EP 599: Scaling Success: Stephanie’s Journey to Freedom in Practice with Dr. Stephanie Zgraggen

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life you've always dreamed of. This, this is the Habit Based lifestyle podcast with Jesse Jewel. This is the habit based lifestyle where you can access your full potential right now. Finally break free from destructive habits that dream life. If you want it, you can.

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Welcome back to the Habit Based Lifestyle Podcast. I am your host, Jesse Yule. Today I'm sitting here with a very special guest, Stephanie Zregan. She is a chiropractor. What else would we call all the, all the other hats you wear? Business Freedom specialist.

I hormone specialist, functional medicine, clinical nutrition. You know, I like to do a lot of things and then vacationer.

That's. Yeah, I added in the freedom specialist. So if, if you guys don't know. So Stephanie is a client inside of the Habit Based Lifestyle. I met her, man, it's been close to a year, a year ago we've been working together and she came into the program. She's already been very successful on what she's doing, but she wanted to take some of the, the program she was helping other practitioners with one on one. She wanted to make her program more scalable, more so she could continue to have more freedom in her life. But Stephanie, tell us a little bit about like what got you started in the industry and then kind of like I know, you know, you used to own a, a practice and then how you transitioned from that to doing more of the stuff you're doing now.

Yeah, absolutely. When I initially got into clinical practice, I had a high volume chiropractic, massage therapy, nutrition office and I was working my butt off and I was tired and I ended up selling that practice and starting over. And I kind of thought about, you know, what was starting over. I can make this anything I want to be, you know, in, in my mind what would be my ideal situation. And for me it was working less hours, being able to do more of a, I call it a concierge style service to my patients where I could spend more time with them because that's what people are complaining about. Doctors don't Spend time with us. They don't listen. So. So spend more time with patients. Work on more the clinical nutrition side, functional medicine side of things. Just have become an expert over the last 20 years in natural female hormone balance, detoxing, detox pathways, digestive fatigue, you name it. And that's pretty much my clinical practice these days. I've got two offices, one in Atlanta, one outside of Charleston, South Carolina. And I work about two and a half days a week seeing patients these days, which has been lovely. Yeah.

And one of the. Know if you guys are listening to this, one of the challenges. I remember having one of the first conversations I had with Stephanie. She's like, I only work two and a half days a week. And I was like, well, have you ever thought about teaching other people how to only work two and a half days a week? And kind of like a light bulb went off for her where it was almost like I kind of challenged her to that. But what was really cool is she. She stepped into that, you know, this last year and been able to build something out that really, you know, it's easy to teach people how to work harder and work more hours. That's what everybody else is already doing. But what Stephanie's really been able to do is package and position a program that gets people to work much smarter. I think the hard thing in the space right now is, you know, what everybody else is teaching is. It's like, hey, just. Just do this and work more. But she's been able to actually create a program that allows you to have more freedom and have more of a way to make income without necessarily putting in a ton more hours of work. So can you talk about, like, why you're so passionate about that?

Yeah. And. And that challenge is why I said yes to you, Jesse. So it was a challenge to be able to help other practitioners get to the level where I'm at. And to be perfectly frank, I'm in a number of just Facebook groups for chiropractic women. And that's the biggest complaint I'm hearing is everybody's burnt out. They're not wanting to work as many hours. So I think in chiropractic school, we're given this paradigm that you have to work hard, you have to work all these hours, you have to see patients. And of course, if you're just doing chiropractic care and just seeing your patients one on one in a brick and mortar practice. Yes. That is all you have at that point is if you're not there and you're not working, then you're not getting paid. But I have developed a system for myself and now I'm teaching it to other practitioners of how we can create a more of a hybrid model practice where you can keep your brick and mortar, but you can also add a virtual element or a group element to teaching nutrition. That's been just my bag of tricks. So I'm teaching doctors how to do nutrition, their practice, and even if you've not done any nutrition, I can teach you how to institute a detox program into your office within eight weeks or less, where you have a systemized program that's running, that you're running or your staff is running and you're creating income, you're helping more people. I mean, our patients are buying these products and programs anyway. You know, we are the experts in that. We need to kind of take that back. I think.

What have you, you know, so you know, what have you noticed the last four years in your industry that maybe was different, you know, eight years ago or even 12 years ago. What have you noticed is different?

I think a couple of the big things that are different are people are wanting to get out of insurance and that's been just kind of a hot mess, for lack of a better word, with a lot of practices. 12 years ago I stepped away from taking insurance and I've been 100% self pay practice for 12 years. I can tell you it works. I save myself so much time. You don't need as many employees or staff to just hunt down the funds. And when you can position yourself as an expert and have tools and programs and systems that other people don't have that actually work, the patients are willing to pay for that. You know, everyone says, oh my patients are insurance, they will pay for that. Yes, my last practice was mostly insurance and a lot of those people came along with me and they're now paying cash and they're self pay for everything.

Why do you, why do you think that is that people have, you know, kind of transitioned from it always just being about insurance to now they're looking for alternative care, alternative treatments.

I think the biggest thing is that they're not getting the help that they want. I mean, literally just before our call today, I spoke with a woman who, who needs some thyroid help and she had some questions for the doctor. She said, hey, can we take. And she did a little research on her own. Hey, can we do these additional labs? The doctor pretty much told her she was crazy. So like I think patients are being gaslit by practitioners sometimes or they're not getting the labs or help that they want. So they're seeking other alternatives for that. And for those of us that are in the clinical nutrition, functional medicine realm, we have a big opportunity to be able to help these patients.

Yeah. And you know, kind of what I look at is the last four years, what's changed is that I think people are looking for other answers that they're not getting from the traditional medical model now more than ever. And I really believe that chiropractors have the opportunity to kind of step into that. I, I think you are really early in doing that and that's why I think, you know, you're having the success you've had. But I also think that, you know, you're kind of a pioneer when it comes to really, you know, being one of the first that started that, which has been pretty cool. But the fact that you're able to teach people how to do that, you know, but how to have a system in, in doing that, can you tell, you know, can you tell the audience a little bit just about like, hey, what are the things that you're helping people with as far as programs? You know, Detox I know is a big thing, but like what are the specific programs you're offering?

Yeah, I offer teaching doctors and practitioners how to implement a done for you detox program into their practice. And that's the biggest thing that I hear from practitioners is I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to make copy and graphics and everything else. So I teach practitioners from start to finish how to do it step by step. It's all self guided. And you've got calls with me for that program. But within six to eight weeks you literally have a done for you program that you're already running within your clinical practice, which is amazing. Every clinician that's been through my program thus far, they've made their investment back within their first launch. So. And it's something you can keep doing over and over again. So it is a residual turnkey, rinse and repeat type of style and I've created two versions of it. If you have a brick and mortar office and you want to just do all of your programs in house, you can do it for your in house patients. If you want to get more virtual and start to learn to do more virtual, work with patients and use marketing tools to get patients from all over the country, at this point you can do the virtual program which would show you exactly how to put it together from a virtual perspective. So I have Two options for that. I still teach practitioners how to run functional lab work on patients, how to read that, basically how to do what I'm doing in my own clinical practice.

That's awesome. And so what. What is. Like, I know you talk about working two and a half days a week, but, like, what is this model really helped you with and. And be able to see differently just by being able to do this versus being kind of stuck in the traditional chiropractic model.

Yeah. Doing this model has allowed me to relax more into my practice. I'm not running from patient to patient. I'm not exhausted at the end of every workday. I get to choose my own hours and do my patients accordingly. And I love being able to teach other practitioners to do that. There's practitioners that say, hey, I want to do things with my kids. I want to go to their sports games after work. You can create your own hours for that. I think that's the beauty of it. And then you're basically buying back your time to do whatever it is you want to do, whether it's vacation, whether it's. Spend more time with the kids, whether it's, you know, be more involved in community activities in your church, whatever that might be for you.

That's awesome. Yeah. So if you guys don't know, Stephanie's on vacation like, every other week. You know, she rubs it in to everybody else in our program. So I get to. I get to see that. I get to be reminded of that every week. So.

You know what, Jesse, though? Here's the thing. There's not a lot of people at my age doing what I'm doing, and it's kind of lonely. I honestly want other people to be doing this, too, so I can go travel and go on cruises and vacation with other people, too.

Maybe. Maybe we need to start, like, a mastermind group where you just go on vacation every other week.

I'm fine with that.

All right, so let's talk a little bit about. So you come into the program, you're building it out, but you've also used this for your marketing. How has this helped you? We'll start with your kind of original business for marketing. How has that benefited you? And just, like, what are some things you've learned just about yourself with that?

Yeah, the program has taught me different tools to use for, like, just online social media marketing. We were doing a little bit of that before, but I appreciate that this is just an organic, grassroots style of system that you're offering for working on social media, which has been Great. And once you know the system, you can kind of implement it for whichever you want. I'm using it now for my own clinical practice. We're using it now for our build up, build up programs that we're doing. So it's been really good to just have a new, fresh eyes and a new system from it. So I've really enjoyed that piece of it.

And what are the, like, what are the type of clients you get doing this versus maybe old traditional ways used to market, you know, when you had your chiropractic offices.

My first practice, we did a lot of going out into the community and doing hands on events where you're literally in front of people, meeting them, shaking hands. I live in the south, so I think some people appreciate that piece of the puzzle. But this has taken it more online, more virtual, which has been nice. I still get a lot of referrals. So just referrals from other patients is a really big source of just new patients. And remember, I don't want to work that hard, so I don't want to do too much. I can't get too many patients because I don't, I don't have a huge, too big of a wait list. But yeah, just being online and having the tools to consistently be able to market when I want has been, has been great.

That's awesome. And what has been like, kind of the implementation for you doing that, like the system, like, has it been simple or like, you know, because I know some people are like, well, I don't want to dance around and do videos. I don't want to, you know, do any of that. But what has that been like for you?

It's been pretty easy. The. I think probably the biggest challenge that I had was doing reels and learning how to do my own video because I always would like to be behind the scenes for things. I like to be the director of things. I don't want to be the face necessarily. So getting my face out in front to make reels, you definitely made me step out of my comfort zone for that and I appreciate you for that. But other than that, that's probably the hardest thing I did, as opposed, you know, from the marketing side was make reels and videos of my face for sure.

And you didn't have to do that very often either. So.

No.

What has been, what would you say has been like the ROI for you just from getting clients for your specific, you know, business that you're working on?

Yeah. With this program, I've pulled in some patients even not Necessarily wanting to or trying to for my own clinical practice. So they've just seen what we're doing online and getting inquisitive and asking questions. So from my own personal practice it's grown that and then specific more specifically for what we've created with the doctors and the programs, that's been a great tool to really reach out to meet more people and so start adding patients, sorry, not patients, but doctors to those programs. And my return has been great. I know that with the system we've created in my online programs, those are going to be more turnkey for myself and keep going. Where before I had was working with those doctors one on one to teach them what I knew and step by step how to implement like a detox program. But now since this is all online, it's taken me out of it much more and put them in the driver's seat of doing a lot of self guided work instead but still getting all the information and the systems.

Nice. So essentially you took your one on one model, you made it more scalable. As you were building that out, you were able to even get clients for, you know, the nutrition side of your business. And now you kind of have this residual model that you're able to cash, you know, get cash for so you can go on more vacations pretty much, you know, pick some other things. So think about it like guys, what, what other marketing out there can you literally market to two different demographics from one place? Like it's, I don't know anywhere else you can do that. I, I haven't, I've yet to find a place you could go after the consumer and go after another business. I don't. Do you, do you know anywhere you can do that?

No. And it's kind of funny too because now that you mentioned that I'll have weeks where I'm, I'm focusing on patients or you know, I'm doing my own detox program for my clinic and that's the stuff I'm posting. But then I've got practitioners messaging me wanting to know about too. So even when I'm directing it to someone specific, I've got other people kind of cross referencing that. So that's been nice as well.

It's cool. So talk to me about, you know, I know for you you're super passionate about teaching other doctors like this model, this program. But like can you, can you talk a little bit more about your just your program, the results clients are getting in it from the work you guys have been doing?

Yeah, yeah, like I mentioned for the programs you're up and running in about six weeks, everything is done for you. So even, even if you've never done nutrition or don't have the confidence of how would I even run a detox program? You know, how do I, what am I doing? Am I using supplements? Am I using companies? Who am I using? Everything is answered. Walking patients through a program, contraindications, how to troubleshoot patients so you'll have the confidence to run your first group program out the gate. All the stuff that I spent years learning on the fly and in the hot seat, all that knowledge in 20 years of clinical practice is already within the program. And not only that, I've given you step by step guides on exactly what you need to be doing ahead of time, week by week. And there's handouts. Everything is already created for you. So all the PowerPoint presentations, all the newsletters you literally copy and paste, and you can use my exact model. So everything that I've created that I use in my own clinical practice to be successful, I'm giving to you to use during the program. So I think that's probably the beauty of it and what makes it different. And this is all clinically based. So as far as these programs go, I've been doing this 20 years. On average, my patients lose 10 pounds in 21 days. They double their energy, they're sleeping better. And I have a questionnaire that you can use for them, and it basically is all their symptoms of toxicity. And on average, we decrease that score by 55% within three weeks, which is huge, because if 55% of their symptoms are gone in three weeks, they're going to be more prone to continue to work with you, to refer other people to you. I mean, this program is literally a marketing tool for so many of the practitioners that I work with.

Wow. Okay. And then, you know, I know the big thing with roi, that's what everybody's into nowadays. But, you know, talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah. Every, every practitioner offices have been through this program and finished it and done what I've asked them to when they do their first launch. They've made their investment back and more. I have one practitioner that made over $25,000 on their first launch. So, yeah. Was that a good, a good investment for them? Absolutely. And they're doing it in groups because once again, if we're doing one on1 adjustments, one on one patients, it's time for money. Nowhere else are you going to be able to put people in a group format and earn that kind of income and help as many people without doing it in a group, in my opinion.

Nice. So if people are interested in your program, they want to find out more about you, like, where can they get in touch with you?

Yeah, I'm Googleable. You can find me if you can spell my last name. But if you want to check out my website, it's doctors of gregon.com. i'm on Facebook, Instagram, the Twitter. Now it's called X. Whatever it is, we do TikToks, we do it all. But yeah, if anyone is interested, I'm happy to have a conversation, see if it might be a good fit for you, and go from there.

Hey, guys, if you're, if you're trying to find Stephanie, you can just go to the Show Notes. There's a direct link to her Facebook page and Instagram. You can maybe also look her up in your favorite local cities, like best places to hang out. She might even be on there too. So.

Well.

Hey, Stephanie, any last words to maybe a chiropractor who's thinking about working with Habit Based Lifestyle? They're not sure if it's going to work on their business. Like, what would you tell them?

I'd say take the plunge. I mean, you're, you're easy to work with. You have a very set system for people to use and you're willing to work with them to make sure that they're taking the steps necessary to get the results they want. So I think that's the biggest thing. I mean, they can't, they can't do anything. Just like we're asking our patients to do work. But if they're willing to put in the work and the effort, they'll see some results for sure.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, hey, we appreciate you at Habit Based Lifestyle. We love having you in our program and just showing us that, hey, you know, you can have more freedom. You know, as you get older, you can, you can have more freedom. Like, I think most people think they're just, you know, working themselves into the corner. They're never going to get out of the prison they got in. But like, you're showing everybody that that's actually possible. So thank you so much for being on today.

Thanks for having me, Jesse. I appreciate it.

All right, guys, if you want to find out more about habit based lifestyle, you can go to the Show Notes and you can simply click Habit Based lifestyle and business secrets. You can be part of our Facebook community again, if you want to have a conversation with Stephanie about maybe adding a detox program to your business, to your chiropractic office. Just go to the Show Notes and click a direct link to her and then have a conversation. Let her know that you found her through the Habit Based Lifestyle Podcast. Until next episode, have a great week.

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life. Live the life you've always dreamed of. This this is the Habit Based Lifestyle Podcast with Jesse.