What This Chiro of 17 Years Has Learned About Business with Dr. Krysti Wick [Episode 117]

Molly: Hi my friends. I am recording this right as I have gotten back from a week long trip to Disney World. It was like our longest family vacation ever, six nights, and we went with my husband's brother and his wife and my nieces who are around mjs age, and we just had the best time. I will say though, if anybody has any tips for keeping your tummy happy, after you know, six days of eating out three times a day, I will take your recommendations.

Okay, so today's episode is with my dear friend, Dr. Christie Wick. Even if you are not a chiropractor, I still think you will get a lot of value out of this episode because the things she's talking about are not specific to chiropractors. And Dr. Christie, I just, I say this in the beginning of the episode, so I don't wanna go too much into it, but I just owe so much to her because she really took a chance on me years ago, way back when.

Nobody really knew who I was and that partnership with her early on allowed me to secure collaborations and partnerships with other people, which is truly how I've built my business, which is why I talk about collaborations and partnerships all the time, is because it really is like the ultimate cheat code.

Seriously. So I did want to, because this is funny, I actually have to leave my house in an hour and a half to go pick up my daughter for a dentist appointment. She has two cavities. That's a whole other story for another day. Um, we actually go to a holistic dentist and she's like the only one, like a three hour radius, but I'm doing some homeopathy for remineralizing her teeth as well.

We use the Rise well toothpaste, but I find sometimes like her toothbrush will actually like mold. I don't know if that's from like the Rise Well toothpaste. So anyway, I've been, if you have any tips on toothpaste that you like, that's better. Please send me your dms, but with the dentist topic in mind, make sure you listen to the end of this episode or, um, I'm just gonna give you a link now to go to, this is specific to chiropractors, Dr.

Christie and her partner, Dr. Jake Ha, or Dr. Jake has was the one who kinda like spearheaded this really, really cool program. Called upright and it's literally where you're, it's kind of like marketing where you're getting paid to market. It's brilliant. It's, you are going to pitch dental offices to provide continuing education credits for their hygienists because the hygienists need ces, which I never knew that.

Also, I don't know if a lot of people are aware of this, but there's actually a, a hygienist shortage right now. I don't know if it's like US wide or if it's just like my area, but I know there's a hygienist shortage. So like this is really cool for the dental offices too, to have this added value for their hygienists.

So you go in, you can provide, um, like ergonomic support, that nervous system type support to dental hygienists. And then on top of that, the payoff is then they end up usually becoming patients of yours and becoming amazing, amazing immersing patients. So all of the information on this program, I just love outside the box thinking and I just think this is so brilliant.

You can just go to molly cahill.com/upright. That'll also be in the show notes, but I, if I was a chiropractor, I would not, like truly, I would not sleep on this opportunity. I think it sounds so cool. Now I am like, just a disclaimer. I am an affiliate. I don't even know how much I earn. If that tells you anything, even if I was not affiliate, I promise you I would be promoting this anyway just because anything that Dr.

Christie or Dr. Jake. Do is always done really well and with integrity and yeah, it's just amazing. So, okay. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode with my dear friend, Dr. Christie Wick.

Hey, welcome to Holistic Marketing. Simplified. This podcast boils down to the fact that we wholeheartedly believe that more humans need to know about holistic health solutions. And you didn't go to school to learn how to be a full-time content creator and show up on Instagram and do all of this marketing stuff all day, every day.

So let's come hang out while we chat. All things easy in your marketing and my goal is that you shift your mindset around your marketing from a quote should to a, I get to more dream patients and clients. Yes, please.

Dr. Posner: Hi, my name is Dr. Shara Posner, and I am a chiropractor as well as the owner and creator of the Mobile Mama Method.

I practice in Alexandria, Virginia, and I listen to the Holistic Marketing Simplified podcast.

Molly: All right, Kristy, I am so happy to have you back on the podcast. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. You're like the, uh, quintessential manifesting generator who always has 5,000 things going on. We got back from Dallas, your event in Dallas, and I'm like, wait, she's in the desert now and she's opening an Airbnb.

Like what?

Dr. Krysti: Yeah, always. Uh, I'm not too good at sitting still, unfortunately. I just, uh, I go and in lots of different directions for sure.

Molly: Yes. And then you were also like, oh, I was my horse trainer who lives near you and she looks like she's your doppelganger. I was like, what? You're horse trainer. Your, your Airbnb and the desert and you're all this, so yeah, you're definitely a Renaissance woman.

So. I don't know if you, I know. I like, for those of you who don't know Dr. Christie, I feel like I'm gonna make her blush, but I owe, owe you so much. Like Dr. Christie was really like the first one to like take a chance on me all those years ago and be like, oh sure. Like we can collaborate on some things.

And so I. I think you really were like one of the catalysts for me for building that business, and I'm just always forever indebted to you for that. So thank you.

Dr. Krysti: It's my pleasure. You bring so much to this profession and other health professions, so you are worth your weight in gold. So it's easy to collaborate with people who want the best for their.

Molly: So today we're gonna, I always forget that Christie is my same age, not because you look older, but because you just seem like, oh, I've been on this planet a few more times. Like to me, you just are very sage and very wise, because I know you personally. I know that you walk the talk. You're not like. Hey, I'm gonna say this one thing from my platforms or from stages, and this is how I'm gonna live my life differently.

I think that would actually kill you.

Dr. Krysti: Oh yeah. I don't

Molly: think you would actually. I don't

Dr. Krysti: think you would survive. That's actually very true. Integrity is definitely my number one core value, and I have walked away from lots of things over the years that did not fit with. That high level of integrity.

Sometimes I'm an Enneagram one, so sometimes I have very unrealistic expectations of, of what things should be, but I'm pretty rock solid in sticking with that integrity For sure. Yeah.

Molly: For those of you don't know what a one is, that's the perfectionist. So I've got one on my team too, so I understand how to work with that, so, so that's actually a great place to start.

So today we're gonna talk a little bit about being stuck. And, um, when I was at you, uh, y'all's event in January in Dallas, and is it the pursuit or is

Dr. Krysti: it the collab? Yeah, so the pursuit is Dr. Jake and I, and then the collab is our group coaching program that we do with the Flo.

Molly: Okay, so let's actually, let's, let's start there.

So first, like, just give everybody a little primer every, and if somebody doesn't know who you are, tell us a little about you and your practice and then like your coaching and stuff.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah. All the stuff. Sure. So I am Christie Wick. I practice in West Bend, Wisconsin. It's a pretty small town. I've been in practice for 17 years.

Makes, that does make me feel old. I have always practiced. So I started my practice fresh outta school. We have a great high volume multi doc practice, full family practice. We see lots of kids in prenatal, but we really pride ourselves in, in seeing full families. So we like to kind of do a little bit of everything that way.

Um, we have a rockstar all female team, which I, I love, I don't never set out for it to be that way, but it just kind of ended up that way. Um, I started coaching other chiropractors with a really large training company in the profession, actually a decade ago now, believe it or not. And I left that company in 2019 and ended up coaching a women's group.

So I had a specific, uh, coaching program just for women in the profession in chiropractic. From 2019 until about seven months ago, uh, seven months ago, I had started to kind of join forces with a male chiropractor that I worked with Dr. Jake Ocker in that former company together. And so now we have something called, uh, the Pursuit Con Consulting.

And so we do one-on-one work. We do masterminds, we do events. And when we were thinking about putting together a group program, we just felt like there is not a lot of group programs out there in chiropractic right now that combine some coaching on the clinical side as well as the business side. We really prefer, like I am totally a business systems mindset.

Like that's kind of my jam. I'm not gonna teach you clinical stuff. I don't feel like I, that's my zone of genius. And same with Dr. Jake. And so we had an opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Simon Flo and Dr. Jennifer Barr, Flo, which hopefully all of you know who they are. But I'm finding out that the younger.

Generation of chiropractors really doesn't unfortunately. So go out and buy well-adjusted babies and read it well, I would

Molly: say even non-car, like their work transcends, I feel after hearing them speak. I mean, yes, they have techniques and stuff, but like their work far transcends chiropractic.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah.

Especially Dr. Jen's a lot now with, you know, functional and holistic health and she does. Lot with methylation and metabolic health and all kinds of things. So anyway, we had an opportunity to collaborate with them and form a group coaching program. And so that is called the collab. And so we combine both clinical and business expertise in our monthly calls with that.

So that's my nutshell.

Molly: There you

Dr. Krysti: go.

Molly: Yeah. That's why she, we'll keep it short. Okay. So continuing on with your nutshell though, we've talked about, like I said, we wanna talk about being like stuck today in some ways to pivot. So give a little background about why you wanted to talk about this. Like what you were telling me before the call.

About 20, what'd you say? 20, 22, 23 and 24.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah. So I always like to, when I am on and out and sharing something, I love to draw from personal experience because I think it is a fallacy where a lot of people think once your practice has reached a certain level or you've been in practice a long time, you have multiple associates.

You don't run into the same problems anymore, and that's honestly not true. A lot of times this really foundation of the problem remains and it just kind of shows up with a different mask, if you will, or a different look. And so really it's very common in, in any health practice to have plateaus times where you are really just traversing your flat.

And a lot, especially obviously I mainly work with chiropractors, but a lot of chiropractors come to me and they're like, I just don't know why I am stuck, and I'm sick of being stuck. I've been stuck at the same level. I can't grow. They can't figure it out. And even as a coach, you know, these plateaus happen to me.

So, you know, in the last three years, so 20 22, 20 23, 20 24, our collections were within a 5% range, which for a practice of our size, you know, in a seven figure range, like that's pretty unheard of. Like for it to be that tiny of a change. Obviously some business experts, if you'd ask, ask them, they would say, well, that's the sign of a super mature business that, you know, it's just your systems are running.

It's a well-oiled machine for sure. Yeah, I definitely, obviously we didn't have huge dips in our collections or anything like that, which is great. I. I ran into some of the same things that I run into with my, my coaching clients, which is just like, what is gonna help us break past this plateau into the next level?

And when you have done this as long as I have, it's a lot easier for you to see why plateaus are happening while they're happening. And so, you know, in the last three years. I had a couple of different things going on, but one of them being a really difficult situation, like a legal situation where I was kind of stuck.

There was nothing I could really do. I was, it was just a lot of waiting, a lot of attorney fun for any of you that have ever been in those types of situations. So basically my body, my mind felt under constant attack for the last three years, like it was. Every day I was, you know, both consciously and subconsciously aware of this situation.

Really, uh, so many people forget how in like intimately tied your business is to you. Like if you are a founder, I. Your business is very connected, in my opinion, just at a foundational level to the energy that you're holding, the capacity you currently have, the trajectory that you are looking ahead to in your life, and as much as that's really frustrating and can be really hard pill to swallow, like when I'm talking to chiropractors about being stuck, I would say 75% of the time, it's because they have something limiting going on with them personally.

I. And that can range in a million different ways. Right? I wanted to talk about some strategies that you can use in order to really just figure out why that's happening. And a lot of people also need to be, try to be a little calmer when it's happening, which is easier so than done. I get it. I, I definitely wasn't always calm in the last three years about us being stuck, if you will, at that uh, level, but the length of time which a plateau happens.

Is always for a reason. Like there's a, there's a specific reason why it's going to be as long as it is, and when you can learn to be patient, kind of surrender to the process. It's a little bit easier than to be able to see the opportunities when they do start coming to you to bus past that and then grab them and, and go.

Which is really what we've been doing in the last, like, six to eight weeks in practice. And our results have been super crazy. So,

Molly: so two things I wanna kind of circle back to. One, you gave me chills when you were talking about, that's why I was like, huh? Because. It's so funny. So I work with a subconscious coach.

I always laugh and call her my not therapist, but like to people who aren't in this world. I'm like, she's my therapist, you know? And so I'll sit down and I'll be like, yeah, I don't really think I have. Like I'm actually feeling pretty good today. And then I'll like start talking and it's like. Like you said, we don't realize things going on in our personal lives, how much they affect our nervous systems on like a daily ba.

Like you said, just feeling that constant and it's not something, I'm not an expert in the nervous system you are, but it's not something you're consciously aware of that you're like, well, no, this isn't like consciously bothering me. Like one example that comes to mind for me is my stepdad, who I love dearly.

I love him. He's been married to my mom since 2000, so, and he's got dementia and like, he's been having a lot of really bad days where he's starting to now not know who my mom is. And I'm like, yeah. Like, but he's still, you know, and it's, it's so funny 'cause when I stopped to really think about it, I'm like, wow, that's really been bothering me.

But I've been like, no, you know, it's fine. So I just kind of like got chills when you said that thing. So I think first I would love to just hear it before you even dive into the strategies like. How do you give yourself compassion and grace to be like, wow, I'm not trying to like gaslight and steamroll myself.

Let's push through to the next level.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah. I mean, I have honestly learned this trial by fire. I have learned that oftentimes when I. I try to push in a timeline that maybe like even if 10 or 15% of my body doesn't feel like this is the right timeline, if I push past that, I just do it anyway. It never works like it always, like the results never happen.

Molly: Do you know enough about human design to know if, is that. I'm a generator and you're a Manny generator. Is that something we share in common? 'cause I feel that in my bones.

Dr. Krysti: I mean, I think that might just be more just tuning into your nerve people. Yeah. You, yeah, just, yeah. Well

Molly: that's what I told my bookkeeper this morning.

I was like, you know what shift? 'cause my bookkeeper's very woowoo and I love her and she's amazing. I was like, you know, I've just tried to just start listening to myself more. And it's like that voice has been there all along. I've just been overriding it.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah, and it can be especially more difficult when you are an external processor.

So if you tend to talk about a lot of decisions with people that are close to you, whether they're family, friends, team. Well now you're taking on everyone else's thoughts and feelings as well, and you're trying to factor that into your decision, and so it makes it harder and harder to really like tune into your body and as a founder, I think when you're making a decision for the business, obviously, yes, it's important for you to think about all the factors.

But I really, there's been a bunch of times that I, I can think of where, you know, maybe people on my team weren't seeing the vision, but my body, it was like a heck yes. Like, we have to do this, we have to give this a go, and it's a huge home run. And you know, we're kind of right in the middle of that happening right now in our practice.

And so. I think that's, that's the first step of that patience, if you will, is just trying to go back even to a step before that and, and not making decisions that are gonna lead you down dead end paths because you are desperate and like grasping at straws to kind of get past the plateau. A timeline that feels good to you.

It's, you know, as you grow in business, you learn more and more this surrender concept where it's just like, what's gonna happen is gonna happen. And you know, if you are white knuckling a level of control. You're probably going to be, um, a very, not only a very sick person, but you're gonna really struggle with a lot of different business trajectory.

And I'm not saying I have that perfect. I certainly still, we all have this underlying, I think, a lot of overachievers that find themselves as a founder of a business. This is gonna be an underlying, you know, challenge that you are continuously aware of over the years. In my mind, it's just about continuing to remind yourself, like when you do surrender, you listen to your body, you're making decisions, you know, with a whole body approach, you're re remembering that you are a human and you're designed to have times of of rest.

And so, so does everyone else on your team. And so sometimes those times of rest are served to you even though you consciously don't think you want, want them to be there. But yeah, I mean I think it's just, it's a matter of acceptance honestly, that just like, this is how business cycle works in my mind early when you first start hiring people, if you have people leave after a year or two years, like people assign like this, you know, red stamp of blame to their head, like, I suck, you know, I'm a terrible leader.

And you know, industry, like throughout multiple industries, the average person stays in a job right now is 18 months. So like. Yeah, it's, it's just, you just have to learn to surrender to the fact that if you're gonna lead a team, there's going to be turnover. That's just the nature of life and human beings.

And so I would liken it to that where you know, when you accept those facts and you just learn to, that this is part of your normal as being a founder, it's gonna be a lot easier for you to navigate the plateaus and hopefully like learn some important things as you're navigating them as well.

Molly: I think that's sage advice.

Other thing I wanted to go back to you, you said right at the beginning is something around the lines that like you assume once you reach this next, like the proverbial next level, you're always like, oh, then once I get X then I'll feel y. Like I feel like that's like, it's not unique to business owners, that's just people in life.

Once I get this car, then I'll be ha you know? And it's like why they say like lottery winners, like still like file for bankruptcy. Yeah. There's a lot that's gotta change. And that's another thing I was talking about my bookkeeper with today is like 10 years ago, I would've been like, wow, Molly, you're living the life of your fucking dreams.

Like this is exactly what you wanted. And yet here I'm like, oh, well, you know, it's like you can always find something and you get on that hedonic treadmill where you're like, oh, it's the next thing. So I don't know if you wanna, especially being a high achiever that you are. Yeah, yeah. What has that looked like for

Dr. Krysti: you?

What have you learned from that? Yeah, it's. It's the constant reminding of yourself to find the little things to be, to focus on and be grateful for because, you know, hustle, culture, whatever you wanna call it, it's especially for women, I mean, for any of you listening, if you're a woman and you are trying to figure out how to break past this whole like endless cycle of achievement.

I can't recommend enough you reading like Do Less by Kate Northup and really diving into her work. I have had the, the blessing of being in her mastermind a few times and really learning a lot from her. And that's where I really started opening my eyes to how I was wired differently. But I wasn't honoring that at all.

I was just in, stuck in a very masculine go do, expecting my energy to, you know, recycle every day. And I have, you know, pushed myself beyond limits. Consistently for a long time. And so really, I would say only for the last maybe five years have I had times where I can just look around and be like, okay, this, these are the things that are working.

This is what I'm really grateful for. I have, you know, these freedoms and opportunities and the more you can carve out. A couple times a day to literally just stand in your kitchen and look out your window at the sun and where it is like in your backyard, and just be like, I'm so glad that I have this 30 seconds to do this.

Like those few moments, even if it's just a few, and you still tend to be wired as an achiever, in my opinion. That's like the biggest hack to start allowing yourself to not keep chasing the next thing or the next level. Because it can be very empty. I mean, I'm married to someone who likes to constantly say, when is enough going to be enough?

And as much as he says that for the reason that he knows, like people like me are really just, I'm not necessarily addicted to achievement. I would say I'm addicted to process and like transformation and possibility. So I just love like seeing something go from. What it is to what it can be or nothing to something.

And so you can get really stuck in just wanting to do that everywhere with everything. And so he's really good at kind of keeping me grounded of just like, look at the things that we already did and let's enjoy those before we do 10 more. But also you have to remember if you are wired that way. You don't wanna snuff that out either.

Like, no, it's a

Molly: huge part of who you are. No. 'cause there I'm, it's so funny, it's usually about a day or two before I start my period, I'm like. You know what? Why am I doing all this? I'm just gonna ditch the podcast. I'm gonna ditch, you know this. We've got our core group of clients. I'm just gonna keep the business small.

And I'm just, you know what? Like burn it all to the ground and then I'm always like, oh, okay, well I'm just about to start my period. It's cool. Yeah. And I'm like, you wouldn't be happy if you actually did that because you're not wired that way. Right, exactly. I wouldn't be happy, you know, having. I see a lot of people like, oh, I just, you know, have a simple slow life.

And I, that, that is great because I think that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For me, a simple or slow life means not having obligations, but having the spaciousness. I don't wanna stay at home, I wanna make plans, but I wanna have the freedom to do it in the moment, you know what I mean?

Like, hey, let's just go somewhere like

Dr. Krysti: today.

Molly: Like,

Dr. Krysti: yes, I totally do. For years, my, you know, when I was in the Mastermind, people would ask me like, what's your like. Best day. Like, what? You know, what's your vision? I'm like, I just wanna wake up and be able to choose what business. 'cause I have multiple businesses I wanna work on that day.

Like, I don't wanna have to feel stuck, but I wanna feel like I can choose where my energy needs to flow that day. So I couldn't agree more. Um, you have to have those places for it to go, but the freedom to choose is is huge.

Molly: So, okay, so let's dive in. I just wanted to get the kind of mindset stuff out of the way too, 'cause I know you and I both have similar.

Okay. So you said, so finally you had the plateau for three years in your practice, and then just over the last, what did you say? Like this

Dr. Krysti: really, we turned on like some, some different marketing strategies about six weeks ago, and our collections are up like 36% from our average customer. Holy shit. Yeah, it's just kind of going nuts.

And it's great because I, yeah, I mean it's probably, I think it's gonna go for a while and this is where, you know, we, the last time we had this kind of explosive growth was when we moved into a new building. So I renovated a building and moved and it was just like a lot of like new and fresh. I. Energy and we had crazy explosive growth back then too.

I think we went up, you know, 25 or 30% in collections year over year, which were a practice of my size. That's very rare. Like usually if you grow five to 10%, that's actually pretty good when you are in a higher level of, you know, collections. So really, I just kind of boil it down to I was. I had to close all those chapters that I was talking about before.

Like I was, you know, dealing with all these different things personally, and like I was at, like, I was at the top of what I probably could manage. And so the plateau was necessary because if we would've been growing like this at the practice, which is only one of my responsibilities I have, you know, I have kids, I have a house, I have multiple businesses.

Um, and so if I would've been pulled into the practice to help with the system part of this growth, it would've never been sustainable. Like until right now. Like, this is when, you know, I mean, we're lucky enough that we're, we made some changes prior to this to allow for growth to happen, and so part of those, you know, we'll just candidly share, we.

Had gotten to a place of volume that was really unsustainable for the doctor team that we had. So I had two full-time and, and I myself was part-time and our volume level was just not really something that was going to work long-term. And you never see that coming because it's part of aging, to be honest.

You had too many.

Dr. Posner: Patient.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah. Yeah. We were seeing like probably a good 30 ish percent more visits in a week than what physically Yeah. You should have. Makes sense. Yeah. And so like, as you get older, like, you know, a decade ago I was like, oh my gosh. Like I can see 3 25 by myself every week for the rest of time.

And you know, now if you asked me to see 3 25 a week for, you know, four or six weeks in a row, I'd be like, oh no, thank you. Yeah. We wouldn't wanna do that. So anyway, we had to make some really strategic decisions in the practice, which were really hard and like very hard for my team and, and hard for me, of course.

But that's the, the place that you find yourself in when you're a leader. And so we had to kind of rightsize our, our pricing and some other things, which we knew would create attrition, which unfortunately. We kind of pushed ourselves in that direction because we needed to. And so, and that was necessary.

Like we were underpriced. We definitely, I think a lot of people, so if you're listening and you have a family practice and you don't know your cost to provide an adjustment, you don't know what your profit is, each adjustment, and you are doing like crazy family discounts and giving away care, you know, with the more people that are coming in.

It's honestly just a recipe for a disaster. Like it's, it's not sustainable, it's not scalable. You're gonna burn yourself out. You're gonna burn your team out. It's based oftentimes on models that you learn from someone who it, they also behind the curtain, are not doing so great with it, but they're not sharing that.

Long story short, you know, had to make some decisions because that's what's necessary in business. I mean, you have to maintain your margins. You have to be really smart about those things. And so now we had this beautiful like space, like I literally could visualize this in my mind, right? We have this like vessel of space where we love and appreciate so much the people that unfortunately aren't with us anymore in wellness care.

But now we have this new space to fill and educate new people at. The right, you know, business exchange and exchange, a value exchange that made sense and was going to be scalable and sustainable. And so now the universe, God, whatever you, you know, all believe in, in my mind I'm like, you know, I had to make the hard decisions.

God's leading me through that. And now it's like, oh, let's put these people in there, um, so that we can grow and we can make an impact and the business can scale and hire on the right people. Give them a great opportunity for a great place to work. I. Move on from there. And so if I would've pulled the trigger on any of that stuff earlier when I was like super frustrated with the plateau, it would've probably crashed and like it would've created an insane amount of challenges.

And so you just really have to learn to tune into the right timing and surround yourself with the right people that maybe can sometimes help be a sounding board if needed. Again, I just keep going back to like listening to your body. Like if your whole body is telling you this is what you need to do, even if your whole team is like, oh, I don't, you know, sometimes you have to make those hard decisions as a founder.

Hopefully that all makes, that was a, that was a roundabout.

Molly: Well, so may, I was just about to say, so let me just be clear that I'm understanding y'all were. Seeing too many patients, basically you raised your prices. Was that the only change you made then? Yes. So by raising your prices, it created enough attrition and enough space to be able to, did you bring on more team

Dr. Krysti: or, yeah, it was still a really small amount too.

And this is something that I think a lot of chiropractors. So many people are deathly afraid to rightsize their pricing. Like they're just worried that their whole practice is gonna go away overnight. And Joe would be so disappointed in me, I don't know what percentage we increased our prices, but it was over 20% that we increased our prices.

But our attrition was only like 16 or 17% of our patients. And this was, you know, very, we have a very large patient base, so 16 or 17% was small. And so with the changes we were able to have that. Get some breathing space with everybody on the team, but still make the same, if not a little bit more most months.

Oh, perfect. Okay. Then did you grow the team after that or We didn't, so actually like as kind of that was happening, one of my associate docs put in her notice and so then that was all kind of part of all of that, and so. I ended up having to kind of like subsidize with some, some coverage docs and me working more me no longer only adjusting part-time and then, you know, like I said, some new marketing strategies and now we're off to, off to the races.

Molly: Okay. But here's where I'm not understanding though, but you had, if you were losing the doctor and then. You still needed the space. What did you need the extra marketing for, for more people?

Dr. Krysti: Well, I mean obviously, so 16 to 17% is what we lost in. We made the, this pricing change the beginning of 2024. So I would say within about nine months.

Okay. That's what what we had been down to. And so now, now I had placed myself into the practice full-time and I had hired on another doctor. So now there were four of us here. So now we did have more, we had more capacity, and we had, you know, lost that little bit as well. And so now we could refill what we had lost plus a little bit more, because now we had four doctors instead of.

2.5 basically. Got it.

Molly: But are you, are you still wanting to scale back or,

Dr. Krysti: yeah, I, so I am in the process of bringing on another hire so that hopefully I can back my way out again. And also my lead doc is gonna be kind of shifting her role a little bit as well, my lead associate. So yeah, I do think it's, it's so helpful to be able to have the right team members so that you can share the load and kind of see where everyone fits.

Go from there. Okay, so I

Molly: know everybody's dying to hear with this six week marketing strategy.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah. I should have said this to you. I had, but it's, it's ads. You know, obviously with you that's. It's a little like, we're so, we believe so much in our organic marketing and Oh, I

Molly: love, I don't, I love ads. I just don't, I literally tried, I bought a course to try to learn it myself and I was just like, it's a, people assume that what I do, because I do organic social media, that I, oh, you must know ads.

I'm like, oh, it's a completely different, yeah, not the same.

Dr. Krysti: So, I mean, besides you running our Instagram in 17 years, I've never hired a marketing firm. I, it was funny, I, when I, I've talked to several over the years, but I just never got the like, and so, you know, I, I would say a lot of this also goes back to something that you and I have talked about in a lot of different capacities over the years of like, when I would interview them in the past.

My philosophy and like being so stuck on this is the only one way to do things, prevented me from growing my practice like so many times over the years because. You can get so stuck and just like, we are not gonna talk about pain or we're not gonna, you know, or whatever it is. Like, you just are like, this is only one right way to do it, to, you know, speak to the masses about what we do.

And so, you know, this particular instance was really no different. Um, there were things that they, I. You know, we're doing with all their other practices that I was like, ah, I don't know. Like, that doesn't feel exactly like what we would do. But again, I was just like, you know, it's time for a new iteration of what we're gonna do, and so we're gonna, we're gonna try this and we're gonna see how it goes.

And so, yeah, it's just, it's been really great. I would tell all of you, if you're looking to grow, then just go out and start interviewing some marketing opportunities and see what feels good. And I'll always go back to, you know what Molly would teach you. And so if you're an avid listener to her podcast, it's just like you have to talk to patients or prospects, right?

So prospects out in your community, you have to talk to them about what they care about, and you also have to talk to them. Unfortunately, not in a condescending way, but just like realistically, you also have to talk to them, you know, as if they're like. A fifth grader or a sixth grader because like, you just wanna make it quick and easy and simple so that they can skim and they can get what they need and they can move on even for us, right?

It's for us as doctors, you know, if you have a doctorate, it's like. A lot of us tend to just wanna flower everything up and fluff it up and it, that, that falls flat so often for so many people. And so you have to be willing meet them where they are from a language perspective.

Molly: And I actually have a meeting with my agency team tomorrow.

Well, two things I wanna talk about with that, but one. It dawned on me, and I'm always, I'm never afraid, ashamed to admit it. Like I, I'm not an expert. Like I learn things about marketing every day. Like what I teach now is different than I taught even a, not different, but you know what I mean. Like I'm learning more and more.

And one thing that dawned on me the other day, I was like, oh my gosh, Molly, you literally teach on the different levels of awareness. Yet so much of your content is focused on solution aware audiences who already know that chiropractic is, or you know, acupuncture or whatever it is, is a solution. But there's so many more people one step back who they want a natural solution.

I. They don't know what that solution is yet, and we aren't speaking to those people as much as we are the people who fall. If and if you don't know about the awareness levels, I did a podcast episode on it a while back. You could literally just Google like levels of awareness and you'll see it's a cool little graph.

What made me think of this was we're going to Disney World. We're getting ready to go for a week. We did not go to Hollywood Studios last time. And this time we are so I was like looking up on Instagram, like Hollywood Studios Hacks and stuff like that. Just one day of me searching that my algorithm is showing me Disney videos now, because it's like she's going to Disney.

And so I'm like, wow, why are we not hitting the hooks on our reels? More of like. You didn't know about this natural remedy for, I don't know. You know, we'll have to be careful how we word it. Like people are looking more of like natural solutions for ear infections. Like we're not, we're not hitting those people because we're already assuming that they know about chiropractic care or homeopathy or functional medicine.

Yeah. Most of them have no idea. Yeah. So like I said, that's one change that I'm like telling the team. Like, wait a minute, why did this not? And it makes me feel like, oh, why did I not think of it? You know, we have some stuff like that, right? Like we have some that were like, if you thought the only solution for your child's constipation was daily MiraLax, like, come see us.

Like, so we do have some, I'm not saying we've never talked about things that way, but I think we really need to double down on that because I think now more than ever, people really are looking for more natural solutions to things. And then the other thing I wanted to say about the social is I think for you always.

It's been all like a, a patient education. Opportunity versus like a, I mean, yes, it'd be great if it brought a ton of new people, but it's more like, Hey, let's educate our current people. Like for retention.

Dr. Krysti: For sure. Yeah. Our social definitely has a huge, just like, let's expand on their current knowledge as a strategy.

For sure. But I mean, the other thing I'll mention is like when you have great organic social, if you do some sort of promo, you have people that are waiting in the wings that you know, have, are thinking or whatnot. I use this, you know, example with my team. I was like, I know you guys don't care about just about rugs as I do and I love rugs.

I dunno, I do, don't worry. I love rugs, so I'm a a home decor nut, but I'm like, I might have like a rug in my cart. I'm like thinking about, right, and then all of a sudden it goes on sale and you're gonna take action. And it's honestly the exact same with us. So like I was very resistant to ever doing a promo for a new patient exam below.

Like typically we charge $150 plus more if they need x-rays, if they're an adult. And so like I very rarely would go under like 75. That was kind of my like, oh gosh, I don't wanna devalue our care. I don't want it to feel weird and like salesy. And there's, I know that this is a thing in chiropractic, 'cause I see all the boards and people talking about this, but if you can lower the barrier of entry, you're gonna get some really qualified people that have just been like hanging out that just needed that one little tiny push like the, you know, and.

These are still really quality patients that are gonna convert. And so that was one thing with, you know, the agency that we happened to hire, I pushed back hard on, you know, what they wanted to do for the dollar figure for a new patient exam. I was like, Ugh, I don't like this. But here's the thing we're getting.

So not only yes are we seeing people from our ads, but we're getting more referrals, we're getting family members in that have kind of been waiting in the wings. There's something about turning on some marketing and also be willing to lower that barrier of entry where we're telling our community that we have the capacity to see them and serve them.

And so that's something else to keep in mind. I. If you've been trying to grow, but your systems suck, and so your patients actually perceive that you are full, if you will, like, quote unquote, um, you're probably always going to be stuck. And so that's something, again, when we talk about like you and your nervous system and things you need to work on as, as the leader, that's something you have to figure out.

You have to energetically figure out how to create that piece, um, in yourself so that you can do it in your business, do it in your systems, and then again. We're fueling that cycle.

Molly: So are these meta ads Google ads? A combination of both? Yeah. They're all

Dr. Krysti: meta.

Molly: And then is it leading with the exam or is it leading?

I mean, not the exam, the. Okay.

Dr. Krysti: Yep. New patient exam. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's only probably maybe 65% of that growth. So like the other stuff is all organic. You know, people that have been, like I said, just waiting in the wings referral, like everything's just increasing because we're willing to. Give them an opportunity to come in and get checked, at least for kind of a no-brainer price.

And obviously you have to have enough team in order to, you know, there, of course there's gonna be people that aren't a good fit. You're gonna, your conversion is gonna be different 'cause you're not gonna have all pre-qualified people. But that's also how business works and that's how sales work. And again, a lot of chiropractors have this, like they only want to examine someone that they know is.

A great candidate, they're gonna prepay for their care and they're gonna follow their care plan to a team. And it's like, that might not be how your growth plan needs to look. You might need to have more people coming in the front end. You're converted, you know, maybe not be quite as good, but you're at least still filtering through those people and you're just, if you are so stuck in this like philosophical box where it's just, it has to be this way, you might be shooting yourself in the foot.

From a growth perspective, like over and over again, uh, without even realizing it. So this is again, just goes back to you being more in tune and aware of what you're choosing and doing.

Molly: So I know we're almost outta time and I want you to have time to talk about your, um, that really cool program you've got going on.

But I did just wanna quickly point out anecdote about organic versus paid social. I recently, 'cause I was having issues with sleep, I've been doing all of the root cause, subconscious work. Taking the, I'm working on my gut health, I'm doing all the thing, and I finally just had to surrender that like, you know what, Molly, you're just gonna need some help right now.

And I found these CBD gummies and I'm like, okay, so what? Right now I just need these to sleep and like I'll get, I'll get to it later. You know? Like I know I'm actively doing the work. And so, because I was looking up like sleep gummies. 'cause my friend was like, why don't you just take, like, she had my friend recommended them.

I started getting ads obviously for like all the different companies. So one of the companies that I got an ad for, I literally had them in my cart, but I went to their Instagram page to see like organic comments and they hadn't posted in two years. I. Oh no, organically. And so their most recent post had tons of comments of people going, are you guys even in business?

I had something in your in my cart, but now I don't wanna buy. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is so validating for me to be like, you still need organic social, because it's like proof of life like. We are here and I didn't end up buying, I went with a competitor.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, they want to feel like you have their back regardless of if it's a product or a service.

Yeah. And their

Molly: ad was fantastic. Like I literally had it in my cart and I was like, you know what, lemme just look at some like organic comments and I didn't buy. So anyway. Okay, so tell us about upright. Very, I think this is the coolest thing 'cause I love outside of the box stuff.

Dr. Krysti: Yeah. So simultaneously while I have been doing this from my business partner and true Christie fashion and true in true Christie fast fashion, my business partner Dr.

Jake, he years ago, used to do continuing ed talks for daycares and so he introduced me to that. I used to do them way back when as well. Love talking in daycares. 'cause obviously we're getting the message out. Not very qualified patients. Right. A lot of daycare workers are lovely 19 year olds who don't make a lot of money, so don't have a lot of expendable income.

And so I don't, maybe about six months ago he was talking, Dr. Jake was talking to a dental friend of his about continuing ed and had had this light bulb moment of, oh my gosh, like, what about providing continuing ed for, for dentists and hygienists and dental assistance? And so he went through the rigorous proc process he practices in North Dakota of getting approved by the North Dakota Board to provide continuing education credits for tho that demographic.

And so I was like, this is brilliant. You need to share this with other people because he started doing these talks and he was charging for them. Right now he is still doing like a crazy amazing deal. I think you could charge more, but he's charging $250 for two hours of continuing ed to go in and deliver a talk at a local dental office.

So he's going on site, he's delivering a talk. He's getting paid to be there. I. And then of course he's obviously talking to them about chiropractic. So the whole concept of the talk is ergonomics. So the talk is called upright, you know, it's how can they look after themselves from a stress and, you know, a postural perspective as a dental provider.

So it's, you know, continuing ed specifically for them. But then of course he's talking about how stress impacts the nervous system, how the nervous, you know, how our nervous system docs as chiropractors. And so he's getting paid to be there on the front end, and he's also booking himself new patients on the backend of this talk.

And neither of us have ever seen anything like this in chiropractic where you actually get paid to market your practice. So we have done the due diligence of contacting all 50 states. There are about 14 states. Are very easy for you to get approved. You just provide a certificate of attendance, and then there's other variations throughout other states, but basically it is called the upright program.

If you head to the pursuit chiros slash upright, you can look at everything about it. It's a crazy low rate right now. You can literally just purchase everything. So we have, you know, the emails you need to send to local offices. This, you know, template for a certificate of attendance. Here's what the situation is in every state.

Here's the actual talk. Here's examples of the talk being given. So it's literally a plug and play marketing strategy where you could have your cas start sending out these emails tomorrow. Get paid to go do this talk and then book yourself new patients in the process. And obviously, dental professionals are amazing.

All, all of you have at least a few hygienists or you know, maybe dentists already in the practice and you know how great of patients they are because they understand preventative health. They obviously make decent money, so they have a little bit more expendable income, and they're in a profession where they do have a lot of physical stress every day.

And so that specific aspect, they really understand. And so keeping themselves where they need to be from that point of view is important to them. 'cause a lot of dental professionals have to leave the profession early because of the physical stress on there.

Molly: I would've never in a million years. I remember when y'all were talking about this in Dallas, I was like, wait, what?

I'm confused. They're like, well, yeah. Like they're like bending over people's mouths on. I'm like, oh yeah, duh. Like yeah,

Dr. Krysti: like in weird spots for sure. Yeah.

Molly: Well, and it's just stressful 'cause nobody wants to be there.

Dr. Krysti: Right? That's true.

Molly: What a shitty job. They're like, no, not one per, except for me. I'm the weirdo who loves to get my teeth cleaned, but I would say the majority of people don't want to be in your office.

Dr. Krysti: For sure. So, yeah, we'd love to have you check out the program. We'll, obviously I'll get the details. Molly, she can put it in the show notes. Yeah, show notes and talk about innovative marketing in 2025. It's, it's a different. Approach, but working super, super well.

Molly: Yeah, I think that's absolutely brilliant.

Christie, thank you so much for being on today. Have you got an afternoon full of patience now?

Dr. Krysti: Yes ma'am. I'm gonna go record another one and then, but thank you. Thanks for everything you do for our profession and other health professions. I adore you, so keep doing all your good stuff, my dear feelings.

Mutual,

Molly: thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified, and hey, you know how every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast? Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce, to bring you free information.

So in order for me to be able to continue doing that, we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly a Cahill, that's C-A-H-I-L-L. I would greatly, greatly appreciate your support.

I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.