104 - Chiropractic Associate Hiring Mistakes to Avoid

If you can hold a vision for that person greater than what they hold for themselves, then you become someone who's a vision caster. And by nature, by vision caster, you're someone who's motivating, you're somebody who's inspiring, and you're somebody that you know what people actually want to come work for. The vision has to be bigger than you and it has to encompass other people in there as well. So then when you communicate that to somebody, that person is going to get inspired and motivated by the vision that you hold and how they are involved in a part of that vision. Foreign.

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. Bobby 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 is up, team? Welcome back to the Build you'd Remarkable Practice Podcast with a fantastic doctor, Loner Cook and myself, Dr. Bobby Ladasvic and Loner. It's been a while. I am back. I don't think that I've been able to settle for a couple of months. I know that you've been admirably holding down the four, talking some great stuff. I've been listening from afar, definitely. But it's good to be back. What's going on feels like a long time ago.

It's great to have you back. I'm excited to learn from you today.

Oh, I'm excited to be back today. And you know, it's been. It's what we're just talking about in the pre show, guys. Like, what have I been up to? And it's been a big finish to 2025. Amazing stuff. 2026. Our practices have just been exploding. We've got a lot of cool stuff going on, which I'm excited to bring back to the show for you guys because, yeah, we just had our first. I was sharing with Lona. We just had our first $6 million week, which basically means it's $125,000 week in a single practice. I say that because it truly blows my mind. I don't think we're capped at all. And I've been saying this for a while. I think in chiropractic it's totally possible when you know what you're doing and when you understand the fundamentals and then also probably a little bit deeper than the fundamentals which we talk about in this show. I actually believe at this point it's possible to build an eight figure chiropractic office, which is really exciting because there was a time in my life I didn't know how to get a single new patient in the door. I sat there twiddling my thumbs for 12 months and by the end of the first year, I think I managed to see 50 people in a week. So I never forget that. I never forget those routes. And, you know, now I look at all the knowledge and everything that we've gained and like, how much time and money I invested into myself and now I just want to pay it forward and give it to other cars and give it to other doctors. Because you are in an amazing profession, guys. Yeah, it's been a really exciting period. So I'm excited to come back, bring back the wealth of knowledge, build back, bring back to what it takes to scale, what it takes to like, truly go to the next level in chiropractic, unlike what most people ever seen. So I'm excited to be back. I'm excited to be having these conversations with you, Dr. Loha.

Perfect. I love it. Well, that leads us in nicely too. Obviously, Bobby is doing some big things in his practices and scaling. And it's not all done by you, Bobby, is it?

Well, this is, you know, the big thing. So let me give you a bit of back story behind this. So over the last maybe six months, I've spoken on a fair few chiropractic stages. And one of the things that I seem to get as a, as a bit of a rhythm of feedback from people is I get off stages, people come and talk to me and they say this, they go, man, what you're talking about up there, it just feels like you're not. You're just on another level. It feels like you're just not even in a chiropractic world anymore. And I say that not as like a brag, but I say that because it forces me to reflect. Like whenever I hear things like that, it forces me to reflect and go, okay, why? What's the reason for that? And so one of the reasons for that is one of the things that we've spoken about Alona in the past is in terms of investing in yourself. Like, to this day, my belief is the number one investment that you can make is in yourself. Because you acquire knowledge that no one can ever take away from you, that becomes ingrained in you and you operate at A different level. And so over the last 12 months, you know, I was telling this to my wife the other day, and just in coaching development, personal development, yeah, we actually spent just under $400,000 in coaching development in one year's time. And so when you hear people struggle to invest in their associate or struggle to invest in themselves for X amount of dollars a month, honestly, there's levels to the game. I look at that and I go, okay, well, what were my biggest major lessons Learned with that 400k that I've spent over the last year? What were the biggest lessons learned in terms of leverage, in terms of, like, proper business growth leverage and scaling to the next level. And doesn't matter who you talk to, doesn't matter what industry you go into, one thing that continues to come back loner is team. And it's about if you're going to do scale properly. And if you actually want to build a business that works alongside your life and allows you to have freedom so you can rock up as a better version of yourself, you need to master the people game. So in the early days, you know, you have to learn how to build business. Then after a while, you have to learn how to build people, and then people build the business. And so in chiropractic terms, I look at people into two different categories, right? So I actually look at them at three. But let's just talk about two for a second. One is your CA team. So these are the first people that you hire, learner. When you get busy enough, you hire cas. A lot of chiropractors start stumble. They don't know how to optimize cas. Then number two, you progress and you want to delegate out delivery, so you hire associates, okay? And then a lot of people stumble when it comes to associates. They don't hire correctly. They make all the common pitfalls that we see. They don't scale properly. Maybe they get burnt and think associates don't work. And then eventually later down line, step three, you do also hire out and you build marketing sales teams. Not a conversation for this podcast, but as you start scaling, you want to have dedicated marketing and sales teams whose role is to put new patients on the books for offices, right? So today we're going to talk about two things. A first part of the today's episode is going to be how do we talk about the associate game? How do we master the associate game? What are the common pitfalls that we see? Are you in your practice right now, where you're at the stage where you're looking to start onboarding an associate. What are the common pitfalls and what are the best practices? This is fresh liner because you're doing your onboarding tool associates right now. At the moment, I myself have 11 or 12 associates that have all been super successful. These 12, obviously before that we've had some trials and we've had some errors. So we're fresh on the back of doing this ourselves. So as a starting point, talk to us. The associate game. What are your thoughts? Why do so many chiropractors stuff it up? Let's start it there. Why is this such a pain point in chiropractic?

Yeah, I think, you know, Bobby offline, we were just chatting about people not understanding when is the right time to add an associate. And I think that comes back to also the vision, like the vision you carry and the vision you have as to why an associate is the right next move or multiple associates. I think that's where we first mess it up is we don't have a clear vision or we think that somehow it's going to make things easier or we don't have a clear financial picture of what our business really looks like, what it's going to take to invest in associate and to bring them up so that it's profitable for everyone. Right. Should be a win, win, win across the board when we do this. Right. But I think many times people don't have the guidance as well as the forethought on what that vision really will look like. And so that's naturally why it goes sideways.

Yeah, I want to double click on that for a second. So when you say they don't have the vision of what should look like, be specific with us. What do you mean? Are you. Do you mean that people will hire for the wrong reasons? Do you mean that they're not even really sure like how to onboard someone properly? What do you mean when you say they're not sure what the vision looks like? Right.

So you know, maybe the practice has had a degree of success with them as the primary adjusting doc, but it still may be very much personality based. There might not be great systems, there might not be the financial stability that needs to be there to know that you're going to take on a professional with a decent salary, a good salary and have it be where they are able to win in this game as well. So I think lack of clarity across attraction, conversion, retention, team building, you know, money and having clear vision for what that will look like when the associate comes on.

Yeah, I think that's a really Valid point there. Well, because what you're talking about there is money and energy exchange. And I think as a starting point, what a lot of principals do is they start from the wrong place. So number one, lesson number one is you cannot start from the wrong place. For example, a lot of principals, I've noticed, think, you know what, I'm closed Wednesdays and I'm closed Saturdays, and then I'll just put associate on those days. And then maybe on the other days that I'm there, they just come alongside me. So it costs me nothing, which means on my end, there's no real risk. And then I'll either just pay them a percentage of what they bring in. That's what a lot of guys do in this part of the world. I know in the US it's like. And I'll just pay them some salary where it'll be minimal. And you know, what if, like three months, six months in, we're not producing well, I can always just kind of get rid of them. Right. Meanwhile, it takes the associate on a journey where it really taints, you know, their experience of. Of chiropractic, and it taints their experience of, like, an associateship. And a lot of time they leave the profession. So I would agree with you 100 that a lot of principles go into this and have not put enough thought into what do I actually want to achieve? What is like the next vision of my company look like? So are you saying them that you think step number one before you do any hiring, so surprise, surprise, is to get clear about, well, what does the next chapter look like and to start visualizing success as though it's already there with an associate in the game, Is that right?

100%. And what is possible and what will the new capacity be? And, you know, what is that growth going to mean after we bring the associate? And yeah, I think a lot of people have issues to fix before they. They bring someone else in?

Yeah, 100%. All right, gotcha. So that's error number one. What would you say another error is where was another pitfall that you see a lot of chiropractors making when it comes to associates that ultimately doesn't lead the relationship down a good path?

Yeah, this could be true for probably any member of the team, but that we haven't truly identified the role and the characteristics of what will make a successful hire for that role. So in the associate world, you might be thinking, I'm going to hire somebody who loves to go out and help me build this business, and then you Hire someone who's wired more for caregiving but doesn't like going out and building the business in the community or doesn't like going out and screening. And so we've just tried to fit someone into a role that they actually really weren't designed for, versus if we realized that in the get go and had a more clear picture of the role we were truly hiring them for, as well as really the clear role that we wanted, which goes back to the vision issue, I think that's where we could actually set up win win dialogues, where we're matching the right person with the right role and actually hiring the right person for the right role so that they can be set up to be successful.

So are you saying, okay, work out in your practice, what is it that you need help and support with? For example, if you need help and support with new patients and marketing, you probably shouldn't be hiring just a caregiver that's going to adjust people, is that right? Because obviously if you help us, but with marketing, there's marketing probably is going to be some expectation on the associate. There's screenings, events, there's talks. Is that what you mean?

Yes, yes. And that would need to be discussed in advance because there's a certain skill set and personality type that's going to be more successful likely in that role.

Yeah, really interesting there. Right. My opinion on that is I agree on principle. Right. But looking at our offices, one of the things that I know and that I see is that in successful companies there's a thing called founder led marketing. Right. Which is ultimately that the founder in so many successful businesses is the person who also like when I say leads the marketing, what I mean is they're not like setting up the ads and doing everything, but it's founder led in terms of like they're the person that's making videos, it's making content, they're the person in front of the camera. Right. I don't necessarily think the market needs to be founder led. However, I do feel as though the business has a responsibility around marketing and that a certain amount of new patients should be getting brought in through the business. And so if you're a principal and you're looking at your marketing right now and you're like, let's just say in numbers. Well, we're getting 50 new patients a month and I want to onboard an associate. Well, guess what? To now feed an associate, you're going to need more than 15 new patients a month. You're probably going to need 17 new patients a Month. So show me your business plan and then more accurately your marketing plan about how you plan to go from 50 new patients a month to 70 new patients a month. And then if that marketing plan involves an associate also going out and doing screening and doing talks and doing events, then you're right. You probably have to find the right associate that's going to fit that model. Because if you get someone who is a caregiver and loves to adjust and loves to like give care to people, you're going to start to get resentment, you're going to start to get pushed back if all of a sudden every weekend you're pushing this person to go and do screenings.

Yep, agreed. And I agree with you that I think it's. Many people go into this thinking they want someone that builds the business, when really they need to figure out how to build the marketing pipeline, possibly not with associates, and then hire associates to fulfill that care. Right?

Yeah.

Having build the business. Yeah, yeah.

So what I'm hearing you say is then, okay, you need to look at your business right now, where it's at. And then you need to look at where it's going to go. And then you need to ask yourself, well, what systems are missing or what needs to improve with another associate coming on board. Because associates will just expose those issues even bigger if you haven't handled them on time.

Yes, yes. Ask yourself if you're hearing things like, you're the best doctor ever, you fixed me. I can't believe that, you know, I found you as my doctor. It's all about you. You likely have a personality based practice and you need to like help people understand that. This is actually about the adjustment and chiropractic. That's one of the first things I would fix because it'll be very hard to bring someone else in and ask. They're not you, they can't be. And that subluxation that exists when people are trying to make their first associate hire.

I think that the starting point for everyone is you've got to go back to this idea about, okay, right now, what is the number one constraint in your business? So there's a thing called the theory of constraints. And the theory of constraints ultimately means that in any one given time, every single business, including mine, including yours, including everyone listening to this right now, there is a number one, bottom line constraint that's stopping a business from going to the next level. For some of you, that is the ability to actually adjust people and deliver care for other people. That's actually not the constraint. The constraint Might be that you don't have a conversion process that's predictable in nature. The constraint might be people are dropping out way too early in the process. The constraint might be to have enough leads that are then turning into new patients. Right. Everyone has different constraints. So then if you're adding an associate, but your number one constraint is, let's say on the front end, you don't have enough leads, you don't have enough new patients coming in. Adding an associate won't fix that constraint. Adding an associate will fix. The constraint of my bottleneck is I can't get people in adequately in enough time because I'm maxed out, because. Because I'm at full capacity. And then that is a need for like, wow. I need somebody then who I'm going to bring on board to actually unblock the bottleneck because my constraint is delivery to help me deliver care to more people. And that makes the assumption that our front end is strong enough. We're getting plenty of people in front end. In fact, we're holding people back on the front end, but where the problem lies on the back end. And I build it to service people in adequate period of time. And so I need someone that's going to help me with delivery that is adjusting. And then that is a great reason to hire, in this example, an associate. And you can hire definitely a caregiver there that you need to then train, develop. That's the next thing I want to talk about, train development. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I agree. And I think seeing into a lot of women run CEO practices, a lot of us maybe at our max, but also at our max for what our best life looks like. Like, maybe we have young kids or we're gonna have more kids. And we're like, I don't want to be adjusting four days a week or five days a week or three days a week. And so you're learning to replace yourself in some of that production, pull yourself back maybe sooner than some of our male counterparts even do, and replace ourselves and continue to grow with you being less involved in that production because of having kids or because of wanting a different lifestyle with our. Our family.

Yeah. Yeah. 100. So I would say that's one part of where we get this wrong. Part two, I. I look at them and I go, okay, what's your process and what's your plan once somebody comes on board? Because at this point in my career, two things that I've learned is very easy to fix constraints when you work them out. Okay. And the way that you fix them is it's one of three things. Here's what they are. Number one, it's either a systems problem, and systems problem means you've gone to the next level. You need a new way of doing that that's actually a system. All right? Second thing that you got to look at then is, is it a people problem? And we're going to talk about in a second, because people, that's where associates fit into it. That's where associates can help us. And then third, now I look at it and I go, hey, is it an automation problem? Nowadays, so many things can be solved by software that it blows your mind. And our software stack every single month just seems to get bigger and bigger with like good stuff in the software that automates, makes things easier, that makes things just a lot more streamlined. That actually replaces a lot of roles, quite frankly, to be honest. I look at it, but let's just double click for a second on people, because we're having a people conversation. So when you look at it and you go, okay, well, is it a people problem? I understand this one thing. Here are the two most powerful tools you can have up your sleeve when it comes to people. Number one is vision for that person. If you can hold a vision for that person greater than what they hold for themselves, then you become someone who's a vision caster. And by nature, by vision caster, you're someone who's motivating, you're somebody who's inspiring, and you're somebody that you know what people actually want to come work for. So when you're. In principle, I think that you have a duty, and that duty is to be a visionary not just for yourself. It can't be like, well, I want to get busy and put someone on Thursdays and put someone on Fridays. No, the vision has to be bigger than you and it has to encompass other people in there as well. So. So then when you communicate that to somebody, that person's gonna get inspired and motivated by the vision that you hold and how they are involved and a part of that vision. Right? So that's step number one being an awesome vision caster. What are your thoughts on that, London, before I share with you what my step number two is. Developing great people.

Yeah, I think that's. That's huge. Right? It's vision can come from a lot of different things. But when you have a vision that other people can buy into and see themselves as part of and see how critical their skill sets are to the vision too, I mean, now, that's the secret sauce, right? So leading with that vision, helping people catch it and share that vision, that is a huge part of recognizing. Also, if you've got someone that can be shaped into an A player because they're going to lean in when you talk about that vision. And if they don't, then they're not the right fit.

Yeah, spot on. So a visionary is somebody, guys, who, through casting what you see in the future, is actually able to inspire and empower people around you. People around you look at that and go, whoa, that's sick. I'm so pumped and I'm so motivated by what it is that we're doing here. Because if you can do that, you automatically got someone in your hand. It's gonna be more motivated, inspired. If you can't do that, you're gonna get someone on your hands that's maybe doubting you, that's maybe like, I don't even know what we're doing. It's lacking clarity, maybe that's full of confusion. And that's not a healthy state to be operating out of. And it's definitely not a healthy state for growth. All right? So, number one, get clear with your vision and be able to ensure that you can articulate that and communicate that and pull vocabulary in the right way. And then the second tool that I have up my sleeve to turn associates into rock stars is very simple. It might sound boring, but to this day, it's the only thing proven to develop somebody, and that is training. Okay? It's stats and it's training. Stats training, Stats training, stats training. Let me give you an example, okay? In one of our partner offices, my brother is the head DC there. He's the leader there. So having a conversation with him before, and he's talking about someone on the team there, okay. And how they're performing and you know where they're at. My first question to him is, great, what's their stats? Okay. In the last 30 days? Oh, oh, I don't really know. Aha. Cool. That's first thing. Okay, so go and review and open up your vital signs and understand or whatever dashboard you're using. Look at these specific metrics in the last 30 days. Because that's the only thing that you've got them outside of emotions that can then drive your behaviors, which is, where do you train, develop this person? Because so often I see principals frustrated with an associate. They just can't convert quite as good as me, or they just can't, you know, build quite as good as me. And you go, great. What's specifically around building a practice are they struggling with. And they can't tell you the answer to that. If they can tell you the answer to that. My second question to that is, great. So they're struggling with conversions. What specific action steps are you actively taking to help them move towards being a great converter? Because there are some people that are unicorns, definitely, that just kind of like, you know, we're always good at converting on some level. Even though I never think they're all pros. Maybe they just had a head start. Nobody is just born being a great converter and just knows how to sell naturally. Some people, I say, get a head start based on their personality type and their communication skill. But the point is that it's a skill that we learned and that we invest in ourselves, that we developed a lot of the times we paid. Most people have paid for some training rank conversion processes day one, day two. And so what that tells you, it's a skill that can be learned, which means skill that can be taught to your associates as well. What are your thoughts in that line and how important is like, first of all, your first 90 days when an associate starts the onboarding process, and then outside of that, the continuing development that you as the leader, pour into that person to help them grow.

Yeah, I would agree with everything you said. And to just add into it too, you're learning each other, right? Like, you're not all wired the same. So I think that's a huge part of that 90 days, too, is trying to learn whether it's through the PDP or DISC or some other assessments you use, because that helps us then be able to have connected communication on top of what the metrics are telling us, like, okay, this person is wired this way, or this person does better when we communicate in this format. That's part of what I'm always looking at too, knowing that not all of us receive feedback or ask questions and receive, you know, insights immediately. Like, I'm a person that, like you, you ask me a question, I'm probably gonna have an answer for you quickly. Not everyone works that way, you know, and so that's been part of it too, is just recognizing how we all have to get better at communicating with different personality types. And that's part of it, is part of the training, but it's also part of becoming the leader that can train and communicate well with all different types of people.

Let's see. I think that's a great example. I'm really happy that you brought that up. So you just said, all right, you're the kind of person, if I throw a question at you because you're pretty well spoken, you can kind of come kind of answer correct. Yeah, I consider myself like that as well. And a lot of people look at me and go, well, it's easy for you. You know, you're just gifted speaking. However, I want to demonstrate a point now. And the point is that your ability, I call that pulling vocabulary. Pulling vocabulary means having the ability to say the right thing in the right moment. You might not realize this loner, but where that comes from, the ability to pull vocabulary, is your dedication to training and mastery. That's where it's come from. Okay? Because watch this. If I get you to pull vocabulary on something that's completely out of your sphere of genius, you'll struggle. If I said to you right now, hey, can you tell me a little bit about, you know, the engines inside the Porsche 911 and, like, why is the Porsche 11 GTS like, such a different engine to the Porsche Turbo S? Like, what's the primary thing that you see is a difference?

I got nothing.

All right.

You would maybe mumble your way through it. You may be like, oh, well, this one's quicker because it's more powerful. But the point is, you wouldn't be able to, like, pull vocabulary because it's not an area that you've put like, time into understanding and time into, like, learning about and like reading and like studying. If you did that, I guarantee you with that question, you'd be like, oh, no problems. Here's the difference. Difference primarily is in bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Like, oh, gotcha. So what's the lesson learned? The lesson learned there is the ability to say the right thing in the right moment is not just a gift that you get given and you can just do it for anything. You do that by gaining specialized knowledge, which you get by training and developing, investing in yourself. And I know you learn, you've put the hard yards in. You've been getting coached for how many years also, you know, invest in yourself for how much and double down and like, just understanding this thing called chiropractic and, and understanding what it takes to be successful in chiropractic. And that's what's giving you the ability to pull vocabulary and say the right things.

Yeah, I, I would agree. And what I meant by that too is like, I'll. I'll use the example of someone who's wired, more introverted or more detail centric, which we certainly have on our team, people are wired. Very opposite of me. I used to realize that when I only asked things in quick responses, they were, they're usually just the last to speak because that's just kind of how they're wired. And so if we don't have enough time, I won't hear from them always. Right. Because we'll move on to the next thing. What I realized is that some of my high detail people had great insights that I wasn't able to squeeze the juice if I didn't specifically have ways that I went and got that from them. So now I'm more cognizant of just wrecking recognizing some of those things because we generally don't change radically from some of those positions of how we, you know, am I the first to speak? Am I the last to speak? Am I, you know, going to volunteer the information or someone going to have to pull it out of me? And I want a detailed person in certain roles. Right. So yeah, so some of that is just really recognizing, you know, we are going to have people on our team that are wired very differently than us.

Yeah, yeah, spot on. And so going back to the original point, but that's why it's unrealistic, guys, as a principal to expect, well, my associate should be a gun converter or you know what I taught them day one and day two. I did that in the beginning for like five days or whatever. Well, maybe I taught them day one, day two and we did a few weeks of training over there, maybe a few months of training of that doesn't matter. The point is that the only way that they're going to get better is to actually train and develop them in that area. So understand when you're bringing those units, it's your responsibility, guys. You're in part going to have a coaching and a mentorship role there to develop them, to lead them. All right? To train with them. And there's a 90 day process about how we do things more acutely. And then there's an ongoing process of training development and verification, which is where the stats come into it. So don't just throw the baby out with the bathwater and go, oh, they're never going to convert as well as I convert. And it's not in their PDP profile. The reality is with the right amount of training, you can definitely improve people. It's the only way that you improve people. But then, you know, my question to you is, are you committed to training mastery? Are you training like a master as a starting point, investing yourself in coaching. And then number two, are you verifying what your associate is doing? And then on the back of that, customizing the training and the approach to them to help them develop their weaknesses and to help them develop their blind spots. That's key.

So true. So good.

Right. All right, so I know that we said we're going to talk about sales, but let's probably stick with associates now for the remaining part of this. So what I'm hearing you say is, okay, number one, principals have to be clear and vision about where's this practice going. It has to be big, has to be motivating. Right. So that other people see how they fit into that vision. Then number two, we've got to be really, really clear with well, what's the constraint of the business? Because that's going to help us work out what kind of associate are we looking for. If we need help with marketing, then we're maybe going to have to get someone that also has some element of marketing, marketing approach to them. If we just need someone to help us with the constraint of adjusting people, we mainly need someone who can help with giving care and being an awesome chiropractor. From there, once someone joins the team, we've got to make sure that we actually have crafted out a 90 day onboarding process. Exactly what are we going to be teaching them? Every single system in our practice from a high level and then an ongoing process. Yeah. Tell me one thing that we haven't chatted about is what is your ongoing development process look like? And then the final thing I want to chat about before we bounce is do you have a succession plan for associates in mind even when they start? So to us, a little bit about your ongoing training process and then I'd love to hear when an associate starts, do you already have a succession plan in mind for that person? Do you already like look at the future and be an awesome visionary and go, hey, I can see this person's going to probably do this for the next X amount of years and then we're going to develop them and vet them up to do this after that. What does that look like? And love to just hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah. Okay, so ongoing training, we have training every week and we have doctors training and then we have full on team training. And that both includes role playing as well as with the doctor's training. Sometimes it's technique training and making sure our hands are all able to do things that we need to do. So again, you said this, I think just a few minutes ago of like you know, you're really mindful and feeling the pulse of like, how do I tailor the training to, like, what we really need? Sometimes you are going to need to call an audible of like, we need to spend some time on this, especially if we're in, you know, that first 90 days or the first 180 days where we're seeing gaps that need to have hands on, one on one, and group training on. So that's ongoing, I think. Additionally, I really encourage and demonstrate this has been part of our culture always that we're getting to seminars together, whether that's coming to trp, the immersions together, whether that's going to philosophy seminars. That's a big one for a lot of my team is I want them to be dipped in chiropractic as much as possible, especially knowing depending on which school they went to, they may not have gotten a ton of that. So it is part of, obviously our. Our internal system and our internal brick and mortar culture here. But it's so powerful to take a young chiropractor, a new chiropractor, to a new beginnings or to a mile high or to some of these bigger seminars that exist like an innate summit, and have them hear from 20 other people speaking chiropractic in different ways and feel that. So that's a huge part of our continuation, is wanting to make sure that we're all consuming things together and sometimes going and having experiences together. And then I'll jump into, like, with that. I just, I try to watch as much as I can, like, who's really showing up, who's showing up and going the extra mile, who's leaning in, who wants more, you know, that's part of my quarterly check in to like, to see what other ideas they come up with, how they help us solve problems. And that's helping me know, like, how much leadership I can start to encourage this person to take, whether that's as a lead DC for our team, whether that's in. We had a doctor who really wanted to start an initiative bringing chiropractic into one of the nursing homes and in our area, I was like, great, I love it. Let's go. Let's. I want to do things you want to do as long as it's in alignment with our vision and our mission. And so I heard this word called intrapreneur. I like the idea of, like, creating intrapreneurs within our. In our business.

Yeah, really interesting you should bring that up, actually, because I was in a separate mastermind of mine and in that Mastermind. I was hearing from this guy who runs a 30 million dollar company and one of the things that he says is he goes look at eight figure company. You really have to have a few kind of really good like seven figure operators inside there. And what a seven figure operator is. You kind of know this person owning their own. You kind of know they build like a seven figure company. You look at in a chiropractic office, seven figure company. You kind of have to have a good like high level six figure people in there that these people can go and build six figures on their own. And it's interesting because I looked at that in my chiropractic office and totally we have a few people in there that are like really good high level six figure operators. Like. And so it's interesting you should say that that because I agree with it 100%. But yeah, I think you're spot on the mark there in terms of developing people and you've got to understand that. Yeah, we're in agreement about how important it is to pour into your people both internally and externally. And then final question on that is exit plans. I know most principals, what they do, they shut up to think about an associate leaving and exiting. I actually welcome that. I start that conversation from day one. I was interviewing a potential associate yesterday who contacted me and one of my questions to him is great, all right, it's a two to three year plan, fantastic. What about beyond that? What does it look like beyond that three, four years from now? Where do you want to be? Do you want to have practice of your own? Have you thought about that? I love talking about that. Is that a conversation you love talking about with your team as well?

Yeah, I don't think I go out five years but I consistently. Actually it's on my list for this afternoon is to just have another vision conversation with some of my newer docs too and just like feel them out. Because I think many times, and this is true with our patients too, they maybe haven't been given enough permission to even think about what's possible. And that's one of the beautiful things I think we get to do with people. To your point, we influence our vision. And sometimes that vision is a pathway for bigger things than they could have dreamed of by themselves. And other times it is fleshing out. Like is your vision to go open your own practice or is your vision, you know, you're moving to Colorado, like there is different things that could come up and it's just good to know. Right. Because it helps us plan too. So, yes, I think I could do more intentional longer term conversations, but certainly having those conversations for the next one to two years is something we do frequently.

Yeah, yeah. We have a form that we send to everyone once you've had initial meet and greet with somebody. So one thing that I've learned over the last 12 months is how amazing group intelligence interviews are. Maybe a podcast episode around the time. Always start when you're, when you're, when you're interviewing, do a group interview. The dynamic that it sets, all right, the energy that it conveys, you're the prize. Right? But conversation on the time after our group, what we do is then we do progress to one on one interviews from the group. We invite the good ones to one on one. And before we get them to the one on one, we send them a vision casting questionnaire form which asks them questions about where do they want to be 12, 24 months from now, what are their core values, how much money they want to be earning. Hint, hint, very powerful one. So then when you have the one on one, you've got the answer to the exam in front of you of what inspires and motivates this person. It's really, really, really genius. And it's not that difficult to do. And so then your job is to put together, if it's a good fit, a plan of how that person can, can, can get to that goal, can get to that outcome. But I love the clarity that provides me when I have written a piece of paper, this person I'm interviewing right now, that gave me a good impression on the group interview that's earned a one on one. What does this person specifically want to be achieving in their Life the next 12, 24 months? And my job is, I say this to everyone. If we're on the same team together, every morning I wake up and I go to work also for your goals, not just mine. I'm not getting up in the morning going, oh, well, how can I move toward Bobby's goals? No, how can I move towards loners and Bobby's? But you're my team, so your success is my success. And everything that I do, I do with you in mind to help us move towards our goals. And I think that's a really healthy attitude. But I know my team loves and appreciates as well.

Yeah, that's awesome. I love that.

Yeah, awesome. Arlo. So great chat as usual. It's great being back. So the associate game guys be struggling with this reach out. There is a formula to it. There's science to it you can nail this because it's essential that you nail it if you plan on scaling. But if you plan on being stuck as a slave to your practice for your whole career and just go there and adjust everyone on your own, then that's cool. You don't need to master this game so you can skip through the next episode. We're going to talk about casual but lona. Awesome as always. And I'll talk to you really soon. Yeah.

Yes. Thanks, Bobby.

Catch Dean. Adios.

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

welcome everybody to the CEO portion of the podcast where we get to have a luminary from the chiropractic profession on. I will say Personally, I've known Dr. David Fletcher from CLA since 2008. I've had the honor of having him as a coach. I've had the honor of having him as a colleague in this profession in a really Illuminati as far as a thought leader in chiropractic. And I'd like to say I also have the honor of calling him a friend. If you have not known of Dr. David Fletcher, you're in for a treat. If you already know of Dr. David Fletcher, that's probably why you're listening right now. And just make sure you have your notes out. Make sure you're ready to learn about how to communicate chiropractic and how to utilize technology to serve the purpose of your practice. So Dr. David Fletcher from CLA, just introduce yourself briefly to the group and then we'll get right after it.

Well, it's a pleasure and an honor to be here. And most importantly, what I love to begin with people when they ask that question is I'm a chiropractor and I love being a chiropractor. And I think that my journey, which has intersected with yourself, trp, cla and otherwise, has really embellished the relationship of the unique experience that we have a choice to embrace as chiropractors. And I thought we'd spend some time today, you know, and you'll it'll uncover who I am really focusing on on this principle of the cult authority that we as either chiropractors embrace or we let dissolve around us. And and so my journey was really one that busy, busy guy in practice didn't necessarily always know how to scale. I just took everybody and did a family practice and which was wonderful. I have a background in Some research, advocacy and otherwise. So I was always on the hunt to know objective data that validated what we had that was reproducible. I came across Christopher Kent and Patrick Giantempo, who were my mentors in the early days and they had begun with, with Chiropractic Leadership alliance or cla. As time went on I became their academic advisor, I became their communicator and I met so, so, so many wonderful chiropractors along the path. Eventually I took over CLA and that was years ago now, 15, 16 years ago now. And as a result of that, I've had a wonderful ability to have that interface between technology, the principles of chiropractic and the ability to watch the practices represent that through the growth and dimensions of growth.

I love that. So in the TRP ecosystem we talk about the practice systems of attraction, conversion, retention, team building and collections. There are also seasons of practice from launching a practice to building one, to scaling one, and then ultimately to exiting. As personally in my practice I've utilized the CLA scanning technology since 2008. So I realize I'm coming to this with like almost a curse of knowledge. But for those in that are listening, that don't have that, that might be in, you know, that have needs in any of those five domains or if they're looking to move from build to scale, or maybe they have an eye on exiting or shoot, how do I launch? Maybe if they're coming at this from a completely, like they don't even know what we're talking about standpoint. Please just take a second to talk about what is the technology that the Chiropractic Leadership alliance that cla has and how can it be utilized in a practice?

Well, the intention was originally not to necessarily have a technology to sell. It was a technology to communicate. And the reason that that was so powerful was that this cultural authority that I was talking about was, is and was getting dissolved. And we are starting to recognize chiropractic as more of a spine therapeutic rehabilitation model, when in truth the philosophical model that, that that drove us to begin cla and to, to embrace that message was the principle of neurocentricity, meaning everything that we, we function in as human beings is relatable to the clarity within our nervous system or coherence as we have it. So we wanted to help people understand that the impact of a vertebral subluxation went far beyond the spine, but was the source of the, you know, eminence of the expression of potential. And so we looked said, how can we identify where there are interference patterns within the central nervous system. So we focused primarily on the two largest divisions. Sensory was not, is more subjective. So what we did was we focused on the motor nervous system by identifying how to read EMG as it relates to energy expenditure. And then we looked at the autonomic nervous system in two dimensions. One, the global set points. And we pioneered heart rate variability within chiropractic. And then we also utilized thermography to look at the spinal connection to the control of the organs and glands through the autonomics. To put it very simply, our three tech scanning gives you a 360 view of the ability of that person to interpret themselves in their environment and how much it's costing them to be out of sync with their environment. And it's a beautiful piece of technology.

Yes, that's. That's great. And I loved what you said there, where we didn't create technology to sell, we created technology to communicate. And that's, you know, from within the practice is what you're speaking of. It's not about how to sell more care plans.

No, not at all.

How to communicate with clarity what's going on in the nervous system. And I'll tell you, having certainty in communication is one of the things, the biggest ways to retain people in practice, and this is one of the biggest pain points that we have in chiropractic is there's a lot of stuff out there about attraction. There's a lot of stuff out there about conversion and helping people commit to care plans. But in the retention world, yes, through remarkable practice, we have a whole set of systems on how to retain well. But at the core of that is having certainty in your communication with people. And I know for my practice, boy, the technology has paid for itself time and time and time again. If all I looked at was retention, not including attraction when I use it, the screenings, not including conversion when I'm able to communicate with people in their early care as well. Let's talk a bit from the business owner side of things. From scaling your practice and by that utilizing leveraging team, where perhaps you were doing something before. Can you speak to the technology's power within a practice to allow the owner of the practice to leverage this technology and their team to take the practice to another level?

Absolutely. I think I got kind of quoted and famously sort of conceptually brought forward around this kind of conversation that says you get paid to the level at which you communicate and deliver with certainty. And one of the things that's so critical is that we're doctors and what we are clinical scientists, each and every one of us, and what we actually get paid for is not identifying where a subluxation is or identifying where a problem is that we can interact with, but how we can manage a care plan. And to do that, what we need to do is have objective data that we can track and compare to, while at the same time bring our patients, clients, however we refer to them, into our world so they see that we have this, this tell, don't sell principle of what it is that we do. And one of the most important aspects of that is that objective data gives us the certainty that's what we're going to get paid for. But it acts as an invitational platform so that people realize that you are, are delivering what you say you can deliver and at the same time they are embracing it so that they are deciding how they're going to let that impact their lives and change their lives around that. And that's always why we wanted to get into this whole model of interfacing, easy to use technologies. Now from a CEO perspective, it has to be efficient. It has to deliver the team relationship. And otherwise we have scaled this down so that it's, it's wireless technologies. Yes, there's three different texts that we apply in one examination, but the examination takes anywhere from five to seven minutes in totality. So there's no blocks. It's, it's staff driven, meaning that the staff are trained and they can deliver repeatable exams, reproducible exams. So the doctor has the confidence clinically, has the certainty in communication and has now what we refer to as a neuroplastic care planning, you know, juggernaut that's sitting in there. So if anybody challenges them, you know, whether it's on an academic level or on a insurance based level or otherwise, there is a foundation now. And when we go to do volume based practice, it's not even so much that that's what we want to do, it's that we have to do it. There's such an attraction to, you know, showing people what it is that matters, that when it comes to attraction, and you mentioned it, whether you take it into a screening environment or most importantly, as you engage the four generations of every family within, you know, with, with whoever's starting, this becomes the centerpiece of your practice. So attraction conversion, the retention is based upon care plans, which is exam to exam to exam. And when you base it on that, you know, the average, the average therapeutic based PVA, if you will, is somewhere around, you know, 12 to 14. We look at our PVAs. And we're in the 60s and 70s in our client base, and people just need to do the math on that. There's no hand holding. It's just, you need this, and here's what we're going to deliver. And so it makes the practice very fast, very efficient, very easy.

Yes, I love that. And as your average there, that probably means that the, the practices that have really learned how to leverage your technology along with systems end up far north of the 60 or 70, even triple

digits is pretty common. You know, just, just in terms of the embracing of it, we have 16,000 of these installations, you know, in 26 different countries right now. The chiropractic profession has embraced this principle of a neurocentric approach to chiropractic. You know, listen, not everybody over the years has continued to evolve with it, but we know watching the data sets come through that we're looking at millions and millions of scans being delivered through our servers each and every year. That means that there's millions and millions of people hearing the story of chiropractic through a neurocentric, philosophically. Right. Managed model. And that makes us very happy. But it puts a lot of people in front of chiropractors.

Yes, I love that. So what, what I'm hearing as a user of, of cla is, man, I'm glad I got in on this early. Right. What I might be, what I might be hearing, if I'm, if I'm listening to the reverberations of the CEOs listening to this, the decision makers listening to this is, oh, man, I'm glad we've been in this short term or maybe, holy cow. Like, I'm actually looking for more certainty in my communication. I'm looking for ways to utilize my team to help me leverage my time, ability to serve people. And if I could have ways that help in attraction, in conversion, in retention, and in collections, like, I should be all in on this, right? Yeah, certainly. You know, as an advocate of CLA and the technology, I'd say absolutely. I think what you've said there is the ROI is obvious. If you're a practice that's hanging out in the, you know, teens, maybe the 20s with your PVA, just imagine, just do the math on your collection visit average on what it would mean for a case to take that to 60, 70. It just, the ROI is obvious. And how quickly you get that return back is going to be simply based on how quickly you train yourself and you train your own team systems to get this thing up and running and communicate it to your people.

Well, if we're talking business and numbers, let me share with you. As I came on the call, I thought, let me take a look. So I had my team look in the server banks and we, I talked about millions and millions of them and we divided. It was real simple math. We just divided the number of clients that are actively scanning. Not, not just that we've installed with, but actively scanning in this and said, how many scans across the universe are being done on average? This is on average, through our network, 126 scans per month. Okay. Now, on average, each one of those, and some people are charging $300 a scan and other people are charging $30 a scan. But on average, the. We recommend that there's a, you know, whatever you charge for a cash visit is what you would charge for a progressive scan. So let's just go on the low side that it's $50. You know, the realities are, is that this is generating in exams alone, not retention or not attraction or otherwise. It's delivering 6,600 bucks each month in just exam fees associated with recurring examination. On average, we have people that are doing four and 500 scans on a monthly basis. We have lots of those people. So just imagine the decision that they were making and putting, you know, those numbers in play every month in their practice just from exams.

Yes, absolutely. The, the math is, is easy and the impact is huge. Right? The impact of communicating chiropractic in a way that people understand it better, they can go tell others about it better. It's, it's why the technology was created, right, for communication. So at this point, hopefully people are wondering, how in the world do I get my hands on this stuff? So, you know, thank you and CLA for being great success, partners with the remarkable practice. Give the listeners a sense of how do they get in touch with you, how do they learn more, how do they get in contact with you?

Which is a wonderful way. So the website, which has won I don't know how many awards because it does a lot of really cool journeys that you can go on through it is inside cla.com and you will, I'm sure, put this on, you know, the, the notes, etc and whatever else, but in there we, we also realize that, and I said it before, is that we're clinical specialists, each and every one of us. And so there is an entire library of downloadable ebooks. Obviously the website itself profiles the technology, does case studies and does a lot of, you know, interviews, if you will, with, with users that are in there. So testimonials and otherwise, get a. The people that use our technology. More importantly, go and download some of these fantastic ebooks that we've been able to present over the years, dig in, and here's one of the most exciting things. Honestly, we don't refer to them as salespeople or representatives. They're inside advisors. Our skilled team really is somebody who's going to handhold you. And I used the term invitational before. We really focus on inviting people to see a critical shift, which you refer to, we refer to as conversion. But it's this critical shift, not away from or dismissing where you are, but a shift towards this efficiency so that you can scale, so that you might find an exit that's faster than you thought it was. You know, Chris, you talked about the seasons that we're in. We're all in them. You know, at some point, it doesn't go on forever. Meaning you practice, you got to make some decisions, maximize your opportunities now so that when it comes time to scale and when it comes time to exit, you've made the right decisions at the front end of this career.

Yes, excellent. Well, yes. Be sure to check out the show notes. Those of you listening, be sure to check out insightcla.com for that information. And some of that's available even to people who don't yet use the technology. So check all that out. And of course, come to our immersions, where oftentimes you'll always see somebody from the CLA team, if not Dr. David Fletcher himself, there with us at the immersion.

I absolutely circle each immersion on my, on my calendar. CLA loves being along with TRP and its journeys. And we've been doing it. I think we were the first success partner that was, that was associated with, with trp. So we have a long and, and wonderful relationship with each and every one of the. Why? Because we value the same things and that's what makes friendships but collaboration so perfect.

That's great. Well, on behalf of the remarkable practice, Dr. David, thank you so much for all you've done for the profession. Thank you for being here, continuing to serve the profession in this manner, and I look forward to seeing you at our next immersion.

Can't wait. Thanks again.

You bet.

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 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.