AI, it really comes to, like, rolling up the sleeves and putting your nose to the grindstone and figuring this out. It's not going to be handed to you like a 10th place trophy on your little league team. You've got to do the work and you're going to go through some trials and tribulations, but if you stick with it, if you have the grit and the perseverance, there are tools and resources out there to help you grow your practice and to have your patients and community thrive.

I mean, you guys heard it right here. So I have no more questions to ask except this. So if I'm listening to what you guys are saying right now and I'm in a full agreement, 100% in line, and we can have a different conversation around what we see in the future and the way things are going. But you nailed a couple things that are spot on. And Holly, you spoke directly to it as well. What's the best way for a listener to learn more than what they already learned? Get in contact with you, take a next step. And then you did mention earlier there's something you want to give away, so can you speak to all those things? That'd be awesome.

I'll take this. Dr. Miles, number one, we have a free gift for you we would love to share with you guys. We talked about care planning being the foundation of patient retention. And so we have a free video and script that will go through the seven essential elements of a successful care plan. And these are some of the compliant things that you need to be doing in your care plans. So go check out cashpractice.com frof like financial reporter findings. Cashpractice.com forward/frof. Put in your name and email and we'll email you a video and an actual script of me going through presenting financials of a care plan to a patient with insurance as well. Because our name Cash Practice, don't let it fool you, we help practices of all types, especially the practices who are cash and insurance blended. Dr.

Mouse, yeah, absolutely. Thanks for sharing that. And as well as if you want to just learn more, you can just visit cashpractice.com I would encourage you. Since you brought it up, go to the callingmovie.com don't forget the word the thecallingmovie.com and you can see our story. I think a lot of doctors will find it inspiring. CAS find it inspiring. Every time someone watches it, they come back saying, I didn't know Dr. Baza was an executive producer and that's now part of my title, executive producer of a movie. So a lot of fun with that. So learn more about that. And yeah, we'd be happy to be of service to you. At the minimum, we're here for you to answer your questions and feel free to reach out.

Awesome. Hey, thanks for taking the time to meet with me and be a part of our podcast. We're grateful to have Cash Practice as part of the remarkable practice and our family, our tribe. And as a success partner, we know that as a success partner, you help the doctors and the and the clinics and the teams that we serve help more people become more successful. We're better together. An incredible resource, an incredible point of leverage for everybody listening. So thank you again for taking the time to meet with me here today. For all of you who are listening, hey, thanks for tuning in. Check out Cash Practice and remember to tune in next week for the next episode of the podcast. Until then, God bless everyone. Have a great rest of your day.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Build you'd Remarkable Practice podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic. And what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, share with your friends and leave us a review. And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show Notes to schedule a call.