Dr. Vince | Top Doc - Dr. Tim Steflik

Okay, today on the show we have Dr. Tim Stecklick, and just want to thank him for coming on. Doc, how you doing today?

Doing fantastic.

Awesome, awesome. And now You're in Florida, is that correct?

Yep. We have a couple offices over on the east coast of Florida.

Okay. On the east coast. Got it. So what, what cities are those in?

Uh, so we have Palm Coast, which is in Flagler County. And then we have, uh, Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, which is Volusia County. Uh, it's right across from Orlando if you head towards the beach.

Okay. Awesome. Awesome. And so, and how long have you been in practice?

So I graduated 2011 from Palmer Chiropractic College in Port Orange, right here in Florida. And jumped right into practice right after. So coming up on 8 years here soon.

Okay, okay, awesome. So how did you choose that location? I don't— because you're not, you're not from Florida, is that correct?

Yeah, so my family actually, I think, wasn't born and raised in Florida, but my family's from The area. My dad was born and raised in Flagler County, and my grandpa was a farmer up there. So we kind of came back to the area to go to school there because of family. My grandma was living down here by herself. And after I graduated, I just loved the area. So we looked at practices for sale. We wanted to hit the ground running. I know some people— I've done startup clinics myself. But we decided to buy out a practice from somebody, and it was right here in Edgewater, and that's how we got started. So, right opportunity at the right time.

And so when you bought this practice, how would you describe it in terms of, you know, the services it offered and volume, that type of stuff?

Yeah, so Edgewater is a small town. Edgewater, we got about 20,000 year-round residents, a lot of snowbirds, so it fluctuates in the wintertime. We get a lot more people coming in. Sleepy fishing town, boat building industry, a lot of blue-collar workers here. And practice was seeing about 120, 130 visits a week in the summer. The winter, you know, you— No, in the winter, sorry. In the summer, it would drop, you know, sometimes below 100 visits a week. And yes, you know, little steady practice, one chiropractor, one front desk, see patients 4 days a week and plug along, you know. So that's— it was a good practice to start with for sure.

Awesome, awesome. So was this doctor— Just, he was an older doctor and he was retiring, or was he moving to another location or what?

No, part of what I liked about it was that he wasn't retiring. He was— his wife— he was moving back up to Illinois, up to Chicago. And so, um, he was in his probably late 30s, early 40s. And so the practice was still, you know, a lot of times retiring doctors, the equipment's outdated, the policies, procedures are outdated, the practice is kind of dying. Um, this case, it was, It was a healthy practice, and so it was part of why we liked it.

Yeah, absolutely. And so it was whatever, $120 a week, and then so what does that practice look like now? So that was more straight chiro. Are you offering more services other than just chiropractic at this point?

Yeah. About 5 years ago, so 2 or 3 years into practice, we, we kind of just expanded your numbers with number of new patients, number of patient visits, and grew that side of the practice for a couple years, hired an associate. And then we started adding more services. We added more medical services. So hired our medical director and a nurse practitioner about 5 years ago. And started offering hyaluronic acid injections, the rooster comb shots, Gelsyn, Synvisc, different types of DME bracing for knees, for backs, expanded more with our physical therapy department, you know, massage, trigger point injections, B12 injections, weight loss, neuropathy. And then about 3 years ago, we got into the regenerative medicine using stem cell treatments. And so, yeah, we've expanded services for sure with all of that.

Yeah. So in that process, how big is this clinic? Because you had a lot of— added a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

How big is your clinic, or did you expand?

Clinic's not— it's not huge. So we're 3,000— right around 3,000 square feet. We moved locations and then had to build out the building a little bit bigger after we moved. Yeah, there's a lot packed into a little area.

Yeah.

And I think we have about 10 or 12 staff in the office full-time with, you know, MAs, CAs, chiropractors, nurse practitioners, front desk, case management, you know, some other positions in the office, massage therapists. And then we've got, you know, outside the office we have some more staff doing billing and other things, marketing.

Now, are you actively practicing or are you more running the show at this point?

So most of what I do is training. So I spend a lot of my time training staff, the chiropractors, the nurse practitioners, the marketing department. I do see some patients. Some patients I set aside a couple hours a week where I will treat patients that want to see me and just me. But yeah, most of my time is dedicated to the executive duties of the office, you'd say.

Absolutely. And so, so as you grew this practice, then did you just kind of stamp it and when you opened up the new location and just kind of, you know, kind of offer the same services, that type of thing?

When we moved locations?

No, no, no. When you said you had 2 locations, so when you added that?

Oh, right, right. Yeah, no, we actually did, um, so we, yeah, we did same thing. Yeah, kind of copy it. Um, but, um, same thing, you know, there's, there's pros and cons to starting up from scratch. Um, the con is the ramp-up time. Um, yeah, I mean, it can be a few months until you're profitable and you've got Employees to pay and bills, which, or you can purchase an existing practice. So, um, if you're going to purchase an existing practice, it's got to make sense with the numbers to say, you know, what's it going to cost us to start up versus buying an existing practice? If it's going to be close to the same, you can start with that immediate base and have that income, um, you know, from the get-go.

Mm-hmm.

And so, um, we did the same thing in Palm Coast. We found a doctor, he was retiring, had a healthy practice. Bought him out and then merged, you know, changed it over to same name, same logo, same services, same system, same protocol, same training, everything else.

Got it. Um, that's interesting because it seems like, you know, there's not as many younger doctors buying practices and, and, you know, kind of following that model versus— it seems like they kind of want to start their own thing. Yeah, it sounds like for you it really made a lot of sense to, you know, find a healthy practice that's already, you know, pumping revenue and then, you know, essentially just take it over and then put your own kind of stamp on it.

Increase that revenue. Yeah, so I mean, there's, like I said, there's definitely pros to starting up, but it's that if you have, you have to stick to a tight budget and you You know, you have time to ramp up, then good. But I got 4 kids, I got mouths to feed. So, let's go from the start.

You know, that's— I did 2 years as an associate for my father, and we kind of, you know, viewed how to grow the practice differently. So, I had started my own practice from scratch for the most part, and it is incredibly tough. And I think that, you know, you're already a good chunk of money in the hole investing— if you have the resources or at least the access to invest in an existing practice that already has at least a patient base, it seems to make a lot of sense for sure.

Yeah.

In terms of— so you were in the whole RegenMed thing. I mean, I know you just In the last couple years, you've kind of on the official side, but, you know, 5 years ago, I mean, you're one of the doctors, one of the few doctors I've talked to have been on that, you know, with the medical drug, you know, that whole thing for quite some time. Like, what, what, you know, inspired you to expand into that side of practice?

Well, you know, a couple things. So one was Uh-huh. The patients that were getting cortisone injections, they were getting knee replacements anyway, you know, they were getting some of these other services. We don't do cortisone injections, but they were doing other services in the other clinics because we didn't offer it. It wasn't something that we could help them with. And so the way to offer them is to bring them into your clinic and offer a better alternative. So they know they need, you know, with the knee, The American public knows, hey, I need a knee injection to make it feel better. Let's offer something better with less side effects and let's just do it ourselves. So that's, you know, I guess your primary focus in thinking of, well, let's do something that we can help the patient. They're going to get it anyway. You know, we can't stop that arthritis in the knee, so let's— Let's do something that will help them. And then the second reason was our clinic was growing. We were seeing more and more patient visits. From a business side, looking at the practice, we're looking at, okay, so we can ramp this thing up and see 400 or 500 patients a week, but our cost, our patient visit average, or visit average of what we're going to collect is not— It's going to stay the same. So the only way to grow it from a business side is to see a lot more people.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you can see a lot more people, but they're all going to, you know, there's wear and tear on the building. There's more staff you're going to have to hire for more people. There's, even with a really good efficient system, it's a lot more work. So offering these other services, yeah, you hire a few more staff and they're expensive staff, but Overall, your visit average is going to go up on what you collect per visit. So it made sense from a business standpoint, made sense from a treatment standpoint, and I kind of had a crossroads decision— go high volume or go towards offering more services.

I think that's so smart because the— I mean, I don't know if you agree, but in our profession there's this just this mantra of new patients, right? It's like, you know, we get hammered on Facebook, you know, different companies saying, hey, you know, we will get you new patients. But, you know, there's 3 ways to grow a business or practice. I mean, it doesn't matter. You can get more customers or patients, you can sell more stuff to the existing, or you can increase the, you know, the frequency of the purchases. So Adding it just— I mean, we have to have new patients, right? I mean, like, that's a no-brainer, but that's the most expensive way to increase revenue, right? Because—

Yeah.

Because of patient acquisition costs. And so you already have them coming in. It just makes so much sense to just, you know, I don't want to sound crude here, but sell more stuff.

Yeah, 100%.

You know what I'm saying? But in a more It's essentially help them more because they have more needs other than just, you know, the neck or the back condition. They have, you know, most patients that are— seems like that are, you know, focused on their health, they're kind of in that baby boomer range. They have knee issues and wrists and shoulders and all that type of stuff. So—

Sometimes you don't know where to start.

Yeah. That's funny. But I think that that's one thing I just stress it because I feel that from a business perspective, a lot of doctors aren't doing that. They're not essentially taking advantage of their existing patient base and essentially providing them more services that can benefit them. So that's very cool to hear. Yeah, you know, I mean, Anyways, so, well, let me ask you this. So obviously you are generating new patients. What— and it sounds like you have a marketing department. Like, what type of marketing stuff has, you know, worked for you and how do you get that consistent flow of new patients?

Well, so over the years we've changed it just depending on what our practice was like. And honestly, it's all worked. You just have to do it.

Mm-hmm.

Is what it seems like to me. So you just have to do it. You know, we did, when we were chiropractic only, we would do, you know, Massage a Teacher Day and bring in teachers. And we're going to massage the police department or the fire department, but screening, you know, screening-type events where we're bringing in a therapist, and those worked well. Or lunch and learns, you know, to some of the companies around, or, you know, community events. So those things all work good. We don't do those as much anymore because we have other types of marketing that brings in different types of patients that we're looking for as the practice has changed. So social media, you know, everybody knows that's important. You have to have that. Google Ads, that's important. That's the passive stuff. You don't have to do as much for that. They kind of just come in. So you have to have good follow-up with them, of course. So for us, we have a hierarchy of what's most important in our marketing department. For us, it's seminars. We do a lot of— do 1 to 2 seminars a week on regenerative medicine or peripheral neuropathy.

Mm-hmm.

Most of them are dinner talks. Some of them are at the library. Some of them are at the YMCA. And we rotate locations and topic. Topics around the county. Actually, we're doing, yeah, we're doing 2 to 3 a week between both offices, I guess.

Mm-hmm.

So that's our number one thing right now. We market that through mailers or Facebook or mailers or Facebook. We also have a marketer that does drop-ins to medical doctors' offices. So we do lunch with doctors' offices and get a lot of referrals from them. Um, and then they drop in once a month at these offices and make sure things are good and give us referrals. They do that with our attorneys as well too. So some personal injury marketing there. Um, and then further down the list, we have, um, our internal promotions. You know, it's there, you have the patients in-house already anyway. So we want to get referrals from them. Um, and that's creating games and fun things for patients and raffles and games for the staff as well too. And then at the bottom after that, we would say our social media campaigns and online campaigns. So a lot of different things, but they all work.

Yeah, that's awesome because I've always kind of gone by the mantra that if I'm going to go fishing, I want as many poles as possible, right?

Right.

I mean, you rent the boat and you're going to spend the time out there and all this money, you might as well bring as many poles as possible. It's kind The same thing with marketing, as many campaigns that you can have going or avenues and get a steady flow from each one. Seminars seem to be really working well. I know they are for my clients, just because with some of these cash-based services, and I don't know if this has been your experience, but they're going to pay $6,000 to $10,000.

Mm-hmm.

and they're coming in off a Facebook ad, that's a tougher, in my experience, a tougher close or sale, right?

Definitely.

Because you're kind of starting from ground zero, whereas, and I built my neuropathy practice with seminars, and versus you get 20 or 30 people in a room, or 50 or 100 or whatever it is, You're able to essentially position yourself as the expert in that niche. You're able to tell your story, educate them about their condition, about the stuff that is not working for them, why your approach is so unique. You also have the ability to, you know, address, hey, these are not covered— this is not covered by insurance and why. This is the kind of range. And so those after that, and you can do that in a prepared manner, right? So that you're putting your best foot forward. Then it's like the people that come in are there, they're prequalified, they're high-quality patients because they've heard your story. And, you know, it just, to me, they just make so much sense right now with some of these larger cash-based care plans.

Definitely, definitely agree with you right there. They're already coming into the office after the seminar, they're already They're already essentially sold on the product. So it's much easier. You've built the rapport with them and they, um, you know, they're going to understand that it's not free, that there's some cost involved and they're ready to move forward. So, yeah.

Um, so you're now with, with your neuropathy care plans, are you incorporating stem cells with that as well?

Oh, we are. Um, Yeah. So it's, and then honestly, it's not the most important part of the program, but, um, it does have some incredible benefit. And, um, also it, you know, it shows the value in the patient's mind because they, you know, stem cells, they see, hey, that's got a good value to it. So.

Yeah.

100%.

So shifting gears just a little bit, have you had mentors in your career? I mean, you're 8 years in, so you're relatively young in practice and you're doing really, really well. Mentors have always— they've been important to me. I don't know, so I'm just curious, have you had those? Have you utilized coaches or consultants or what's You know, how would you speak to that?

Yeah, so, um, first year in practice, I, I was definitely on an island by myself. I didn't do much of anything and we didn't see much growth. So, um, I did some coaching, um, and I've done that ever since because it's important. Um, and through that coaching and groups that I've been a part of, I've met and networked with a lot of other doctors and, um, that, you know, like-minded doctors that are are expanding and growing and, and big offices. And so, you know, through that I've developed a network of other doctors that we can ask questions to and learn stuff from. There's always more to learn from each other, and a lot of us are going through a lot of the same problems. So it's useful to, to talk to those other doctors that are experiencing the same things, and sometimes I can offer something to them and I can almost always gain something from them. And, you know, the cost of a seminar or a conference, you know, if it's a $2,000 seminar for a weekend, I just have to look at it as if I'm going to get one idea out of that seminar that's going to increase our profit by $2,000, it's paid for itself. And any seminar I go to, I can probably pull something out of there that's going to be worth at least that.

Great.

Usually it's a whole lot more. So yeah, it's absolutely vital. I mean, if you want to expand or grow, if that's what your vision is for your community, then yeah, you've got to be around those like-minded doctors and bouncing ideas off of each other.

Yeah, I mean, 100%, because, you know, in my career before moving into consulting, I had 4 coaches. Throughout that time. In fact, when I started my own practice, I really struggled. I mean, I was about— it was bad. It was close to turning off the lights time. I hired a coach and I went down because he was doing a 1-day seminar not too far from me. I said, I'm in trouble. What the heck do I do? He was like, there's riches in niches. I'm not going to say his I'm not gonna do it in this accent because one, it's terrible, I can't do it properly, and two, people would probably know who it is. But the point being is that's when I went into neuropathy and that's when everything changed. But I wanted to, and he had pointed me to who to go train under, and I would have never had that. And I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have that coach. In our industry, I feel like, and it's interesting, 'cause I transitioned into consulting May of last year. There's this, whether it's skepticism or resistance or whatever, to the concept of having a coach or consultant. I had one friend, he's like, man, I can't wait to like move in a consultant and kick up my feet. I'm like, what are you talking about? I work harder now than I did in practice, you know, because you're overcoming all this skepticism with doctors, and I just don't understand where it's at because it's like When, just like you're saying, you invest $2,000 in whether it's a seminar or a consultant, it's an investment in yourself. And if you're not willing to invest in yourself, you know, I feel like that manifests in whether people will invest in you, especially when you're asking for larger care plans.

Absolutely, 100% agree with that. I mean, if there's a— I've spent a lot more than, you know, $2,000 on a weekend seminar.

I can only imagine.

I've spent probably more on coaching and consulting after practice than I did on my chiropractic education. And, um, I would do it again, 100%. You know, there's, there's no doubt in my mind that I would do it again. And, uh, I'm going to continue to do it because it's vital to the growth. So, you know, if you're going to stop after all that money you've put into your chiropractic education, then your growth is going to stop. You're not going to get— I don't know. Not going to work. Yeah, I agree.

Well, you can either— when I talk to doctors, there's 2 options, right? Hey, you're a smart guy. You can figure it out, or you can learn from someone that's already figured it out and shortcut your path. That's really the decision. It's like, do I want to figure this out on my own and kind of run through the brick wall multiple times until it actually breaks? Or do I want someone to show, you know, give me the key or throw the rope over the wall so I can just climb over, you know, quickly without, you know, injury? But so you're 8 years in. What do you wish you had known? I mean, you've done obviously awesome and done really well. What do you wish you had known though when you were starting out?

Well, I wish I wouldn't have wasted a year without coaching or consulting, but it was the same, you know, I, I guess I had done everything by myself up until that point. And so I thought I could do it by myself and the practice was still, it was in the exact same spot it was when I took over for it. So the first year it didn't go down, but it didn't go up. And so I said, well, if I want to change, you know, that's the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.

Mm-hmm.

And it was the exact same decision I had to make. And what you just said is that, you know, I can probably figure this out, but it's going to take me 10 years to figure it out. And it's going to cost me more because on the back end, it's going to cost me all the lost income and revenue. So, you know, what am I going to do? Am I going to lose that money on the back end or am I going to pay it up here on the front end and then make it back? You know, 10 times over. And so, yeah, you know, finding a group or a coach or a consultant that you can trust and do well with is important, and associating with like-minded doctors, that's things that I wish I would have done a little bit sooner. I didn't wait that long. I know some people wait 20 years or longer. So I don't know.

Or even more now. Or never.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think, you know, and that like-minded group, I think, is critical too, right? To be around other doctors that, you know, ideally are in front of you, right? So that you can just kind of level up via osmosis and have someone that, you know, like you said, having a network that can— that you can ask and share and You know, sometimes, I mean, um, I don't know if you experienced this, but, you know, like when I had a big day in practice, I was very excited about it, but who do I tell, you know?

Right.

You know, or, you know, you had a $10K day or a $20K day, you're like, you know, you want to kind of celebrate. You can, you know, you can tell your wife and all that, but, um, you know, you're certainly not telling your patients, right? Because they're like, oh goodness gracious, this guy's making a lot of money. But having that network, I feel like, is kind of fun to obviously grow with, but share your wins with as well, so you can all kind of grow together.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely. I know you don't have a crystal ball, but I feel like we're in— I don't know that we're at a crossroads, but there's interesting things going on with regenerative medicine. It sounds like there's maybe some FDA movement that may or may not happen, but it sounds like they're going to be doing something. But where do you see our profession in 10 years? Again, obviously none of us has a crystal ball, but I'm just curious, you know, what your thoughts are on where it's at now and what changes we may experience over the next decade or so.

So, you know, speaking to our profession, you know, it is tough to say where we're gonna go exactly, but I mean, there's— it seems, I guess, almost a little more— I don't know, I haven't been around long enough in the profession to say, but it seems divisive as it's ever been, almost like politics. With some moving forward on certain, I guess, issues— not issues, but debates, you know, on how things should be done, and then others sticking with how it's always been done. And so I see as more and more treatments become available and doctors, you know, chiropractors realize what more we can do, that That gap will probably just widen a little bit. And, you know, it's probably not the best thing. It'd be great if we could all be on the same mindset and mentality, but the bottom line should just be what's best for the patient, you know. And so as long as that's kept in mind, that hopefully profession stays united enough where we have, you know, good rights and we're able to help our patients however we need to, whatever is going to be best for them. Things will change, no doubt, with stem cells and regenerative medicine in the next couple of years. You know, it's not going to stay the same.

Yeah.

There is going to be change, and, you know, we're going to have to find out what's best for our patients and work around that. You know, there's always ways for us to find a way to help out the patient and still, you know, be profitable doing it. Yeah, time will tell on that. We just have to be ready to adapt and change.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So, you know, just kind of wrapping things up, what would you say to a doctor, you know, other than, you know, considering a coach or consultant, to, you know, a doctor that maybe he's 5 years in or 10 years in and, you know, he's paying the bills, But he's not— he doesn't have the practice that he kind of envisioned coming out of school because, you know, you're recently enough out of school where that— I mean, we were in like this bubble, right?

Mm-hmm.

Chiropractic was going to save the world and we were the greatest things that walked the earth. And I remember when I graduated, I was at a party and they said, you know, hey, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I'm a chiropractor. And this look came over their face that I hadn't seen, right? And it was that essentially that looked like, hmm, and I was surprised. I was shocked, right? Do you ever, did you ever get that?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean, and so I was like, wait a second, I'm not the greatest thing to ever walk in this door. And so I feel like a lot of doctors I mean, if you just look at the numbers, right? I mean, the stats are like not great, right? The average chiropractor is making like $100,000 a year or something like that.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's pre-tax or post-tax or whatever. It doesn't matter. It's not very much. And so I think that there's a lot of doctors out there that they thought things were going to be a lot better. So I don't know, any words of wisdom for those doctors that they have a patient base, Patients like them, they're getting good results, but they're kind of, you know, knocking against some type of ceiling and they can't figure it out.

Yeah, well, don't wait because, you know, get the help. Talk to someone who's done it before. There's, you know, you can have the life you envisioned. It's possible. You know, there's even a lot of downers in the chiropractic profession who complain about insurance, who complain about staff, who complain about about, you know, whatever it might be, don't hang around those people. And hang around people you want to be like, and with coaches that, you know, have been there, have done that, so that way they can help you do the same. There's no reason you can't have it all, you know. So if there's something stopping you, it probably takes an outside eye to take a look at it and figure out what it is. And yeah, don't wait because the longer you wait, the longer you're going to have to wait to get results. So it doesn't happen overnight. Still takes hard work. It still takes all the other things, you know, grit, determination, training, lots of training, putting it in practice, follow-up. But if you don't start, you know— oh, I had someone tell me this the other day. I liked it. It was great. It was a patient. They said, let's put the S in start. Let's do it. And so I said, I agree, let's do it. Get it going.

That's funny. There was a book I really liked. This guy, his real name is Mark Ford, but he goes by this pen name Michael Masterson. Have you ever heard of this guy? And his, like, his best— he's written tons of books, but his best-selling book is called Ready, Fire, Aim. Yeah, I've heard of that version. Yeah, get some stuff together, but get going. You know, like, you can't get any type of result if you don't take some action, right? And then you can always tweak accordingly. So that's appropriate along the same lines. Well, hey, is there anything I haven't asked you that you feel is important? for doctors out there to hear?

No, I mean, yeah, I think you covered it all pretty well there. At least for what people might be looking at, I'm, you know, I'm always available too. If people want to look me up, I'm happy to talk to anyone who has questions or wants to know more about my practice. So yeah, it's a great world out there. Just got to Take advantage of it and stick together as chiropractors.

Yeah, 100%. Hey, that's super generous of you to offer. Do you want to reach out to you on Facebook? Is that a good place to—

Yeah, Facebook's good. If they just find my name, I'm easy to friend. And, you know, if I see it's another chiropractor, I always add them. So try to build a network of people there as well too. It's always good to Yeah, 100%.

Do you use LinkedIn at all? Just out of curiosity.

Yeah, so I've been getting into that with our social media. I've just been starting that. I haven't really been doing it, but I've— we're going to be using it a lot more in our office for patients and then also connecting on there. So yeah.

Okay, very cool. Very cool. Well, look, Doc, I just want to thank you for your time. I know that obviously you're busy with your practices and all that, but I think You know, your information you shared, I think, has been super valuable and hopefully will be really helpful for people listening to this.

Awesome. Yeah, thanks for the conversation.

Great. Awesome. So hang on just one second. I'll just wrap this up. Okay, everybody. So to, you know, as Dr. Timmons said, if you want to reach out to him, his last name is Steflik, S-T-E-F-L-I-K. Just reach out to him on Facebook. Please be polite and respectful. But I just want to thank you all for listening to the show today. I hope you got a lot out of this. Any questions, just put them in the comments below. Thanks so much and have an awesome day.