314 Expensive Lessons Learned Launching My Wellness Business

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You got to learn how to market and generate leads and then you've got to learn how to convert leads to customers, right? So it's like the sales process. So I've had a lot of fun teaching them, first and foremost, the paradigm, shifting the paradigm. Dr. Pete. From outside in to inside out and all of the language that comes with that, knowing that they had a slant in that direction personally and the way they were living their lives. But I had to change their language so that they can convey that to humanity. Right to the outward to the marketplace.

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.

Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable CEO Podcast, Chiropractic's number one business podcast. I'm Dr. Pete Camiolo.

And I'm Dr. Steven Fransen.

It's great to be with you, Dr. Stephen, with all of you here today. So I had an experience about six months ago in November. Dr. Steven I had the opportunity to come up to New Hampshire with some of our remarkable coaches. Amazing time. We had to come together to train, to get equipped and develop each other, work together and have some fun. And one of the things that you did and you set up for us was you scheduled some pampering for the Remarkable Coaches because, you know, we have to be functioning at our very best to do the great work that we do. So you took us to Bonfire Wellness and I'll tell you, it was a remarkable experience for me to go to Bonfire Health. I don't remember the exact day that it was. I think it was a Friday afternoon though. And man, we went in there and they said, what do you want on the menu? And I'm like, I'll take a little bit of that. I'll take that, that, that, that. It was like, yeah, pick it. I did some red light.

I did recovery, vitality and longevity. That's what I want.

Exactly. I did cold, I did red light, I did iv. Trying to remember, I might have done more than that, but I know for sure those are the things. I did those things and it was, man, it was just awesome. It was an awesome experience and I loved it because it was your family. I was in there. Your sister was there, you were there, your wife was there. I think her, somebody's kids were there, your parents walked in and they were there. It was just awesome to experience your family in business and in this awesome business. So today I have the opportunity to interview you and we're going to do a little check in. How's it going? You know, this is a business that launched six months ago and I'm sure you guys have had lots of wins and you've probably learned some lessons along the way. So, Dr. Steven, looking forward to digging in with you today.

Yeah, man. Dr. Pete, you brought me back to that day. That was so fun to bring everybody down there and, and just like love on you guys and share with you, you know, what we had created and, and I just appreciated everybody's feedback coming out of there and it was great to just give my, my family a chance to showcase their passion for what we're doing there. So I'll, I think I'll back it up a little bit and then I'm going to back back it up a lot before we dive into the, the sort of Q and A interview around lessons learned, wins and learns. So far. Six months into a de novo startup. Yeah, the, the bon. I have my Bonfire shirt on for anybody who's watching on YouTube, which we love it when you guys watch on YouTube so we can show you things like that. And so if you're not, check us out on YouTube, guys, follow us on YouTube. And the bonfire concept is actually this is like the resurgence of Bonfire, right? So this is something that came out of our practice, the original remarkable practice in Boston that Dr. Kamila and I ran for 20, what, three years out of Boston. We taught our patients the chiropractic wellness lifestyle. And we were big subscribers of it from day one. Right from the very beginning, we just knew that, you know, you had to teach people about their diet style, you had to teach people about their movement patterns, had to teach people about their thought life and sleeping and just there's no way we were going to be able to reconcile such a subluxation driven lifestyle, the toxic division lifestyle that most modern humans live in such a diverse ecosystem. From how our, you know, our genetic makeup, what, what it calls for and you know, at the end of the day, it's, you can't reconcile all of that 168 hours of toxic deficient live living with a two minute adjustment, visit once a week. Right. So we're trying to teach them how to make sure that they live a life that worked with us, not against us, outside of the practice. Right. So, and then Dr. James Chestnut came out with, with the wellness lifestyle and the Carbide wellness lifestyle certification, went through all of that. And just a giant fan of him and his work and he just codified all that messaging in that eat well, move well, think well, construct. It was just brilliant, brilliant work. So it was all in that same time period that inspired Bonfire. Right. So we always taught people that your health was your bonfire, and that's where your heat and your light and your energy comes from. So everybody wants a bigger bonfire. And the way you choose to eat is your fuel. The way you choose to move is your air. The way you choose to think is your spark. So fuel, air and spark, the three things, those three elements come together and the natural consequences, fire. And if any of the three are missing, there's no fire. So it just spoke to the comprehensiveness of the lifestyle that we're teaching in the practice so that people would live in a congruent way outside of the practice and work with us for the work that we were doing inside the practice. Right. So, long story short, after we sold the practice and obviously, you know, developed the remarkable practice, we had put Bonfire on the back burner. As much as I loved it, I was called to develop the remarkable practice and focus on one thing, not try to develop five things. One thing, right? So my practice got my undivided attention for 23 years. We didn't have children for the first 12 years. We had one thing going on and we. And it took everything to create what we had created. And from that we enjoyed the success that we enjoyed and we built wealth. We exited that business because I was called to do the next thing. And that next one thing was develop the remarkable practice. So Bonfire had to get back burnered so I could focus on the one thing. Because you can multitask, you can't multifocus. And I had no interest in dividing my time, energy, my focus. So, Dr. Pete, as you know, the story goes, we developed a very successful coaching business called the Remarkable Practice. And that's the one thing that takes up my energy now as far as running, leading and operating that business. Now, I'm a big advocate of staying focused on one thing and developing wealth and investing in other things. Investing in other things, Right. So some people get confused when they're like oh, you have six businesses. Yup. But I don't operate six businesses. That's literally impossible. Right. So I know everybody likes to point to Elon Musk, but Elon Musk has got great leadership and operators inside of those businesses.

Right.

And I'm not comparing myself to Elon Musk, but I'm saying I only have the capacity to focus on one thing and invest in the other things. Right. So some are totally passive. Some are pretty close to passive. Others I have an active role as like a consultant. Right. So. And that's the extent of it. And Bonfire Wellness is one of those. So kind of a long winded, you know, sort of lead into this story. But I just wanted to take the opportunity to point that out every chance I get. Because, Dr. Pete, my experience is, you see it in our space in Carb Radic, there is this romantic notion that you're going to be able to buy and operate 4, 5, 6, 7 businesses while you're building one great empire, build your wealth and then use your wealth to invest in those other businesses.

So, Dr. Steven, I love the backstory and you know, I love that it's the genesis from all the way back in the beginning of the, you know, your remarkable practice and your recognition for, you know, for us to truly help people get well, we have to address the causes of subluxation and really helping people develop that lifestyle. So I love that it birthed from that and after all these years, it's come full circle for you and for your family and to do it with your family, which is a beautiful thing. So the way I want to ask the questions, Dr. Steven, if it's cool, is I'd like to ask the questions of the wins and lessons learned through the lens of the five domains, if possible. I'd love to talk for you to talk a little bit about like, what, you know, what has gone well, what have you learned in terms of marketing, building this business? Because I mean, you know, marketing is messaging and you're the messenger. You know, you got to get your message into the marketplace for the marketplace to, to come. So I would love for us to maybe anchor to the, you know, process of, you know, what does it look like to take someone who's a seeker who comes into your, your bonfire, the bonfire clinic, and to become, you know, a believer, to say yes, to get some level of care and then what does retention look like in this organization and is that part of it? And how does that go? And, and then the team, you guys have had to build a team, you Built a team. And what. What is the. What have been the wins and lessons learned there and then the business office. Right. All the things in terms of, you know, back of the house, everything that makes the business run. I love to just maybe ask you to. And I know you know this framework, so let's just. You just run with it. Like, if that's cool with you, I'd love for you just maybe break it down like wins and lessons learned. Maybe through the lens of the five domains this way, I think, because that's how we all think.

Yeah, I think that's great. And if you could nudge me along here, that would be great. So that's the backstory on Bonfire. Let me just give you just a little bit of context on the actual Bonfire Wellness Clinic. Right. So the wellness center. So my brother Jeffrey, who's a brilliant business guy, he's built a empire of three different businesses, window businesses that I had a role in just starting primary business back in Atlanta back in the day. But he's taken it and just done extraordinary things with it. It's now an ultra successful business guy. He actually just got recognized this week as being in one of Atlanta's top 10 fastest growing businesses. And fastest growing is kind of a. I, I smile when I hear that because I think it's. The business is 25 years old, but they're crushing it. And he's got a. A new arm of that business that's growing like crazy.

So.

Congratulations, Jeff. If you listen to this, I'm so proud of you, bro. So awesome what he's done. So he's the CEO of Bonfire Wellness, and my sister Kim, who is a phenomenal nurse who basically runs the picu, the pediatric intensive care unit at Mass general, has for 30 years. And she's just a warrior. So you can imagine somebody who has, you know, what do you do for a living? I work with dying babies for a living. I mean, that's a badass human being. And if anything was going on with the, if the shit was hitting the variable fam with your child, you want my sister Kim in the room, right? So she's, you know, she's that person who leads a team, a countless team of nurses, RNs, nurse practitioners, and working very closely with all the medical specialists there at Mass General, the number one hospital in the country, therefore, probably in the world. So she's just a warrior. Well, during COVID the picu, the NICU and the PICU essentially got hijacked by the worst Covid cases. They moved all the kids out, all the babies out and they moved all the worst Covid cases in. So needless to say, it was a terrible two or three year period for her that really broke the backs of most of the people that had been long term. You know, love loved being pick you and NICU nurses, but really didn't have their calling was not to take care of COVID cases, as you can imagine. So during that period of time, my brother, my sister came to me and said, hey, you know what, let's get Kim out of this environment. Let's set her up into something that's, you know, more along the lines of her philosophy, her health, and let's put her on a healthier lifestyle, healthier path path. Let's get her out of that environment and give her an opportunity for business ownership. And then the last sort of asterisk on this is my cousin John. John Fransen has got a finance background and works the books. He's the numbers guy, he's the money guy. So between the four of us, it's actually, you know, my, my brother and his wife, John and his wife, Camila and I, and then my sister Kim, all of us came together with the four partners in the launching of this business. And of course, you're not going to do anything in my family without the whole family coming along. So my mom and dad are involved as well. My, my mom works in reception as she has for 50 years in a dentist. She retired from them and came to join us, which is a riot, as a wellness tech. And my dad, you know, he's, he's the superintendent. He's anything you need done, my dad's there. Whether you need to be picked up at the airport or a light bulb changed, my dad is the first one to jump up and say, I'll do it. So love my family, love that this is something that we're doing together. So I think that that'll give you some color commentary to the background to some of the comments. I'll, I'll say as we, as we march our way through this five domains of the business wins and learns. 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 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. 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 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, 53 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 document. 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.

Yeah, again, backstory is so important. You know, we talk about MVP3, mission, vision, premise, purpose and product. And you know, that's the framework which we operate. So I love the vision, you know, I love you sharing that, the vision and even just the leadership. You know, everyone who's on the, the older owner slash leadership team are absolutely committed to this, this business, to the, the mission that we are serving. And, and, and so I love that just thinking through the lens of the MVP3. So Dr. Steven, let's start with marketing. So when you guys started the business, well, wins and learns, right? We're doing wins and learns. So yeah, however you want to approach this, but I always think you know, you guys had to build out the off. Build out the clinic. You had to do all these things. So what lessons did you learn just in the building out, like, from the hiring of builders that you. I mean, for a chiropractic office, we could. I mean, you and I, we started chiropractic offices, but, like, I don't need much. I just need a couple chairs, a couple tables, and, you know, a phone that rings and works.

That was not the case with Bonfire Wellness. Talk about that. What.

What ha.

What'd you guys do? How do you make some decisions there?

I'm gonna wrap up. I'm gonna just be efficient and stay. Say things. So wins. The win was just the family coming together and manifesting a vision. Huge win. The wins were the actual finished product. The wellness center is spectacular. It's gorgeous. I mean, when you walk in, it's beautiful. It's a restored old barn that was, like, all exposed woods and beams. We restored it in such a way. We preserved some of that look and feel, but it just. It was a great vision that manifested beautifully. It's a beautiful space. Right? So. And I do believe that environment trumps willpower, as Rick Sapio late, great Rick Sapio always reminded us. So just creates this amazing environment that's. It's not medical, it's not a spa, it's a wellness center. Right. So. And it's. And, you know, it's something different when you walk in there, and it just sets the tone and energy, and I think it just really represents this very well. Beautiful branding, beautiful lighting. So a spectacular place. And people know when you walk in there, it's a. It's a professional environment that's just full of love and light and energy. And I think really the healing begins at the front door. So just a really amazing job there. And as far as, you know, the layout, there's some cumbersomeness to stairwells and poles in the way and, you know, limited square footage. It's still, I think, 3,500 square feet because of the way the modalities are sort of spread out around. There are some. Some limitations as far as flow, and there's some limitations with scheduling as far as, like, having enough footprint to have redundancies in some of the modalities. And that. That was a lesson learned is just to be able to think about how to optimize every minute, every hour, especially when you start talking about the cost of having RNs and NPS in there. And then the biggest learned. The biggest lesson learned was always, always review your contracts. And there was. There was some sloppy languaging in the contract, and that just wasn't scrutinized to the degree that I should have and, you know, others on the team should have, leveraging third parties, really scrutinizing that. And it was literally a misstep that ended up costing us 300, $350,000, which pretty much doubled the cost of the build out. So that, I mean, just that put a bit of a, you know, a drain on the OpEx, on the operating cash that we had budgeted for the project. So immediately, you know, the build out went to a million bucks, which was, you know, that's a. You know, every 350,000 helps, Dr. Pete. So that was cash that we were going to rely on for that first six months of, you know, having a full crew, full staff, and plenty of overhead. So lesson learned on that is always make sure that you are fully scrutinizing, you know, the fine print, the legal. The legalese. Because when there's something that is unclear, you end up splitting the difference. And that even that split was super expensive.

Yeah, it's a big lesson learned. But you know what I found. Dr. Stephen, I know you've seen this as well in your own story. While, you know, we learned a lesson. You know, I believe that these things happen for us, not just to us, and I believe that there's going to be so much good that's going to come out of that, even though that was a painful experience. And we. And like you said, you learned your lesson. I. I believe that good is going to come out of. Out of that for you guys. I think that for. For Cam as a. As a, you know, business owner and for just you guys as a family, you know, good is. And maybe some good has come out of that misstep, you know, and it was an expensive one. But I truly believe, and this has been my experience with all challenges that we face in business, whether it was a build out, because I had a build out situation. I built my first office and I got. I got. This guy stole money from us. You know, it wasn't 350, 000, but it was 35, 000 at the time. And I was trying to open my first office and every dollar counted, like you said. So it was. But I used it. It actually became a catalyst for me to grow the business and we had tremendous growth. And then, you know, the other challenge, it's tuition. Yeah, tuition. The challenges you face are just. That's how you learn, right? You Learn. So I'm sorry that that happened, you know, but at the same time, I know good's going to come out of it. Probably already has and it will continue to.

Yeah, I think we all sat up and paid attention. We probably just, you know, we, you know, it got our attention like, oh, okay, and another misstep. And here's why I'm sharing these lessons learned. I think it's very important for you guys to hear Dr. Pete and I talk about this is like if you get down on yourself because, you know, happens in your business, you make a mistake or like there's an oversight or whatever. It's like, don't think you're alone on this. This stuff is hard. Right. So there was a decision made to put some very expensive equipment on a credit card instead of just doing an SBA loan. Right. Which is they're very happy to finance equipment, you know, for a new de novo startup. Right. So, you know, it was another example of like, ah, man, now we have this on a credit card that's got a higher rate that we have to pay it down. And again, that strapped some of the cash that we had reserved. So guys, these are tactical errors, right, that I'm embarrassed to admit to, but I'm also, you know, I'll raise my hand and say I should have caught that in my own scrutiny. You know, not micromanaging, but, you know, just always pay closer attention because a fool, A fool and their money are soon parted. Right. So I looked at that and said, oh, you know, now I'm paying taxes on that. That was just a dumb move.

Yeah. So, you know, let's talk about, you know, some of the other wins, man. Like, I know that you guys are changing and saving lives in there. You're, you're, you're seeing just amazing things. You have. Do you have any stories, any. Any kind of clinical related outcomes? Because I know that, you know, Kim is a clinician. I mean, she's in. Like you said, she's been in at the darkest times with, with people with their babies and she's seen it all. But now you guys are, you're, you're doing this work. I don't know is right. Yeah.

I think every interaction is. Honestly, it's a new, it's new territory. I should, I should be clear that this wellness center, you know, yes, we offer IV nutraceuticals and supplements. We, we have lymphatic compression, we, we have red light therapy, cryo. Like, we have like everything, but we don't adjust. Right. So I just wanted to make sure people here is like, there's no chiropractic there. It abuts a chiropractic office, a great chiropractor. We send everybody over there to get their spinal nervous system checked. And for me, it was like, for me there, chiropractic is a backflip. There's no half backflips. There's no way I was going to have a chiropractic office in there. That wasn't a remarkable practice, which is in itself its own business, right? So it requires. Required enormous focus, and I couldn't half do that, right? So it was, let's set up right next door to a great chiropractor and send them over there, right? So I just want to be clear there. So the. The clinical side of it is we take a. Our staff are all professionals. These RNs and NPS are coming from the medical world. They all followed Kim over like the Pied Piper, because everybody loves to work with Kim. So having their, you know, their clinical experience be as allopathic as it gets, and then making that paradigm shift for them from outside into inside out, where Kim knew where we were going with this, understanding that our promise, our market promise was recovery and vitality and longevity. This is like, this is a different market promise than the PICU and NICU at Mass General, right? So it's like we had to teach them. You know, these guys were experts in delivery, right? So experts can find greater experts and people that follow sop, follow process and deliver, right? So. And do it all with love, intent, attention, compassion, and a smile, right? So incredible level of professionalism. But what they weren't used to was marketing and sales. What they weren't used to was having to generate business. Guess what? There ain't no shortage of sick and suffering dying babies trying to get into the best pediatric NICU and pick you in the world, right? So it's like there was no shortage of business, if you will, in the hospital, right? So you got to learn how to market and generate leads, and then you've got to learn how to convert leads to customers, right? So it's like the sales process. So I've had a lot of fun teaching them, first and foremost, the paradigm. Shifting the paradigm, Dr. Pete. From outside in to inside out, and all of the language that comes with that, knowing that they had a slant in that direction personally, in the way they were living their lives. But I had to change their language so that they can convey that to humanity, right? To the outward, to the marketplace. So when you ask about, you know, clinical. Yeah, Every single interaction is going upstream and teaching people about above, down, inside out versus outside in. So there's wins everywhere. They are definitely shifting everybody's power paradigm and the resultant clinical changes that come from that. From the marketing side of it, if we're staying with that construct, internal, external and digital marketing, it's about getting the narrative right, making sure that they're clear on our ICP and just recognizing that this business is going to start with a strong referral base, right? So it's like we've got a community that we're part of and that we've getting so much support from friends and family members. It's been extraordinary, right? So that grew the business immediately right out of the gates because we've been such strong points, you know, participants and members of this community. It was leveraging all those relationships and being able to deliver over, deliver value, which was just awesome. My, I got a text during this recording. My pastor is there right now with his wife, which is just awesome. To see that text come across and be able to say, oh yeah, that's just so awesome. So just taking care of the people in the community, that's internal. External. I'm sure we'll go down and do something at the church, right? So be external. We'll get out there. My sister is magic with people. She'll be one of the most popular people you'll ever meet in your life, which is, you know, something. One of the reasons I love her, one of the many reasons I love her. Everybody likes my sister and everybody loves my sister, right? So it's the same thing with my brother. Everybody loves my brother, Everybody likes my brother, right? So that getting them out into the community, they're natural sales people. We're all my father's children, right. My dad's an unbelievable salesperson, right. So if we're breathing, we're promoting. So they're, you know, they're just put them in the mix, might get my sister out there and she's going to turn that energy into potential new clients and customers, right? And then digital. My brother runs the digital. He's got a great team with his multiple businesses. So of course it's internal, external and digital marketing. And digital marketing in this space, man, it's, you know, SEO is critical and you know, Google Ads, Google, Google AdWords. It's just, it's incredible that, you know, you can, you have to become a master at ads in such a specific marketplace.

Well, I loved hearing you say all that and I love that you're able to be an influencer with education. You know, we know how important education is. We like to say, you know, people, we charge a tuition, the adjustments are priceless. So you're paying for your education and, you know, you're doing that by educating the staff, the nurses, the nurse practitioners, the team, so that then they can go ahead and educate the, the public, the people that are coming in to Bonfire. And you're taking people that have spent decades in the allopathic model, like you said, and bringing them into a vitalistic model, which, what an amazing transformation. I love that you are influencing that and them in the ways that you are and that I couldn't think of a better role and a place for you to be in terms of helping this, influence this business in the right direction. So last question I have for you, Doc, is, you know, obviously looking back is one thing, but looking ahead, what do you guys look? What's, what's on the horizon? What are we, what are we aiming towards? What, what are our priorities, you know, in these next six months, this next year, you know, thinking in terms of now, next, and ultimately what would you say are, you know, are.

What are we trying to accomplish? Yeah, I love that question. So, you know, two things offering in people, right? So the offering is we knew we wanted to go into the marketplace with two levels. We wanted to have a membership level where people could come in off the street, like off the street, off the shelf wellness and have services provided that we know everyone needs every, you know, every day, so to speak.

Right.

And then there would be more of a prescriptive recovery oriented where we'll do, you know, testing, so it'll be more diagnostic oriented with prescriptive direction as to, you know, what they should be doing. So that's the next iteration for the business. We're going to roll that out now that we've worked out the bugs of our process, procedure scripting, staffing, et cetera. The second step, what's for the Future, is now fleshing out the professionalism of our business team. We need a business office manager to free up my sister so that she can do more marketing, which is, you know, she should be, she should be on the floor or on the street. You know, she's just magic with people, right? So that's where we need her. So we need to support her with the. Right. Get her out of the back office, get her off of the computer screen, right? So we need to have that business office manager. Sound familiar? Right. So the most important role that you can bring into the business. I think that that's, you know, that's really a big part of what we're doing. And then, of course, bringing a fractional CFO in so that we have all the financial reporting systems that we need so that, you know, my cousin John's great with numbers and he can be the point of contact for that person and report to our team. But having that, that reporting system done in such a way that we can be really informed, we have all the visibility and resulting accountability to optimize the business. Right? So like we teach in the remarkable practice, it's all about operationalizing, professionalizing, optimizing the business. Business is business. People are people. So I'm useful in this place because I can bring everything that I do in the remarkable practice from, let's call it a consulting posture and teach them, you know, how to optimize the business, right? So first operationalize it. Make sure you have systems in place for everything, attraction, conversion, retention, team building, and collections. And then professionalizing it, making sure that you surround yourself with a players who are as good, if not better than you in that role. And then we can spend all of our time as owners optimizing the business and making sure that we drive not only more productivity, but more profitability out of that business.

Well, Dr. Stephen, thanks for just taking this interview with me today and sharing some lessons learned from a new business you launched here in the last six months. Lessons learned and it looks like, you know, great things are ahead for you guys as well. So I'm excited to make a trip back up to Boston and, and to get, get back to Bonfire. I still get text messages from them. So their, their marketing is working. It's their, their scad or whatever they're using for their, their messages. It's coming in and I'm reminded the specials are running, so. And they're doing a great job with that. So I look forward to coming back again.

I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize just our team. My brother, my sister, my cousin John, everybody doing an excellent job as a leadership team. The team members that we have, the nurse practitioners, the RNs, magic, the people that are all the support of our wellness techs, my mom and dad, right? And all of our, you know, just our supportive friends and family all around in our community, just, it's been incredible. It's led to the growth of the business, the success of the business. I know it's, it's already successful. I know it's going to be wildly successful. Maybe we'll have multiple. It'll be a multi site that we've built to one day either, you know, have all of our family members, everybody can run a Bonfire outlet and maybe one day build it to sell it. So it's been exciting. And I'll be back and, and I'll give us an update and let you guys know how things are going at Bonfire Wellness.

So in. In terms of how we teach here, guys, it's launch, build, scale, exit. We just did an interview with Dr. Stephen, who has just launched, went through launch, and they're transitioning into the build stage. Look forward to revisiting this as you guys go from build and then build into scale. It's just awesome. And thanks for the time today and for all of you who are regular listeners to our program. You know, whether you're in the season of launch or build, scale or exit.

We'Re here for you.

We're here to serve you. And you can see we're not just talking about it. We're experiencing. We're doing this day in and day out. And Dr. Stephen, you know, you showed just even today, like, this is how close to home it hits. We're in it with you guys and it's an honor for us to be with you on this podcast every week. So thanks for tuning in and look forward to being together next week. Until then, God Bless everybody.

Thanks, Dr. Beat.

Please stick around for more business insights from this week's bonus interview with our remarkable success partner dedicated to helping you more successfully help more people. Enjoy.

All right, welcome to this portion of the podcast. I'm excited, as always, to have Jeff Langmaid with us. Jeff Langmaid is the smart chiropractor behind the products of Spark and Patient Pilot. And I want to start with a story from my own clinical perspective, because I'm one that's very, very particular about how things get said to my clients, about what my practice puts out into the world for clients. And so anytime I get, you know, we get a lot of different things coming in from marketers. Hey, I can do this for you. I can do that for you. You know, whatever. We can bring patients, and we can bring patients in. And I'm always very leery of that because I'm like, no, I want it to sound like me. I want it to, you know, come from my voice. You know, if I put. I put enough stuff out over the last 18 years that if people have something that not sitting right, they're going to be like, what's this? It's just not going to be congruent with our message previously. And then I found patient pilot and Dr. Jeff here and I was same way. It's like, is this going to sound right? I like the concept, which we'll talk about in a second, but I liked the concept, I liked the technology behind it, but is it going to sound like me? And then I read some of the emails and I'm like, oh my gosh, I could have written these. Like these are exactly how I would write it. Awesome. Let's go. This is such a good product. So I really appreciate you for being the voice of those of us who are wellness chiropractor, family based chiropractors, people who do things that aren't just reactive care, but also appreciate the fact that people have stuff going on from time to time. So thanks very much for that. And I wanted to ask you the question, clearly that's how the product, the Patient Pilot product has been designed. I'll let you talk about the fact that it's a unique attraction tool in that it's not specifically for new patients who've never seen you, but for people who probably have seen you and are your ideal client because they've already been to you. So will you talk to the product of Patient Pilot a bit and what it specifically does for a clinic?

Yeah. Dr. Chris, thank you for having me on and thank you for paying the ultimate compliment to kick it off. One of the things I personally take pride in is, is writing great copy. Right. And writing stories, writing messaging that inspire people to take action, that engage with them and that meet them where they're at. And that's a, that's a difficult tightrope walk because we have, you know, us as the chiropractors and the patients and there's a massive gully and gap of knowledge between the two of us. So I really deeply appreciate what you, what you, what you said and love working with you because it's really what we're striving for, for. And as you alluded to, our goal is to help doctors move their net momentum more in the positive direction. Everybody thinks about new patient acquisition, but they forget about reactivations being just as important. You know, new patients plus reactivations minus your inactives give you your net momentum in a nutshell. So reactivations is an area where we have focused because exactly what you said. Many docs out there have been, you know, head down, bum up over a table for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years plus, taken care of and impacted hundreds, if not Thousands of people in their community, yet they're constantly still feeling the stress of needing more new patients. Now, I'm not saying reactivation, you know, new patients are a part of being a chiropractor from the day you start for most of us, until the day you end. But, man, lighten the load a little bit, right? When you do a little bit of work with those hundreds, if not thousands of people, by consistently communicating with them, many will raise their hand. If you look at yourself honestly in the mirror and say, as you have, and I've seen the benefit, I'm a good doc doing great work, and a majority of these people like me, not all will say yes and come back tomorrow. But as I continue to connect with them and message them and as we say, guide them on their journey to better health, some will raise their hand weekly, daily, monthly, and come back in. We think that's part of being a great chiropractor, just to start as a foundational principle, but it also is a really good business decision.

Yes, absolutely. And I love that you went through netmo so concisely there, because that's exactly what netmo is. And if you're listening to this, you're like, whoa, what was that equation? I gotta rewind there and listen to Dr. Jeff say that again. Your net momentum is, to me, the most important wellness metric for your practice. It tells you whether you're growing, whether you're flat, or whether you're shrinking and you hit it. Exactly. It's new patient acquisition, which new start acquisition, I will say, which is new patients plus reactivations, minus how many people are dropping out, which you have to be honest about that in your clinic. And you have to have a system around it equals your net momentum. And very few people have excellent reactivation processes around. I'm going to throw in one more thing about your copy, because you walk that entire tightrope and you do it in an email that can be read in literally 30 seconds. You know, they are so concise and tight. They're so, so good. So that's another factor that I've found really improves open rate. If people have opened one and it's short, they're going to open the next. And so let's talk a little bit about the behind the scenes, what the practitioner or their team will be able to see. Because honestly, we run our reactivation campaign through patient Pilot in my office, because I want to reach out to the people who are already engaging in our content and through your platform. We know who that is. Tell the Listeners a little bit more about that.

Yeah, we kind of jokingly on the inside and the company refer to a kind of X ray vision for your patients, clients, practice members. And what we mean by that is sort of what you described, which is we're actually able to track not only clicks, right, who's clicking to either come back in, ask a question, refer a friend, learn more about a body signal or a symptom that they're experiencing. Every time somebody clicks on one of those buttons in the emails, the practice, the provider receive a text and an email notification. That in itself is a big leap from just sending stuff out and hoping for the best. So there's a real time feedback loop that allows the practice to be more proactive based upon the engagement of that patient. But we take it one more level and where the X ray component really comes in is we also track those that are we call highly engaged who's consistently opening those emails and those messages. So, and we build what we call a smart patient recall list off of that so that you and your team have the opportunity to call down a patient recall list not just based upon the fact that they haven't been seen in X amount of time, they might be totally disengaged, but actually based upon engagement. Now why does that matter? That just basically helps the team be more efficient and more effective with their time. If you're making an outbound call to somebody that's been engaging with your content, that's a higher likelihood of conversion of connection on that call than somebody you're just calling blindly based upon a date in the past. So the specificity around that and really helping a team be more efficient and effective is what we're about now. Many patients will take care of the process for themselves. If they're clicking and you have online scheduling, we'll link right to that online schedule. Or if you don't, we build a dynamic landing page. So we'll take care of docs one way or the other. And many patients take care of the process themselves without any intervention from the practice. But for those practices that really focus on having great systems and great processes, we I'll pat ourselves on the back and say, I think we have really the best system for patient reactivation specifically that empowers the practice to not only be proactive, but to be super consistent and to be efficient and effective with their time.

That's. That's exactly it. I think the practices can utilize very easily the information that you give to create their own reactivation campaign beyond just the messages that are going out and I appreciate you for that. That's how we as the remarkable practice, help more people, help more people is by having our content and our coaching and connecting with success partners just like you guys that help further that mission for us. So here we are, we're recording this In June of 2025, you know, smack in the middle of people just got through May in the early part of June, which sometimes gets wonky with, with, you know, attraction in general. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But that school, they can really throw family practices for loop for sure. Talk to the, talk to people about a how do they get in touch with you and B, why would it be a good idea to do this sooner than later?

Yeah, you can always connect with us at the smart chiropractor.com Again, that is the smart chiropractor.com that's the easiest place to connect and we're very available across all social media channels. But the smartchiropractor.com is the easiest place to learn more and to get started. And whether you're listening to this and it's still Q3, maybe we're rolling into Q4, I just would encourage everybody listening, make it a rock for you, the business owner, the practice owner, make reactivations a rock for you this quarter. Regardless of whether it's Q3 or Q4, whether you use our system or whether you want to implement your own, we're going to help you do it faster, easier and better because we're experts in it. It's what we do all day and we have a team that works only on this. So, you know, but one way or the other, I'm going to encourage everybody listening make it a rock this quarter for you, the business owner, to implement a patient reactivation system. 1. Your coaches will thank you because as you go through those KPI scorecards, you'll be able to report things more accurately, more clearly and you're going to have growth. If you are somebody listening to this podcast, you're interested in business growth. Maybe you're on the verge of coaching, maybe you're a future coaching client. Maybe you've been actively involved for, for a decade plus. The bottom line is you're here because you want to impact the lives of more people. So do it. And don't forget about the hundreds, if not thousands of people that you've already taken care of. So my big encouragement to everybody listening is make it a rock for you to institute a patient reactivation system and program. If you want to build it yourself, you can certainly do it. But if you want to do it faster and easier, we're happy to be a success partner and help you do that. So you can Visit us@thesmartchiropractor.com I love it.

I'm going to leave it right there. That's exactly what people need to do. Thanks so much Dr. Jeff for being a success partner and having such a great product for people so we can have helped them go out and impact more folks. Thanks so much.

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 connect with us personally, direct message us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Now go and be remarkable.