278 - How Much Should You Pay Yourself?

Doctor Pete, we're going to break it down. We're going to talk about salary. We'll talk about indirect and direct labor costs as a salary. In other words, we'll talk about you as a CEO or a clinic director. We'll talk about you as a adjusting chiropractor. As a dc, we're going to bring in distributions of profit and then add backs and we'll get into the numbers. We're going to break this down.

Hello and welcome to the Remarkable CEO Podcast, a show dedicated to chiropractors who want to transform their job into a business so that they can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life. Not instead of one. With your hosts, Dr. Pete Camiolo and Dr. Steven Fransen.

What's up, remarkables? Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable CEO podcast, Chiropractics number one business podcast. And we're have a business conversation today. Lucky you. I'm here with Dr. Pete Cameo. I'm Dr. Steven Fransen. Dr. Pete, we are going to be answering the question, how much should I get paid as the business owner, as the owner of a chiropractic business, show me the money. It's the most common question that we get when we talk about the business side of the owning a practice man. How do I know how much I should be earning? How much should I be paying myself and how does that work out? So we're going to talk about the economics of how does the chiropractic business owner get paid? Super stoked to jump into this conversation with you, brother.

Well, it's interesting that you brought up. This is the most common question we get is about themselves getting paid. I would say this question isn't asked enough. This is not something that's brought up enough. If you ask me. This is the probably the thing you think about the most but don't talk about enough. And so we're going to talk about it because you're probably thinking about it. And you know, we talk about, you know, caregiver or, excuse me, servant, hand, business hand. We talk about, you know, relational versus transactional leader. We talk about all these things all the time. Well, this is one of those kind of straight through the cut to the chase conversations we're gonna have today. It's really about being that transformational leader and you gotta make sure you're, you're clear on your yourself so you can take great care of other people. Just like on the airplane, if you're traveling with children, they say, put your mask on first. You got to make sure that you've got yourself taken care of and you've got oxygen so that you can make sure you can give oxygen to all those other dependents, those that are depending on you. This is a dependence conversation, but you got to start with taking care of yourself. So, Dr. Steven, you know, every. Every month I'm talking to CEOs about, you know, compensation. You know, it. Whether it's I'm hiring this new person, what should I be paying them? Hey, you know, is this price? That is the going rate these days? Is that the right thing I should be paying for this CA or that CA or for dc? We always talk about paying everybody else, but how do we pay ourselves? Dr. Stephen, man, what an important conversation. I know everybody who's listening is like, good, we're talking about me today and the money that I should be getting paid. So I know you're going to be very interested in this, and I think we're going to break it down in a way that's going to be very practical for you to understand as well.

Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it's. It's everybody's favorite topic, right? So we want to talk about it because, you know, we want to be. We want to be fair, but we also want to be energized, right? So. And that's, that's how I always look at money. It's like money is a tool to energize your team, and you're on your team, right? So it's like, don't ever forget, it's not me and my team. It's not you and your team. You're on the team, right? So it's just making sure that you're looking at. It's like, I want to make sure I'm setting up the comp model so that it energizes me, right? So it energizes us as, as owners, as leaders, as doctors, right? So, you know, you certainly put a lot of energy out. Let's make sure that you're getting energized at every turn, right? So. And equals MC squared, right? Energy equals money times crucial communications. We always focus on trying to get the money right for our team members. Well, let's get the money right for you, right? So we're going to lay down some constructs, right? So we love to give you guys frameworks, and we're also going to give you guys a resource. So we have our remarkable money metrics. That's part of our remarkable money program. And those remarkable money metrics are much like the Vital signs. They're standards, right? So we have a PDF that you can download. There's going to be a link somewhere here in the show notes, so you can grab a copy of that. And you're probably going to want to hit pause, print that out and have your eyes on it, right? Because we're going to be talking numbers if you're driving. Don't worry. You can always go back and listen to this and print it out when you get home. So just know that that resource is there for you guys. Remember, we want to equip you guys because we always want you to be bold with decisions that you make, right? So, and I love the fact that increasing your certainty and increasing your conviction and increasing your clarity, those three things add together and gives you more confidence, right? So we want you to be confident as a leader, right? So we need bold and confident chiropractors. We need some more successful chiropractors, right? So this is a way to make sure that you, to ensure that. So let's make sure that from this perspective of energizing, let's set up your comp model so that it energizes you.

Dr.

Beat, I'm going to start with one framework. You've heard me say it before, but it's a great thing to sort of like as a preload to the rest of this conversation here. Today, as owners, as business owners, we get paid three times, right? So, and that's a, that's really good news because being a business owner is wicked hard, right? So the, there's so much risk on the front end and there's so much stress and strain and brain damage that comes from, you know, taking on the incredible initiative of starting a business and creating something from vapor and creating systems and processes and a deliverable and a team and, you know, everything that goes with that, it's wicked hard, right? So the good news is we get paid three times, right? So the first time we get paid is we get paid for the work that we do. That's called your salary. We also get paid in distributions, and that's distributions of profit as the owner of the business. And then the third way we get paid, we've been talking about quite a bit here in the Rockwell practice, which is we get paid on an exit, right? So when we sell our business, there's a liquidity event, and that's the third time we get paid, right? So I love to frame today's conversation with, remember, you get paid three times as a business owner. Today we're going to double Click on this, drill down. Exactly. Like, how do I get paid as an owner all along? Right. So I like to say that there's a methodology that is widely accepted that will help you kind of come to peace with what do I get in exchange for that brain damage that comes with owning the business. Right? So, and there's three numbers that will add together to generate this one number that's called Seller's Discretionary Earnings. Right? So if you're the owner of the business, it could be called Owner's Discretionary earnings. It's typically referred to as Seller's Discretionary Earnings because this is very typically part of a exit conversation. Right? So ODE, owner's discretionary earnings or SDE. Seller's discretionary earnings or we'll call it SDE because it's almost never referred to as ODE. It's almost always referred to as SDE. There's three numbers Dr. Pete, you want to be writing down here for my note takers. Number one, it's your salary once again for the work that you do. Number two, it's the distributions of profit based on the equity that you own in your business. And number three, it's the add backs. In other words, the fringe benefits of being able to run certain expenses through the business because you own the business. Now, I'm not talking about monkey business here. I'm talking about there are legitimate fringe benefits that you can run through the business that you would not otherwise be able to run through the business if you didn't own the business. Right? So things like your cell phone and your health insurance and some taxes and maybe it's flights and hotels and dinners and the ream of paper that you need for the printer at home, et cetera, et cetera, right? So there are legitimate expenses that you can run through the business that would be considered add backs. And that is really truly compensation that comes to you. And I love those because it really sort of mitigates that tax impact as well. Right? So you add those three numbers together and that's what you're going to get. Sellers Discretionary Earners Earnings or owners discretionary earnings. Dr. Pete, this is a great conversation.

So, you know, as you're listening, I want to make sure that I speak to, I want to talk to everybody that's listening because there's some of you that are going to be like, man, I'm so ahead of this. I know this, this is like yesterday's news, what's going on. But I also want to speak to the other side which said, dude, nobody's ever told me this. Nobody ever shared this with me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak to those people first because I was you. So how to coach. Very successful in business. Had coaching invested in that. Spent a lot of money on that. All my entire career, all the thing. No one ever had this conversation with me. No one ever did. So you. It's possible you could be listening to this conversation. Like, man, it's the first time someone's really saying this to me, or this is the first time really hearing it, or I've heard this before in part, but I never really had a. I could never really understand. I never really grasped it. I play the game, but I'm just kind of dabbling. I'm just. I'm figuring it out as I go. I'm just kind of. That's. If that's you, that's okay. Like, don't, Don't. Don't feel like you're. You did anything wrong. You don't even, don't even feel like you're. You don't belong in this conversation. You belong in this conversation.

That's right.

That's actually how most business owners arrive in this conversation. It's like, dude, I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I need help. And then there's the other side of you, which may be saying, hey, I'm beyond this. I'm on the other side. And this is going to be a maybe a recap for what you already know, but it actually, I think it's going to be really helpful for you to see it, because the way we're breaking it down, Dr. Steven, is in a very. In a really simple framework, like you said. So I just want to encourage everybody to get the download tool. Download the tool. The remarkable Money Metrics PDF. Get that for yourselves. You want to make sure you have that. But like you said, Dr. Steven, I really encourage everybody to sit down. You and I, actually, before we even press record on this podcast, we actually talked through it. We went through it ourselves. We're like, hey, let's just make sure we're on the same page about this and, and be crystal clear. So I just want everybody to know, like, hey, whoever you are and wherever you're at in your career journey, whether you're in your first year, I wish somebody told me this before I opened my practice. I wish they told me in year one and year two. Still didn't hear it then, you know, so years and years in, nobody ever stopped and had this conversation with me and you might say, well, that was on you. You should have had that. Found somebody to have that conversation with you. You're probably right. But. But the bottom line is, is we're here, and we're having this business conversation with you, so I'm glad we're having this conversation. Dr. Steven, this is so vital. I wish I was you. If you're listening to this now, years ago, ahead of when I ever got it. So let's dig in.

Yeah, I think I found myself where so many. So many of our listeners maybe are listening this from, which was. I spent a whole long season where I was saying, I know how to make money. I don't need to know how to manage money. That's why you're here talking to my accountant, my bookkeeper, even my controller, who happened to be my wife, right? So the reluctant controller in the house who was running all the numbers and managing the banking and the books, and, you know, the poor thing, she had no professional training there, and she had no. This certainly is not her core purpose or, like, the core skill set. This is like. But I'm like, hey, honey, it's you and I, and somebody's got to do it. Let me stay on the frontier. And I'll be knocking down the trees, throwing them over my shoulder, and you're gonna. You're gonna have to, you know, be the one that puts the furniture together, right? So it's like that. That was really. It was a pitch. It was arrogance, it was ego, it was immaturity. You know, so all of those negative. You know, that attitude was not serving anybody, right? Definitely wasn't serving my wife or my marriage, and it certainly wasn't me. Demonstrated the capacity to manage all the things that he was entrusting with me, like, law of dominion, right? So at the end of the day, somebody said something to me once that really struck me. Cunningham says this all the time, which is. Accounting is the language of business. And if you don't speak accounting, you don't understand your business. And I'm like, oh, lightning bolt. I'm like, you are right. I was not being a good steward. There was no way I was being able to optimize my business if I didn't understand that. So our hopes. Dr. Pete and I bring you guys this. As much as you might feel right now that you're allergic to this type of stuff, honestly, you got to overcome that. You got to get on the other side of it, right? So you don't have to be an accountant. You just need to be able to Be knowledgeable enough to have conversations with accountants. You need to be able to tell them what you need. You need to be able to talk to your bookkeeper, right? So you need to understand your business from an accounting side. And you know I have a fractional cfo, right? So you have access to Bob Siegel, our fractional CFO team, through the remarkable money program. It's. These are the conversations that you have so you can be strategic as a leader, as a CEO. So we're going to go high level, we're going to go fast. We are going to give you that resource, so download that PDF. On that PDF, you're going to see there's a breakdown of $1 million practice. What we're going to do here today, we're going to talk about like, how much should you pay yourself out of that million dollar practice? We're actually going to do three different scenarios if we have time for it. We're going to do $1,000,000 practice. We can do a $500,000 practice, we're going to do a $750,000 practice. One sits in the middle. And then you'll be able to extrapolate from there as you start to see how this plays out. So from, you know, from a high level, categorically, there's all kinds of, you know, this. Inflows, outflows. Part of your outflows are expenses, right? Your overheads, part of overheads are your payroll, right? So this is your labor cost. There's primarily two types of labor costs, direct and indirect labor cost. Direct labor costs for chiropractors like the tech CA and the chiropractor that does the adjusting, right? The indirect labor costs would be all the supportive labor. The CEO, the clinic director, the office manager, the COO, the check in CA, the checkout CA, the back office CA, the marketing person, Dr. Pete. These are all the supportive staff, right? So they're considered indirect labor costs. Right? So there's something called cosd, or cost of services delivered. Some of you know, cogs, costs of good souls. If you sell cervical pillows and if you buy a pillow for 50 bucks and you sell it for 100, the cost of goods sold was 50 bucks. The profit margin is the $50 or the profit is $50. The margin is 100% markup. Right? So this terminology that you want to get comfortable with, right? So when it comes to figuring out how much should I pay myself? As an owner, you need to arrive at this intelligently. You shouldn't just be like, well, at the end of the month, there's this much money left, so I take it. Right. So, I mean, that is not law of dominion in action. Right. So that's not being a good steward. You know, I love what demartini says, which is just put together a plan for your money and the universe is going to conspire to deliver that. Right. So you've got to give your money direction. Right. So what a great idea to get together and be like, okay, this is what I'm going to pay myself this year. This is how I am going to pay myself, not how much, but this is how I'm going to do it. This is my comp model. Dr. Pete, we're going to break it down. We're going to talk about salary. We'll talk about indirect and direct labor costs as a salary. In other words, we'll talk about you as a CEO or a clinic director. We'll talk about you as a adjusting chiropractor, as a dc. We're going to bring in distributions of profit and then add backs and we'll get into the numbers, we're going to break this down and you'll be able to see the economics of these three practices. A million dollar practice, a $750,000 practice, and a $500,000 practice.

Yeah, I think it's vital that we understand the difference between the what and the how, you know, and that's, I think, really important, what you just said there. And this is a question of stewardship. This is a question of taking responsibility and honestly, the law of dominion and being able to be entrusted with more. Like you said, I think everybody that's listening to this podcast who tunes in is probably like us. They're. They're looking to grow. They want to. They want to continue to grow and get better, get bigger, make a bigger impact. You want to grow your income. You want to grow your income, earning potential, your impact, your influence. And we all share that. That goes back to, as you said, that law of dominion, which is the readiness, the stewardship, the positioning yourself to be able to do this and do this really well. And so that's really what we're getting into. And so when we were going through this before, I thought, man, this is great, because we have a lot of our chiropractors who are listening to this podcast right now that are probably right around that, doing about a half a million in revenue right now. Right? You're probably there. So if that's you, or let's say you're somewhere between a half a million and a million, this is going to be great for you. Let's say you are at that midway point, like we're doing about 750. Let's say this is 2024, you're listening to this podcast and you guys are on track to do about, you know, three quarters of a million this year.

You guys are about in top line revenue.

In top line revenue. Sorry, I should have clarified that. So let's say that's you. Great. We're going to speak directly to you right now. Let's say this is your year, you're ringing the bell and you're saying we're breaking through, we're going to hit seven figures, we're going to hit the million dollar mark. First of all, congratulations to you. That's phenomenal. The fact that you're in business, you've launched a business, you've grown and built it up to a million dollar top line revenue practice is a huge, huge win for you. So congratulations on ringing that bell. That's a big deal. So we're going to speak to all of you. And then of course you're beyond that, you're at the 1.25, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 10 million, whatever. You are up. And beyond that, you know, you'll have a different conversation with around some of the percentages and some of the numbers. Dr. Steven, like you and I were talking about. Well, this rule applies to, let's say a million dollar practice. We felt like that was a really good place for us to start in today's conversation and work our way through that. So between a half a million dollar, three quarters of a million and then $1 million practice, top line revenue practice, this is the breakdown of what it will look like as an owner. So that's right.

And it's, and it's a reference point, it's a construct, a framework for you to be able to say if you're doing 2 million or 4 million or 6 million or 10 million, like so many of our clients, they've run really big businesses. These numbers, you can extrapolate out these numbers out, but it's not a linear extrapolation. Right. So is this like there's a tapering that happens as far as your salary goes, the distributions are going to depend on efficiencies, effectiveness, which drives profitability. Right. So there's all kinds of factors. I don't want to oversimplify this, but I thought that if we got too granular it would be confusing. So we're going to go straight at 1 million 750 and 500. We're actually going to do it in this order. 1 million. Then we'll do half. 500. And then if we have time, we'll do the 750 in between. So you guys bear with me. Get your pens out, sharpen your pencil. Hey, Doc, Steven Fransen here. If you're like me, you know that we're in the business of saving lives. And when business is good, everybody wins. That's the good news. But here's the bad news. Most chiropractors don't own a business at all. They own a job. It's a job they love, but it's a job. And far too often it feels like that job owns them. Is this true for you? Do you own a business or a job? Have you built? And do you run your practice on brute force? Does it rely fully on your time, your effort? A pound of your flesh? Are you responsible for all growth, for all new patient generation? How about new patient conversions?

Is it all up to you?

How about patient care and delivery? Are you a sole practitioner, an owner operator who owns the practice but is also the only one that is head down and bum up taking care of all the patients? Is revenue generation or collections all up to you? Let me ask you the most telling question, Doc. What would happen if you took 90 days off? What breaks? In my experience, most on purpose chiropractors do not lay awake at night worrying about their practice. They worry about their business. Let's slay that dragon. The Remarkable CEO program has helped hundreds of chiropractors just like you turn the job that they love into the business that they've always wanted. Are you ready to roll, run and build your practice on leverage instead of brute force? Do you want to create the scalability and durability that will allow you to make a bigger impact and a bigger income? What would it mean to grow your practice, increase your productivity and your profitability? Do you want to get your time freedom back? Are you ready to turn your pirate ship into a battleship? If this sounds like you, then the remarkable CEO program is for you. Just last year, 50 of our remarkable clients received the Seven Figure Club Award. Meaning they hit the million dollar mark for the first time or their next million dollar level, be it 2 million, 3 million, 10 million, up to 36 million and growing now, Doc, is it crazy to imagine that your practice could be next? Click the link below and learn how to apply for the next cohort of the Remarkable CEO program. We look forward to working closely with you and creating the business that supports your Remarkable life not competes with it. Let's talk about a million dollars. So this is how I like to categorize things. I want to have fully loaded books. Fully loaded books means everything's in there, like whoever is working there is on payroll and you're accounting for the work that that person does. Right. So it's a good idea to have fully loaded books so that when you get into an eventual conversation around how profitable is your business, there's not a bunch of fluff in there. It's not inflated because you're not accounting for the work that you do or maybe your spouse does. Right. So you want to delineate what are the jobs that you have and pay yourself for them and account for those things. So it's called fully loaded books. Right. So if we take, quote unquote, fully loaded books for a million dollar practice. Dr. Pete, if you're the owner, CEO, let's say I'm going to pay myself as the CEO, I'm going to pay myself 100 grand. A good heuristic at this size of a business is about 10% of top line revenue. As a CEO, if you are also an adjusting DC, which is super common at that size of a practice, it's usually one DC owner with one or two associate doctors at that size. So you'll be one of the associate, excuse me, one of the adjusting chiropractors. So you ask yourself, well, what would it cost me to replace myself as an associate doctor? Let's call it 100 grand. Right. So it's 100 grand for you as the CEO, clinic director, owner, and then there's also a hundred grand for you as the adjusting chiropractor. So now you're at 200 grand. The distributions of profit for this business, the way we pen it out, if you follow our systems, is going to fall somewhere around 80k, probably 20,000 a quarter. Right. So now we're at 280. And add backs you can expect for this side of the business, you probably run somewhere around 50k in add backs. So now we're at 330,000. So adding the salary plus the distributions of profits plus the add backs, Dr. Pete, in a million dollar practice, it puts US at about 330,000, which of course is easily extrapolated out to a 33% net earnings. Right. So when we talk about how profitable is the business, 33% is a very profitable business.

So if you're listening to this, obviously, Dr. Stephen, if I'm listening and I'm on about a million dollar practice Just do the math on that. Now here's the thing that I think a lot of people are going to, are going to hopefully get a lot out of the breaking apart of the two roles, the CEO and how the CEO gets paid and then the DC and how the DC gets paid. It's probably unlikely that most of you who are listening have set it up that way. So this would be awesome as you move forward is to actually as you said, Dr. Steven, I love this fully loaded books. It's great to get it clearer on. Hey you, if you're functioning as a CEO, you should be being paid as the CEO. So what is that, what is that salary? And you gave a great example of, you know, in a million dollar practice or a million and below 10% CEO, you know, distribution or excuse me, salary based on the role. And then as a chiropractor, if you can imagine, Dr. Steven, if you're running a million dollar practice and you're an adjusting doctor and you tried to replace yourself, what would you have to pay to have somebody come in and do that? You're going to be paying them at least 100,000 in today's market, especially 100, probably more, but let's just say 100,000.

On the low end, 100.

So you, you got to put that on the salary that you, you got to pay yourself. Like you're, you're a doctor, you'd have to replace yourself with. So I think that's the framework if, what would it cost for you to replace you as a chiropractor or even.

As a CEO if you had to bring somebody?

Yes.

Yep.

The distributions, the add backs, again, that's a little bit more of a variable.

I guess that's equity and ownership. Right. So that's why you get distributions and that's why you can do add backs because you're the owner.

Yep. So, so with that Doc Steven, you're looking at that. We're talking about 33%. I mean that, that to me, I think that's a great, those are great numbers. That's a really sexy business. That is a very sexy business. So I mean there's never been a better time to be a chiropractor. You guys with me, let's go ahead and build you a million dollar practice. There's a never been a better time to be a chiropractor. I mean, what are some other things you could do that you could earn that kind of a revenue? And then we didn't even talk about, like you said, the third way you get Paid, which is on that exit. You're just building this thing and scaling it year over year, year over year.

You own an appreciating asset that cash flows at 33%.

100%. Think about the valuation. I mean it's awesome. So, all right, so that's, that's scenario number one. Let's talk about a practice half the size. Dr. Stevens. Let's say I'm a practitioner. Earlier in my career, maybe I'm build, I'm in the build season, I'm still in that season, right? Yeah, most likely if you're in build, you're below that thou $500,000 mark. Somewhere in that ballpark. Let's talk about this guy.

So you know the assumption is that you're three years old or older. So anything under three years is considered a startup. Startups are the wild west and all the rules go out the window. Not all of them, but it's outside of the conversation here. Right. So three year old practice or more and you're doing 500k in top line revenue, which we call collections in chiropractic, right? So you're collecting 500,000 annually. So here your CEO or clinic director salary, if you're half the volume, 500,000. How about volume meaning revenue, right? Not volume of patience. Right. So half of the revenue, 10% of that is 50k. Right. So a good rule of thumb or heuristic, pay yourself 50k as a CEO, right? So and then DC once again, it's still 100k for a chiropractor, right? So at a $500,000 rate, you're probably you as the owner plus one associate doctor. That's how I would be advising you. So it'd be 100k. So you, you're paying yourself as a CEO of 50k. You're paying yourself as an adjusting, as one of the two adjusting DC's 100K. And then your distributions of profit is probably going to be somewhere around 5k a quarter. Right. So 20k annually. So now we're at 1100 plus 50. 150 plus 20 is now we're at 170. And then our add backs, if we, if we did 50,000 at a million, guess what we're going to do at 500,000. Somewhere around 25k. That's fair I think to assume that. So now we're at 195. So on a $500,000 top line revenue practice, 195,000 as your net earnings, that's 39% man, that's a, that's even sexier. That's a sexier business. That's one of the power gears, the power zones inside of the gearing of a growing practice. 500k is a very sexy place to operate.

Yeah. And I think, Dr. Stephen, if you're operating at that level and, and we talk a lot about with our CEOs who are, who are listening, you know, probably if you're listening for us for a while, you've heard us talk about this is when are you ready to make that next investment, hire that next employee, make that investment to bring in that next associate. Right. Because we hire people ahead of growth. Having all this structure, Dr. Stephen in place is so vital for knowing, be able to answer the question and when are you ready? Main meaning your readiness, like are you ready to take, take that investment to reinvest in your business? And some of it may come out of the percentage of some of this percent for your growth of the business so that you can increase your earnings. Now you saw that the $500,000 top line revenue practice, your earnings is 39%. And at a million it actually went down 6%.

So you're thinking the margin, the percentage. Right. Smaller percentage of a bigger number.

Of a bigger number. Right. So this is. But, but it took time between the 500 to the million dollar mark to get there. And that's the, that is the dance that as an owner you have to be willing to play that, take those risks, make those investments, invest in it. So that on the back end a year from now, two years now, this is the kind of return on that investment you're going to get. Let's say you invest in another doctor.

Another doctor. Right. So now, now you're looking at saying I'm buying my time back. So I'm using my money to buy their time, energy, focus and talent to free up my time, energy, focus and talent. Right. So you have to buy that. That's money which is where the margin starts to get pinched.

Yes. So that's scenario number two. So let's say doc Steven, I'm a doc who's somewhere in the middle. I'm, I've made, I've broken through the $500,000 mark. I'm on my way to a million. But looks like this year, you know, I'm going to be slanting somewhere in the $750,000 mark. So I think we have time for, let's wrap with this.

So yeah, quick, quick and dirty. I'll do just what you expect. Right. So at 750 and top line revenue or collections. Our CEO or clinic director, salary May 75K. Right. Again, that 10% rule of thumb. It's just a rule. Most. This is rule of thumb stuff. So please don't like write this on. Like this is not a forearm tattoo. We're giving you guidelines, right? So no, like, man, am I, am I in the range, am I on track, so to speak. So clinic director, CEO for a $750,000, about 75k a DC once again holding strong at 100k. Right. So probably 100 plus once you get into bonusing, et cetera, distributions, 40k. Right. So 10,000 per quarter. Right. So now we're 75 plus 100 plus 40k. So that's salary plus distributions. 40k in distributions, that gets us to 215,000. If we're running 40,000 through the business, let's say it's 10,000 a quarter, 40k. Now we're at 2, what, 255. So we're, it's still just such a sexy business, you know, Duckbeat. 255 gets us. Yeah, we're sitting at 34%. Right. So 34% for net earnings. Man, there's many businesses in the world that would crawl naked across broken glass to get to a 34% net earnings. It's very healthy, very sexy business.

So, Dr. Steven, in summary, I think that the big takeaway that I want to make sure that as owners and listeners to this, that you're taking is number one, it's really important that you focus on how you get paid. And compensation is really important. It's important that you pay your people, but it's important that you pay yourself. Right? And we talk a lot about paying everybody else, but how we pay ourselves. And now you have a general framework. There's some guidelines that we've given you here today that you should be able to use moving forward. And as you scale to a million and 2 million, hopefully, and then 3 and 5 and 10 and beyond, whatever your vision is, whatever it is that your mountain you're climbing and you have ahead of you now, you've got a framework to be able to do that, do that really well. We want to make sure, Dr. Steven, that our premise is you can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life and not instead of one. This is you saying, hey, I got to make sure that I'm taking care of myself. I have the ability to have a great life. You're providing for your family, for the things that are important to you, the contributions you want to make and to be able to live the life that you, that you desire as well as, you know, making the impact in the community, doing things that you love to do and you're doing it in a way that that makes sense. So, Dr. Stephen, I hope that this is a big win for everybody that's listening and please take advantage of the the Remarkable Money metrics giveaway that we have for today. So make sure you guys download that and I look forward. Dr. Steven, you and I picking up the conversation on our next episode of the Mark CEO Podcast. Until then, guys, God bless. Have a great rest of your week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Remarkable CEO Podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic. And what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, share with a friend and leave us a review. And if you'd like to get connect with us personally, direct message us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. Now go and be remarkable.