I Pay My Associates $11K/MO (Here's How) | The Arena Episode 48

My associates work 3.5 days a week. They've done one weekend screening in the past 14 months. Every one of them is on pace to outearn the average practice owner in the United States. Oh, and they've all signed a 5-year contract happily. So if you're an owner who's sick of thinking or saying, I can't find good associates, or you're finding good ones but you can't figure out how to keep them long-term, this is an episode you want to stick around for. Hey guys, welcome back to The Arena. I'm Dr. Travis Stewart and I own 2 multi-seven-figure businesses. One of them is my chiropractic practice in Boulder, Colorado. And my mission with this content is to help chiropractors make more money, reach more people, and change more lives. So if you enjoy this content, please subscribe to the channel and either share the episode with a friend or even better, take a screenshot and post it to your Instagram story. I'll reshare it and be super grateful for helping us grow the channel. Now today I'm going to pull back the curtain on exactly how we pay our associates, their base salary Plus their commission and bonus structure with real numbers and nothing held back. And more importantly, I'm going to tell you the 3 reasons I've found that A-player associates are willing to onboard to a practice and stay long-term. So let's get into it. Big idea number 1 here is that you have to have a vision big enough for their vision to fit inside, which means buying a house, paying off their student loans, starting a family, maybe owning real estate one day, maybe even owning part of the practice one day. You see, great chiropractors don't want a job. They didn't become a chiropractor to $250,000 in school debt, 8 years of education to go work for somebody else for a 9 to 5 for a salary wage. All right. They want somewhere worth sacrificing for, worth investing in. So your vision has to be big enough for their life to fit inside. They're an A-player. They're just not potentially cut out to be an entrepreneur. So they want something where they're sacrificing working anywhere else, owning their own business or being a 1099 contractor. However, They want to know that if they come work for you and come work alongside you and they take the vision for their life and their family and all of their dreams and fit it inside of your vision and your dreams, that they too can achieve some level of monetary success, some level of time freedom, and some level of optionality long-term. Keep that in mind. You have to be a good leader. You have to have a great vision and you have to allow their vision to fit inside of it. Hey guys, I know you're enjoying this episode, but give me one second. of your time. This is my shameless plug for the Chiro Ads Academy, where we're teaching docs how to bring their Facebook and Instagram ads in-house and generate repeatable, consistent new patients month after month without the headache, hassle, and expense of working with a digital marketing agency. It'll not only save you $30,000 a year, but it'll also give you outsized returns. It's the same exact system that we're running inside my multi-seven-figure practice right now. And last month, we brought in 80 new patients and generated $180,000 in revenue, with our primary new patient source being from our very own Facebook and Instagram ad system. This system's been tested, proven, and now installed into over 450 practices across the world, and it can be installed into your practice as well so that you can generate at minimum a 6x return on your ad spend. Click the link in the show notes if you want to watch a free training where I break down every single step of the entire system, and if you like what you hear, book a call so that we can see if this system We'll work in your practice. Click the link below and I'll see you on the inside. Thanks for your time. Back to the episode. As powerful as a vision is, it's only what attracts them to the practice, okay? It's not what keeps them there. So the first thing that's going to keep them in your practice is the compensation structure. We layer this in 3 layers. So the first layer, we have a base salary of $84,000 a year, and that comes out to $7,000 a month. What that buys is security. They're not sweating their rent, they're not sweating their living expenses. They've got a pretty good modest wage just from their base salary alone and gets them willing to sign on the line and onboard because they know even if they're not hitting the commission percentages or the team bonuses that they aspire to hit, they can still live a decent life. Now the next layer here is going to be the commission structure. So what we've found to work well is a 5% commission structure on all revenue collected. Okay, this is cash collected. This is not contracted revenue. So all revenue collected, they get 5% of up to $30,000 collected. After that, if they exceed $30,000, they get 8% commission. So what we did is we tallied up the number that we want all of our associates to be hitting in the office in order for us to continue growing and staying on pace for the growth that we know is possible for the business, and that was each associate collecting at least $30,000. So what we did is we incentivized them through giving them an 8% commission of all earnings after they exceed $30,000 collected. Once they get rolling, they earn more and more and more and more with no cap. So it's uncapped earning potential. That's what A-players want. They want great security, but they want uncapped earning potential. And that's exactly what this commission structure allows for. Now, next layer here is going to be the team bonus. This is Where I'll break down the math for you in just a second, but we have a team-based performance bonus, which means that we have revenue tiers or targets that are set, and every time we hit one of those targets, it unlocks another bonus payout. So we have the base salary, we have the commission, and we have the team-based performance bonus. What I feel like that does is the, the base salary buys the security, okay? The commission buys their effort. The team-based performance bonus creates championship-level camaraderie. Everybody is rowing in the same direction because we all have that same target of achieving the next tier of unlock, and everybody gets a piece of that as soon as we start to break through the PRs and the revenue targets that we have for the practice. They are rewarded for individual effort, and then they are rewarded for team-based effort. That's something that we found to work extremely well. I'll break down the tiers for you, but, uh, for us right now, it is July of 2026, our tiers start at $150,000 in monthly collections, which means that that is our floor. We do not want to collect anything less than $150,000 per month. Now, the floor can and will go up as we grow. The team-based performance bonus is something that can either increase as you grow or decrease, maybe if the practice retracts a little bit. So you always kind of want to stretch the possibility through the tiers of the team-based performance, but you also want to keep it attainable. So make sure that your floor is an attainable goal. $150,000, we haven't dipped below that in I don't know how long, which means that they are undoubtedly going to be hitting the floor of the team-based bonus. Keeps morale really high, keeps everybody excited. However, as you'll see in a moment, the tiers go up, which means that their earning potential increases as well. The tiers are $150,000 is the floor, and then it goes up in $20,000 steps, which means $170,000, $190,000. Each step adds another $1,000, so the top tier is $5,000 at $230,000 of revenue collected inside the practice. And the part that I'm proud of here is that we actually just implemented in the past few months Tier Plus. And what that means is that every $10,000 they cross, so in between the big $20,000 steps, we added $10,000 thresholds, which means that once they cross the $10,000 threshold, they also get an additional $5,000. $500. So instead of it just being in revenue collected or bust, what we did is we added the Tier Plus, which means that, hey, we break into the next $10,000 threshold and they're gonna go ahead and get that $500 bonus to them as well. And so the reason why we did that is obvious. We had a few months where we were literally like a few hundred dollars away from hitting the big revenue marker and they didn't get the bonus for, you know, $19,000 over the last threshold target. So we saw that We realized that that was certainly affecting morale, so we went ahead and made that shift right away. Okay, we want them to make really good money. We want them to be successful. This bonus structure, the entire structure here, is set up for the associates to win. So I'm going to pull up our actual tiers here so that I can break this down for you. So we had $150,000 floor. Below $150,000, there is no team-based performance bonus paid out. All right, and this is for our Q3 2026 bonus tiers. $150,000 to $150,000. $159,999 is $1,000 earned in bonus. Uh, whenever we break into $160,000 to $169,000, it is $1,500. So that's Tier 1 Plus. Now Tier 2 is $170,000 to $189,999. Now Tier 2 Plus is when we cross that $180,000 mark, anywhere between $180,000 and $189,999. That That's Tier 2 Plus, which is gonna add the additional $500. So they make $2,500 in bonus payout. Now, $190,000 to $209,000 is Tier 3, with Tier 3 Plus being as soon as we exceed that $200,000 target. And then we go from $210,000 to $229,999. That's Tier 4, and that will be $4,000 unless they cross into Tier 4 Plus, which is at that $220,000 mark, and that will be $4,500. And then Tier 5 is $230,000 plus, which pays out $5,000 additional in team-based performance bonuses to each individual associate. Obviously here our range is pretty large, but this gives them a great incentive to chase down those records and try to exceed the last month specifically in the quarter. So what we do is that we condense this down to our quarterly targets and our quarterly goals. So they know the expectation is set that as we grow, these team-based performance bonuses will be increasing. This is a bonus, which means that it is extra. It is additional payment for exceeding expectations, exceeding the KPI targets that we have set for the practice. They have their base salary and then they have their personal commission, which means that they're always locked into making more money based on their individual effort. However, this is our team-based performance bonus, which means that we are going to be reevaluating it and resetting that, uh, the bonus tiers for every quarter. I know that might've been challenging to keep up with if you're just listening to this in audio, but I'll go ahead and take this graphic and put it up on the screen so that you can see exactly how we're doing this. But I'll let you know how it played out Last month. Last month, what we collected, I think, was $176,000. Okay. Here's what each doctor roughly took home. So they have a base salary of $7,000 a month. Then they had an individual commission of between $1,800 and $2,500 apiece, plus the team-based performance bonus hit for that tier, which was $2,000 for the month. The monthly average was $11,000. $11,000 take-home for one month. For a young associate. Now that's just over $130,000 a year pace. Mind you, they're working 3.5 days a week. And the kicker here is that Chiropractic Economics actually has the median clinic owner take home at $125,000 a year. My associates are on pace to outearn the average clinic owner working 3.5 days a week. And that's one of the reasons that we can keep A-players is our compensation structure. It's set up to buy security, so it gives them security. It helps them sleep at night, especially early on as soon as they start in the practice. Also buys their effort through the individual commission structure that is 5% up to $30,000 collected. As soon as they breach the $30,000 threshold, they get 8% of that. And then we have the team-based performance bonuses that layer on top. I think this is the greatest comp structure that we've found. But big idea number 2 is going to be using growth as a retention tool. Okay, so here's, here's the thing. You have the vision, right? That your vision is big enough for their vision to fit inside, which means that you have attracted them to your practice. Okay, so you've told them what you want to build. You've also given them a good compensation structure. You've shown them on paper that there is a high likelihood, or a probability at least, of you making this amount of money per year. And then we have these aspirational targets. If you work hard and we grow, Then you can actually earn this amount of money in this amount of time. The thing that I see consistently across the board with associates is that you're selling a pipe dream, which means that you're telling them they have uncapped earning potential, and you're using that one-liner to justify keeping them on board. But if they get into the practice and 3 months pass, 6 months pass, 8 months pass, 10 months pass, and you're not actively growing the practice, which means that you as the owner are not making good enough decisions to either invest in the resources, invest in new skills, invest in different modalities to actively grow the practice. Now you're losing credibility on your ability to achieve the vision that you sold them for them to fit their vision inside. You have to show proof. They have to trust that they are in the right vehicle going in the right direction to actually achieve The success metrics that you sold them. Just remember, A-players are growth-oriented. They want to grow. They need to grow. They fiend for growth. So if growth is not happening inside of your practice, they will go find someone else to work for that is actively growing. They're doing it in a way that is visible and they can actually feel. You have to actually be growing in the way that you told them You want it to. Growth is a great retention tool. Now, the next big idea, big idea number 3, is that I think this is one of the best ways to keep associates on board. I know this to be true because I've seen it in my practice and I've also seen it in several of the practices inside the ChiroAds Academy. You need to supply them with new patients, alright? So big idea number 3 is you need to supply them with new patients. Bringing a doctor in and forcing them to go out and get their own patients, I think that's doing them a disservice because they could have easily gone and started their own business, had more autonomy, had more time freedom. They have the status that comes along with owning their own business. But if you bring them into your practice, whether or not you're training them to go out and get their new patients or not, but you're forcing them to spend all of their free time out getting new patients, you know, unfortunately there's not that much incentive for them to stay under your roof. If they're a 1099 contractor, it's going to be really hard to keep them long-term because you're essentially turning them into an entrepreneur. You're turning them into a business owner because you're forcing them to own their own growth. While it's great to build effective skill sets to help accelerate their growth in the multiple dimensions of being a successful chiropractor, the question is going to come down to, why am I doing this inside of your practice when I could be doing this for my own practice, which means that if you're going to buy their security, you're gonna buy their effort, and then you're going to keep them long-term, then you have to take at least one of the responsibilities, one of the heavy responsibilities that come with being a business owner in chiropractic, which is removing their need to generate their own new patients. So we supply their new patients. It takes some time. And it takes some effort to build the new patient channels that you need in order to not only keep your schedule full, but to keep multiple associate schedules full. This is first off what we're really good at. All right, the ChiroAds Academy is exceptional at taking practices, teaching them how to install an in-house ad system, the Meta Ads Manager, which is Facebook and Instagram. But we don't just run Meta Ads. Okay, a lot of our new patient volume comes from Meta Ads, but we also have Google SEO and Google Ads that are running as well. We've optimized our We're putting money into Google Ads, and we have systematized referrals because we have done such a good job of creating different streams of new patients that put together create a river of new patients. Then we can keep every doc full inside of our practice with new patients every week, which means that first off, they have a very good base salary. They get a great individual commission, and we have. Team-based performance bonuses that are layered on top of that. The only thing that would be the X factor or the variable that kept them from actually earning the amount of money that we are giving them an opportunity to through their contractual agreement would be supplying them with opportunities to actually close on care plans in order to make that money. When you're supplying them with a plethora of new patients every day, every week, and every month, and they don't have to worry about spending their weekends out at screening events, trying to drum up networking opportunities, thinking about where next month's new patients are going to come from. I hate to say it, but this is kind of where like the golden handcuffs come from. This is an incredible opportunity. It's an opportunity that any person who wants to have any type of work-life balance is not going to leave, because we as the clinic owners know there is no work-life balance when you own your business. There just isn't. There are opportunities to make a little bit more money, which we see in chiropractic not happen. Uh, very often median clinic owner take-home, $125,000. That's not that impressive for all the responsibility and all the risks that you're taking. If you can give them an opportunity where they can fit their vision inside of yours, they can make a really good base salary, they can make a really great commission based on their effort and their skill sets, and they have team-based performance layered on top of that, and they don't have to worry about where their next new patients are going to come from. Um, you have a really good setup, which means you're going to be able to attract A-player associates and you're going to be able to keep them long-term. Our associates have been with us for years. I've got 2 that have been with us for 3+ years, one that has been with us for 2 years, and one that we just brought on in April. All of them plan to stay long-term because we've got a big vision. We are effectively and actively growing because we are willing to invest in the practice. They see that. Although things are never perfect, They never are, and I won't act like my practice is perfect. I won't act like the business is perfect. I won't act like our systems are perfect because they're not, and they never will be, because that is the continual pursuit and path of an entrepreneur, is to always be optimizing. But we are doing that, and so we're constantly assessing to see where are the holes, where are the current challenges, where are the current bottlenecks, where are the current constraints, how do we effectively evaluate those and then prioritize the biggest levers or the single constraint that we can solve to grow the business the fastest while adding less stress to our associates. So that's what we're always trying to prioritize. How can we make this a better opportunity for them, a better opportunity for us, while not adding additional stress to their life? So they get to do what they do best, which is be excellent chiropractors, excellent clinicians, and be, you know, supremely focused on client care while also focusing on their sales and conversion process, dialing in their conversion skill sets, keeping people on the schedule, keeping them on the table, working them through the phases of care that we have into our wellness continuity. The other additional responsibility that they do have is showing up one time per month, one time per month, to shoot and refresh our ad creative for our Meta ads. And outside of that, they get to live their life. They get to make really good money. They get to enjoy their work with an awesome team, part of an awesome business that is in the top 1% of practices in the world. They get to enjoy their free time with their They have freedom, they have security, and they have balance. And that is what I believe leads to attracting A-player associates and keeping them long-term. To close this out here, you gotta stop asking like, why can't I find good associates? Start asking yourself the question, have I built something good enough for an A-player associate to be attracted to, see themselves staying in long-term? And if the answer is no, then, you know, the reflection's back on you because there is grade A associate talent out there. Everybody. Everybody who says there are no good associates out there, I know that you're the problem right away. You're the problem. I will say that with confidence because there are—I can't remember how many thousands of chiropractors that are graduating from school. You know, every trimester, every semester, every few months, and regardless of how the school system has changed over time, there are excellent. Excellent, growth-minded, highly driven, high-performance people that are coming out of those programs every day that are looking for opportunities. Some of them have families and they don't want to take on the risk. They don't want to take on the debt. They don't want all the responsibility of owning or starting and owning their own business, which means they're looking for opportunities to be involved with a business they respect, that they trust, and that is going to allow them a runway to earn really good money, have great optionality long-term, and potentially and highly probably be the primary breadwinner and primary income earner for their family. Because us chiropractors, we value freedom and we value autonomy and we value teaching our children a real-life scholastic or academic curriculum, which means that we don't want our kids going to daycare. We don't want our children being raised by someone else. We don't want to be chained to the 9-to-5 system like everybody else in this country. Country. We are chiropractors, which means we want to break the mold. And in order to find associates that are really freaking good and want to stay long-term, you have to give them that opportunity. You have to give them a similar opportunity for a similar style of life that you yourself wanted. Get rid of the egotistical lens of like, well, yeah, but I took the risk and the responsibility and I built this practice. So what, man? $250,000 in school debt. They became great clinicians. They also deserve market success. Give them an opportunity to do that inside of your business, and then give them incentives to grow alongside you. And I guarantee you, your practice will grow. And as your practice grows, it's a win-win for you and them. So closing it out here, you have to have a vision large enough for theirs to fit inside of. You need to offer a really great comp strategy— base salary of $84K a year as ours, commission of 5% up to $30,000 collected, 8% after that— and then have team-based performance tiers that is going to build championship-level rapport and camaraderie with everybody in the boat rowing in the same direction, chasing down records in the practice every single month. And lastly, and maybe more importantly, you need to supply them with new patients. The practice needs to be the new patient supply. Take on that ownership, take on that responsibility, be the CEO, become the CMO, and realize that marketing is one of the biggest levers that you can pull for your business, both for new patient acquisition as well as talent acquisition. Marketing is the number one growth lever that you can pull inside of your business and inside of your practice. Trust me, I know it. We're chasing down records in both businesses, and they're both built on the back of a highly effective ad strategy. If you can get that dialed, you can supply yourself and multiple associates with more new patients than all of you guys can handle. Handle, and it's going to keep the practice happy, it's going to keep the energy high, and it's going to keep your potential uncapped. Okay, you can grow linear and stay stuck forever and make excuses, or you can have exponential growth and be alongside the top 1% practices in the world because they understand that marketing is the number one lever that you can pull. It's undoubtable, it's unequivocal, it is how it is across every other industry and every other business in the world. I don't know why chiropractors think that it's different, so I'm driving this point home. If you can figure out how to supply yourself and your associates with more new patients than you can handle, then you can keep your associates long-term. I hope this video was helpful. Again, if you enjoyed this content, If you like this content, subscribe to the channel, help us grow, take a screenshot, post it on your story. Dr. Travis signing off here. Hope that helped you. Keep making moves.