116 - How to Build a Sustainable Chiropractic Practice Long Term with Dr. Carla LeClerc

You have to have that one person you think of in your head, that one person that if you wouldn't have talked to them, you wouldn't have approached them, like how different would their life be, you know, and how different and amazing their life is because of chiropractic. So I think you have to think about those success stories every day, you know, share them with your team. So, you know, at the end of each huddle, we, you know, we go over our stats, but more importantly, we go over our wins. Like, what was your win for the day? So you got to keep doing that every day.

Hello and welcome to Build Your 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 a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. We are here to lead you on the way. All right. Welcome back to the Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. I am here with Dr. Carla LeClerc. Did I say that right? I feel like I might have said it wrong, but whatever. LeClerc.

Okay.

And Dr. Carla is one of our coaches for TRP. She also hails from over by Boston. How far are you from?

Like 40, 45 minutes from Boston.

Dr. Franson's neck of the woods. Yeah. And we were just saying like, this is really cool. She's this week celebrating 20 years in practice.

Yeah, tomorrow, actually.

That's amazing. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Doesn't it feel like it's like a second and then also like 7 lifetimes altogether?

Exactly. That's exactly how I would put it. Like so much, so many ups and downs. And then, but you look back and you're like, But we did it and it was awesome and it just keeps getting better. Like, it's more fun. You know, we've had major drama. Like, in 2014, the unit above us, like, we had a frozen pipe and it burst in the middle of a snowstorm and we had $90,000 worth of damage. And we didn't have an X-ray machine. Like, our old school X-ray machine was, like, totaled. And luckily we got to move across the street and our landlords were great and they, um, gave us the space for free and, uh, because it was mostly their fault because the person above turned his heat down too low. But anyways, it's just like one of those things that you look back and you're like, but we did that and we made it. We didn't have a new patient for an entire month. We couldn't take x-rays for like 2 months and we all go through it, but it's, yeah, it's part of practice, part of life. And you look back and you're like, yeah, whatever.

Yeah.

And I love that you said it just keeps getting more fun.

Yeah, it does actually.

In and of itself is something where I'm like, tell me about that. Like, how do you stay where you're like super engaged? I'm enjoying this.

Like, well, it's fun because I practice with my husband, so that's great. And like, we met in chiropractic school and that was our, like, our first love was chiropractic and Gonstead chiropractic specifically. And so, you know, that just keeps our practice alive but also like our relationship alive. So there's that. And, um, I think team is Team is a big part of it. If you have A-players, and I know I talked about this last time I talked to you, you know, a team that shares your core values and buys into your vision story and is with you every step of the way, no matter what. We, you know, we've been blessed to have our office manager with us for 17 of those 20 years. Like, we couldn't be luckier because of that. So team is a big thing and just having fun because you can't take everything too seriously. It's important to, to grow and to keep those stats and to, but that's not everything. Like all of those numbers, those are patients that you take care of. And I think just, just sharing in the successes of all your patients, cuz that's one thing we've been focused on. Like our, so for example, our, my very first screening I did, our very first week in practice, we went to CVS Pharmacy. I don't know if you have those out there in Wisconsin, but we used to do those when we worked with Dr. Franson. So I would just literally set up a table in front of the pharmacy and people were picking up their prescriptions. And I went by myself.

Did you have like an approval, or you were just like, no, I'm just—

oh, I did have an approval because we— so in Dr. Franson's office, we took care of a manager from CVS who was out there, and he was a patient. And so when we moved our— so when we started our own practice out here, we just went to CVS and asked the manager. And I don't think you could do that anymore. I don't think people would let us do that. But, you know, we, um, set up for a couple hours on a Saturday morning, and I was by myself. And, uh, yeah, I felt ridiculous. And— but I'm like, hey, I mean, we, we got to grow. We have to, you know, grow this practice, start this practice. And this woman was not making eye contact. She was like, nope, I'm not coming over there. And I approached her. I can't even remember what I said because it's literally been 20 years. I think I asked her about her prescription, like what she was getting. And she's like, I'm getting my migraine medication because I've had migraines for 20 years. I'm like, you've had migraines for 20 years? I'm like, please come over and get your spine checked. And she came over, she scheduled an appointment, came in the next week And Dr. Dave did her exam. And I remember her first adjustment that Dr. Dave did, my husband, she cried and didn't wanna come back.

Mm-hmm.

And she did. She came back for her day 2, or sorry, her after her day 2 or day 3. And she still comes in every single Monday for the last 20 years. And she only missed when she had like a, she had a surgery for some reason. And she's coming to our anniversary party in a couple weeks and finally bringing her husband. Her husband has not got his spine checked yet.

You've been working on that for over 20 years.

I'm like, if I can get that guy to schedule, like that would be so great. But you know, her name is Susan. And, um, I think about Susan and I think about like, if I didn't talk to her that morning.

Yes.

Um, because, because I was actually training our team on screenings today because we're doing the screening next week. And I'm like, you have to have that one person you think of in your head, that one person that if you wouldn't have talked to them, you wouldn't have approached them, like, how different would their life be, you know? And how different and amazing their life is because of chiropractic. So I think you have to think about those success stories every day. You know, share them with your team. So, you know, at the end of each huddle, we, you know, we go over our stats, but more importantly, we go over our wins. Like, what was your win for the day? So you got to keep doing that every day and just have fun. Like, and I think with this whole social media thing, like, we have fun with that too. Like, we make stupid videos, and like, I have a social media person who's like, okay, you guys got to do this and this, and I'm like, seriously? And, you know, so like, that's been fun. And I think a big, a big thing is, um, Taking students into your, into your practice to shadow and to do their internships and preceptorships, whatever you wanna call them. That's a huge thing cuz if someone's looking up to you and shadowing you and following you around, you're gonna be at your best as a doctor, as a whatever. I don't know if you have students right now, but we have, you know, Colin from Sherman. We have 2 high school students doing internships here with us too. So that just makes it more fun as well.

Yeah, that's hugely influential. You've said a few things that I just want to like underline here.

So we talked too much.

No, it was great. Like you said, like how to stay playful and gave us some really good examples. And I think that energy of playfulness, of like, it's not that serious. It is serious and it's yet not that serious, right? Like, like we can have fun doing this, and by doing that it keeps it light and joyful and people are attracted to that.

Yeah.

And, and how you like talked about screening at the Walgreens and the— or CVS— and the one person that, you know, like, first of all, you— it's easy to judge a person like, oh, they don't even want to talk to me, there's no point in talking to this person. And then you did, and look, 20 years later, she's there every, you know, every week. And the fact that her husband still hasn't come in yet and is going to, right? So I think for younger practitioners, younger docs opening, that story right there is So important to recognize all of us have stories like that where you're like, for us, there's a gentleman named Mike. It took 8 years to get— his wife came to every appointment. She'd sit in the parking lot and we were just like, like 8 years later she comes in, right?

Yeah.

It's like hilarious to me that it takes that long. Yeah. But also that's the playfulness where can I not make it personal that, you know, this hasn't happened already and still be so exciting. And, and, and when this gentleman does come into your practice, you're gonna roll out the red carpet. Carpet for him just like everyone else, because you're 20 years later, here he is, ready finally. Yeah, to come in, right? So that, that ability to show up and be about what you're about and be focused and be on mission, you know, that's half the battle, is you just consistently show up and do what it requires you to do, right?

Yep.

Yeah, so good, so good. I was talking to a younger couple that is opening, and they're in the process of getting all their ducks in a row. And, you know, they said like, my brain is just everywhere, right? And I said, welcome to entrepreneurship, right?

Like, and it still is everywhere, like, right? 20 years later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just on different levels on different things, right? And so it goes back to your original statement of like, can you have fun with it? Because kind of the way you feel about practice is how you're always going to feel about practice. We, we think that when we get to a certain level or the next thing happens, like it's gonna feel so much better. And don't get me wrong, there's benefits of that, of course, but you got to have fun on the journey, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. What else? Like, when you think back, like, if you were giving yourself advice along the way, like, would you have said something in your mind sooner?

Or— I think we hesitated in hiring our first associate doc. I feel like we should have done it sooner. We waited like over 10 years, maybe longer than that, like 12 years, because we wanted to find, you know, the perfect doc. And we also wanted to be ready. Like, Dr. Dave, you know, Dave and I wanted to be ready and make sure we could pay them properly. And I think we should have just jumped right in as soon as we could have, because the benefits of having an associate doc are amazing. Not just like the, you know, the coverage, and but just growing your team and just having that extra body there, it just makes you better. Like, especially as husband and wife, like, you don't want to train together. Like, you're like, no, let's go for lunch instead, or whatever. Like, Yeah, like, I'm being honest, like, you, you know, but you have another body in there, like, another doc who wants to learn and grow and learn from you. It makes you a better doctor. I think that's the best part of having an associate doc is teaching them, and they learn from you, you learn from them. Um, it's not just the, you know, the coverage, and, you know, they're helping you grow your practice. Um, so I think I would advise younger docs, like, you know, obviously wait until, you know, you're financially able to pay them, but don't wait too long. You know, because then the practice just relies on, on you as a husband, a wife, and your personality becomes a personality clinic. And you don't want that, right? You want more leverage and durability in your practice. So if I could maybe do it over, I would have hired someone a little bit earlier, but we also wanted to find the right person.

Yeah, that's great advice. And I think that to me felt true with also adding— I had a CA right from the jump, and maybe partly how I'm wired, but that sense of just being in it with someone else, especially if you get the right person who sees the, sees the mission and sees the vision and wants those things, right? Then it was like, especially for me, I opened right at 25. You were probably similar.

Yep. 26.

And it was, yeah. And I was like, okay, I gotta show up.

Yeah.

I gotta show up cuz my teammate, yeah, is counting on me. Where there are those moments where you think like, oh crap, are we gonna make it through? Like when, when you guys had the flood damage or the water damage. Um, you know, there's those moments where you're like, gosh, like, how are we gonna get through this phase? Or like 2020, I think a lot of us felt like that at first.

Yeah.

What is happening? Right.

That was, that was a stressful time. 2020, we were blessed in that we never closed our practice even for a day. And we just were like, we're just doing this, you know, whether we have to wear a mask or whatever we have to do, like we're just gonna keep adjusting. And it was stressful for sure, but our practice also grew like crazy during that time cuz people People were home, people, people needed us. So yeah, it was stressful, especially here in Massachusetts, that's for sure. But yeah, other advice, I don't know. I think team, obviously we, we hired someone right from the beginning, uh, to work at our front desk too. She was like, uh, my husband's best friend's little sister. She didn't come in till like 10 o'clock. We saw patients for like an hour and then we came back in the afternoon. You know, we were hoping she was gonna go to chiropractic school, but didn't work out. But you know, your team, like I said, like that's with you every step of the ups and downs and the not so great months that you're like, oh God, are we gonna make it? Like, and that, you know, share your core values and that, you know, the, the team members who, who just aren't like, they're not going to grow with you, they don't want to grow with you. And we did hang on to a team member for much too long, probably 2 years longer than we should have. That was definitely a regret. I was a growing— it was a growth thing for us for sure, lots of learning. But those things happen. But now we're blessed to have an amazing team with us, like all A++ players, and it's amazing.

What you just said there where you hung on to them too long and, and yeah, you've reflected on that, right? Like, I think that's one of— it's like sometimes a coach could say to you, get rid of that person, right? Like, this isn't working, right?

They, they did.

Yeah, exactly. But until you have the firsthand knowledge sometimes of what that feels like, of like— because usually when we reflect on those things, we're like, I I needed to communicate differently earlier, or I needed to reflect on how I let it get to this point.

We tolerated too much.

Exactly. Yes. And that is something that once you learn, you generally don't unlearn, right? You're like, okay, I'm sensitive to the leadership and the way that I'm going to. And that is something obviously having mentors help you on speeds up your learning curve with that. But it is one of those lessons that I think most of us experience on some level firsthand, right? Whether it's 2 years or 2 months or 10 years, you know, like, of, oh, I didn't have the courage to address this sooner.

Yeah, yeah, you get what you tolerate for sure. And when Dr. Steven always says like, hire slowly, fire quickly, like, that is so true.

Yeah, yeah. And so what are you most excited about for this next 10 years?

Like, as you look— oh wow, it's funny because like, I'm, I'm gonna be 48 this year and I don't feel 48. Like, I'm like, man, like— and I was listening to, uh, Dr. Steven interviewed Dr. Peter Corkin on the CEO Podcast this week, and he pract— him and, uh, Dr. Patty practice here in Massachusetts for 42 years. I'm like, that's 22 more years. And Dave and I listening together in the car, I'm like, we're gonna do that. I'm like, that's, you know, it's fine. Like, we have the energy, and like, it's still fun, and like, I could just see us doing what we're doing. I would love to grow our and expand our, our clinic more and have a few more docs in. To, you know, to help us reach more people, serve the community. That's what I would love to see. And I would love to keep adjusting and seeing patients. I don't do a ton of the adjusting right now. Dave and our associate doc do that, but I'd like to take on more new grads and students and be more of like a teaching clinic, kind of like Dr. Stevens was. I think he had like 37 associate docs or something like that. I don't know if I want that many, but, um, just continue to help these students learn and grow and maybe you know, have them either stay here long term or for a couple years and send them on their way to open their own practice. Dr. Peter was also saying on the podcast that enrollment in chiropractic schools is down by like 4,000 or something like that. I don't know if you listen.

Part of that is enrollment in all—

in all the schools, and that's okay. And you know, what we need is, you know, more chiropractors and more successful chiropractors. So I could see, um, Dave and I doing that going down the road for sure. Uh, we're pretty involved in, uh, the Gonstead Methodology Institute, so we're part of that and just taking on more students and helping them, you know, maybe go to chiropractic school. We have a high school student right now and she's going to take exercise science next year, and I'm like, and then maybe chiropractic school. So yeah, he was also saying that if every chiropractor could send one student to school each year, that would help our enrollment. And I'm like, that is an awesome goal to have. So I'd love to, I'd love to do that. So now we have one, we have one person we sent to school. He's at Palmer right now and gonna graduate next November. So I would just love to just— I love, like, I realized when you, you do take on students and associate docs how much I love training and teaching them, and it just makes, it just makes you a better doctor, a better clinician, for sure.

Okay, so I just love, for anyone listening, how, you know, I asked her what does she want to see in the next 10 years, and so much of what you said is like pouring into other people. Yeah. And what's interesting, right, is because That's inherent probably to who you are, Carla, but also why you're successful, right? And so for those of you in your earlier seasons of chiropractic, like, really working to realize that the more you give, the more you get, right? And like, the more that you show up for your community, show up on purpose, show up for your team, show up for chiropractic, show up at your state association, whatever it is where you can be moving this mission of chiropractic forward, it's going to also ripple back into your practice, right? Like energy out, energy in. And I think we forget that sometimes, right? Like we're too wired at times for like, well, what's in it for me, right?

It's like, yeah, but what did you do for others also? Yeah, I feel like at this point in my life, I'm like, it's not about me. Like, I've— I just wanna help more people, obviously with chiropractic, but like create more successful chiropractors, you know. I didn't realize that's what I wanted to do until like we had a couple associate docs and how awesome it is, how much fun it is. It's fun having associate docs, like if they're the right fit and they're A-players, of course, you know.

And you think about there's a big chasm between when you leave school and you're actually in especially principled practice, right? That's the part that's It is fun because it's almost like the aha that, yeah, didn't happen potentially while in school, although some of it may have. Yeah. But then there's like the real like school of actually doing it, and that is where having associates or working with docs. And then I agree with you too that like one of the main things that chiropractic needs besides more students entering is then all of us generally are wired to help people because we actually went into a profession where we're interested in helping people. We want to do it naturally. We're touchy-feely as a, as a whole because we're touching people all day long. So this part of then creating more successful chiropractors is like, how do we do this thing called business better? So whether that is you as a clinic owner having a vision that could actually bring another associate in, or two associates in, or open another location, like, that's the thing that when the rubber meets the road, more people are actually able to access chiropractic because there's more hands ready to serve them.

Yeah, right.

And I think that's a worthy thing for all of us to chew on sometimes, is just like, it is certainly our philosophy, certainly our art, certainly the science of chiropractic. And there's this element too that, you know, you've successfully been doing it for 20 years and then now helping more people to do it. Because if we don't know how to open a business or sustain a business or employ more chiropractors within our business, like, we only go so far.

Right.

And let's face it, schools still aren't teaching business stuff. Sherman's not. I don't know, Palmer's definitely not. Um, students need that, and it's really tough just to go from school to write your own business. Like, we didn't do it. We, we spent a year with Dr. Steven and Camilla and learned so much about the business from them, but then, God, you still make so many mistakes along the way. You can probably know, like, what were we doing? Like, so I think it's important for students not only to learn, like you said, the philosophy and the art of chiropractic, but like this whole business thing is I think it'd be really tough to open a practice right now. Like, I wouldn't want to do it. I'm not, you know, like, I know it's important for some, and I think a lot of chiropractors are natural entrepreneurs and, you know, they're going to do great. But I think having a year or two under your belt learning from someone else is really important, really beneficial.

Right. Regardless whether you do it right away or eventually.

Or you don't and you just, you just work for someone else and can be really successful that way too.

Yeah, yeah. And, and certainly a huge part of this, as I imagine— I saw this meme the other day, is like, it was like, want to deal with your demons faster? Become like an entrepreneur, right? Because wherever you're like stewarding these things, you meet yourself. Like, ooh, like there's the lack of vision I have, or there's my lack of confidence, or, you know. So a lot of doctoring does that as well when you step out there and you have to like, you know, be shepherding people. But certainly as an entrepreneur, like, you're like, I gotta work through my own limitations over and over and over again in order to see the business keep expanding, which is beautiful, right? That's part of like enjoying the process, right? Like we've never arrived. It's more just like, oh, let's stay playful and keep growing and changing. And oh, by the way, then the businesses keep growing as well and the practices can serve more people. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Carla, if someone is listening and they want to jump on a strategy session with you or get connected with you, where should we tell them to reach out to you?

I guess my Remarkable Practice email would be the best. Yeah. Or on social media, but DrCarla@theremarkablepractice.com would be awesome.

Yeah.

And we're always here to welcome students and new docs to shadow us and learn from us. We love that. We love teaching and we love learning from you guys. It's amazing what like the Gen Z generation actually teaches us. Like not just technology, like that helps, but I'm like, it's amazing like how we can all learn from each other, you know? Right now we have a practice of, you know, baby boomers like my husband and I are Gen X and then millennials. And it's just like the whole— and it's— we just have so much fun. We're 7 on our team now. And yeah, it's great. Love to help out whoever I can.

Awesome. Thanks for spending time with us.

Of course. I love it. Anytime.

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.

Hello, Remarkable CEOs. Dr. Eric Janowitz here. I'm excited to be joining today with Jeff Van Kampen from Clinic Growth Accelerator. Clinic Growth Accelerator is one of our Remarkable Success Partners, and we always appreciate our Remarkable Success Partners because they help us further our mission and, and helping docs help more people. So welcome to the podcast, Jeff.

Hey man, I appreciate being here, Dr. Eric. It's an absolute pleasure to see you again. And this is already hard, hard to believe we're going on year 3 with Remarkable as a success partner. It's been an absolute privilege the entire time.

Yeah, we love it, man. We appreciate all your support and all the help you give our docs. So I'd love you to tell the audience a little about yourself and, and what your business does.

Yeah, so I, I'm Jeff. I'm the co-founder of Clinic Growth Accelerator. We are an advertising agency for primarily still chiropractors, although we have dabbled into other niches even a little bit outside, including like, you know, weight loss and, you know, red lights and that kind of stuff. But the bulk of our business is still within chiropractic. That's where we began and that's how we got puppy to be a part of Remarkable as well. So to be clear, for us, we help our clients run Meta ads and we take our background in engineering and we apply those principles of data and meticulous tracking to the advertising strategies that we deploy. So the background, the 30-second is, uh, I went to school to be an industrial engineer and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, went to school in Milwaukee. During my time in Milwaukee, I met my business partner Nick. Uh, we were both studying engineering and then we ultimately started businesses together somewhere in the neighborhood of like 2014 to 2015. Although we didn't really figure anything out until like 2020. I mean, we were just taking losses online for the first 4 years just figuring stuff out and then stuff worked and then we were able to actually have a system and dialed in and then scale it up. And that's ultimately how Clinic Growth Accelerator was born. And so, My favorite part of all that we do is to be able to show people that meta is like a science experiment and it, it could be a very expensive experiment if you do it wrong, but it could also be an extremely lucrative experiment if you get the equation correct. So our mission is to just ultimately allow the doctor to have an abundance of patients coming in evergreen, just people booking with their office that they don't have to go out and get it in advance and stuff like that. And then as a result, they get appointments and then we meet with the clients typically every week to begin the journey just to make sure that everyone in the partnership is doing well.

Love it, man. That's great. And yeah, and just to let the audience know, full disclosure, I've been using Jeff and Clinic Growth Accelerator for my two offices for, I think around 5 years now.

It's gonna be 5, I think in June. Yeah.

Yeah. And so it's been, been a great, great relationship and I was so glad that you came on board with TRP and get to help all our docs as well. So I appreciate all you've done for me and for, for our docs.

Dr. Eric Janowitz, man. Pleasure.

Yeah, absolutely, man. And so we're always teaching our CEOs that every business exists to solve problems, right? Our offices, we exist to solve our health challenges of our community, help people reach our goals. And so I'd love to hear what specific problems you guys solve for chiropractors.

Great question. So the number one problem when somebody comes to us, there's typically one of a couple things going on. The first is they're just not getting enough leads. They have a great service. They have the right staff in place. They just need more fire. They need more fuel. They need more like exposure to their markets. Uh, that's probably the most common. The second most common, which maybe has even become like a break-even most common over the years, is that people are, are with a partner or they've tried marketing online and they want it to work because they still need leads, but they're extremely, they're, they're nervous. Or maybe they, they got leads from the last company, but the leads weren't qualified, right? Or they had a hard time like getting those people in the door to actually turn into cash, you know? So it's either a lead volume problem or a quality of the current lead flow problem. And so what we'll do is come in and say, okay, well, we can look at both at the same time because you can't have one without the other. So, you know, for us, we would then come in and say, okay, like, how many leads are you getting? How many do you want to get? And then start reverse engineering, like what we think we should help them spend in order to start bridging the gap and then talk them through the qualification process. Qualification, I wanna just talk on real quick because it's, it's kind of an elusive thing in, in marketing in general, you know, because what happens is that a lot of people just always default to just quality of leads. And I think that what happens is when people are not, they're new to the science experiment, they think that like, oh, I can just write some magical ad that's like, hey man, you know, unless you got, you know, a lot of liquid cash and a nice car and a nice house and a big family, like we're not interested in working with you. You know, that's kind of how they perceive and act like qualification really is. But when I think about qualification, I think about reverse osmosis, water filtration, you know, reverse osmosis. The dirty water goes in one filter and then it goes through the next and it goes through the next and it goes through the next, and then out comes this beautiful clean water, right? That's like what qualification is with a funnel. It's not one step that does everything. If you only have one step, you're still left with the carbon in the water, you know? But if you actually start, you know, getting all the steps in, you have a great message online. You have a, maybe you have an application that asks a few questions, then the team calls to confirm the appointment to build rapport, make sure it makes sense to even have a conversation in the office. That is filtration, that is qualification. So it does begin with the right message, to be clear. But that's the number one thing we help people understand is that you need to get a process of filtration. You don't just need leads, you need leads and a process to filter and find the good ones.

100%. Yeah, we, I, I believe the term for is friction.

That's right.

It's like creating friction through that funnel because some people are like, I just want a ton of leads. It's like, great, you can get hundreds of leads a month, but only 10% of them might show up because the other 90% weren't good leads. Or you can create some friction in there, get less leads, but as a result, actually get much higher quality new patients coming in the door.

Right. Totally. And we see that across all of our clients. I mean, I've had clients head to head run the same offer and one of them were only optimizing. They're getting a ton of leads, ton of leads, and they're not even making cash on it. And then you have another client that's like, like, we put in this more filtration system. They are taking the deposit over the phone. They're just not really getting a ton of people in, but everyone is, is closing. You know what I mean? So like, they're feeling really good about it because they're like, man, these people are showing up. They're converting. My conversion rate's high. My cash collected's high. Like, it is a little bit of a volume gain, but it's a balance of volume and filtration and also in friction, like you said.

That, that's why I always implore my clients to measure every step of the funnel.

Funnel.

Don't just look at leads, look at how, how much did you pay for those leads, but how many of them actually made an appointment? How many of them actually showed up to the office? How many of them came back to day 2? How many of them converted, right? So it's measuring your, your, your cost for each of those different categories of people through the funnel, and that gives you an idea of if your digital marketing is effective or not.

That's it. That's it for sure. And you can't really like skip anything, you know, it's lead to sale. Exactly.

So as CEOs, we always want a good ROI on services that, that we utilize. How do you guys provide a really positive ROI for docs? And maybe you could talk about some numbers. What I love about digital marketing too is we can really get into numbers on this. So what are some numbers you look at and what do you typically provide for your clients?

I think for us, first and foremost, like, and this will help, you know, the listeners understand if, you know, a possible conversation would make sense with us, is that we are particular about where a client's at in their journey. What's their current monthly revenue? What's their goal? And then also what's the money model? Now if you're a, if you're a Remarkable, you know, CEO, Remarkable doc listening, like good chance, you know, you already have a great money model. Remarkable does an exceptional job of teaching the plans and the packages and how to really make it profitable for the business. But if somebody has a, a tougher, like somebody comes to us and they're like, hey man, you know, I only do pay per visit, it's $40 a visit, you forget it. You know what I mean? Like there's no, there's gonna be no room for anyone to come in and help scale anything because there's no cash flow. You know what I mean? So, So we usually will look for a business that's doing pretty well and also has a good money model. And then we'll look at like lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio. Now I used to ignorantly, as I've learned more about this, I used to only say like, oh, you want to get, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of like a 5 to 10 to 1 of lifetime value to customer acquisition ratio. And now I've, I started to realize that you, that you need to get a higher ratio the less profitable your business is. If your business is really not profitable, 10% margin, you gotta get a much higher lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio. But if you're running, you know, anywhere from a 20 to 40% profit margin, a good healthy business, service business, you know, we would like to shoot for on cash return, like a 3 to 4 to 1. That means that if you spend, for easy math, let's say spend $5,000 in an advertising program, we want you to cash collect $15,000 to $20,000, ideally in the next 30 days.

That's on, that's profit, correct? Not revenue.

Yes. We don't necessarily on our side, like admittedly we don't track profit like as much, you know, but ideally like someone's getting a lifetime value, it's a customer acquisition cost of like 5 to 1, ideally minimum. And then cash on cash. So example would be if you spend $5,000 and your care plans are $2,000, we would want you to sell somewhere in the neighborhood of like 8 to 10 of those so that your $5,000 turned into $15,000 to $20,000. Money. Because like the thing is, is like, this is just the reality. Most people don't know their LTV that we speak with, and they certainly, and like we can help them find the customer acquisition cost, but transparently we don't get into like the deep profitability of their business, you know, in terms of margin and expenses and that kind of stuff. So the most of the time people come to us, they're like, hey, I want to be able to get, if I spend 3 with you, 4 with you, I want to 4x that money, or I want to 5x that money. So as long as it's within like that 3 to 5x, we're confident we can deliver on that. Once I had a guy come to me one time, he's like, man, I need to get at least 15x for to make sense of this. And I was like, I can't promise that. So I think you have to be disciplined in your own business and knowing your customer acquisition costs, your LTV, and what ratio you need. We usually were looking at like at least a 3 to 4 to 1, just cash invested to cash return.

That makes sense. And plus you guys aren't the ones in the office closing people either. No, your job is to drive them in the front door, But, you know, LTV and CAC is all determined by how well we actually do our conversion processes in the office.

For sure. Absolutely. And I highly encourage, you know, everybody to know the numbers as granular as you guys teach. You know, you know your LTV, know your CAC, know what your target should be. You know, for us, it's like a client's willing to share their profitability and that conversation does occur. Like we can help them do the math, you know what I mean? Just a lot of people sometimes show up and they just haven't done the math yet.

Yep. So any new services you guys expect to offer in the future?

Yeah, there's a couple things in the works for us. We always look at like, okay, what are the other problems that we can help like solve? So our business actually creates problems. If you think about it, someone gets— someone needs leads, they get leads, now they have a problem on the phones. They gotta make calls. So one of the things I've seen over the years is that one of the biggest constraints in our clients is just their ability to have good lead follow-up on the phones. So for us, we've always wondered like, what would that process look like if we like were to control more of that? So we've built out like a beta version of an AI bot, and I would say it's 80% awesome. The other 20%, it needs a little bit of work still. That's in the works because right now, like a lot of clients lose because they have poor speed to lead, which I think matters more than now than ever, just because of competition and the Amazon of the world, you know? So the bot helps with speed to lead. So we're working on that. Another problem that we create with docs, Maybe not even a problem, but an opportunity is if you get, if you run ads, I mean like even our work together, you know, we probably generated between your offices like 4 or 5,000 leads, you know? Mm-hmm. So like there's a huge opportunity to do consistent email marketing to that list because the thing is, is like half the awesomeness of direct response is building a list because like for me at CGA, like we'll email our list, you know, 6, 7 times a week and like I get, you know, only a couple deals a month from that. But the cost of the return or the return on it is insane. So what you're doing is that, you know, people are so short-term when they're like, oh, I gotta lead, they gotta close 'em now. But I think more of like, okay, if we get a lead and we don't close them, we're gonna nurture them so much that when they're ready to make the change, they think of us. So we're, we're working on an email marketing service just 'cause a lot of our clients do have big lists. And then we'll also be implementing likely just some Google AI search ads as well. I think we have to be not only on Google, but but also on the AI search as well. Absolutely.

Love that. There's a lot of services like yours out there. What, uh, why should the listeners choose you guys? What kind of sets you apart?

That's a good question. You know, until we have a first discussion, I'm not even sure they should, to be clear, right away. But if you did, the main reason that our clients, I feel like, end up choosing us possibly over somebody else would be the meticulousness on the data. So more so just doing those leaky reviews, having the Excel sheets, having our data clearly in front of you to say, here's how many leads you got, here's how I've booked appointments. And then being able to take feedback from the client and say, okay, how many people showed up and converted? So I think that like full vision and full vantage point of the entire funnel is one of the biggest differentiators, I would say, because a lot of people, like, they just, they run ads and they kind of just hope for the best. I'm a big believer that if you run ads, you should be able to watch the bottleneck change. You know, like the bottleneck should not be in one, one part of the funnel month over month, week over week. Like we should see it kind of moving around. First you need leads, then it's the sales, then it's the cash collected, you know? So I think people come to us and they see that, okay, like these guys are gonna gimme my fairest shot at meta and getting the science experiment right because they're gonna be so meticulous in what they track that it's gonna be easy to identify where the constraint is and take the right actions to overcome that. So I think the data, and then also people like the accountability as much as people don't, As much as people like, you know, maybe think they might have a gripe of getting on the call with us, I think by the time they're done with the call and they have clarity on what's going on, they feel good, or at least they know what needs to be course corrected. So it just keeps everybody in the game.

So what's the next step for our listeners to connect with you guys and learn more about how you might be able to help them?

Yeah, good question. A couple ways. I'm happy to provide like a link if it's necessary to, for you guys, or if it would be helpful rather. And then otherwise you can just go to our website. It's just www.growyourclinic.com. So that's growyourclinic.com. You can just book in with there. Typically, no matter who books in with us, we'll ask you where you found us. So if you found us from the show, we'll know that. And otherwise, again, I, I'm happy to provide a link. And then my email is quite literally just jeff@growyourclinic.com.

Well, thanks again for being a, a longtime success partner. We appreciate all your support and all you guys do for us. So remember, remarkable CEOs, remember to tune in each week to our Remarkable CEO podcast. Hope everyone has a blessed week, and I'll see you guys next week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Build Your 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.