357 - Fix THIS ONE THING To Make Your Practice Grow
The Remarkable CEO for ChiropractorsMay 12, 202600:44:2640.68 MB

357 - Fix THIS ONE THING To Make Your Practice Grow

You don’t have an effort problem - you have a FOCUS problem. 

Most practices aren’t stuck because of a lack of effort, they’re stuck because they’re solving the wrong problems in the wrong order. In this episode, Dr. Stephen and Dr. Pete introduce the concept of the primary constraint and challenge the idea of “priorities” by reframing success around singular focus. Through the lens of the accountability grid and the five domains of business, they lay the foundation for a new way of thinking about growth: identifying, sequencing, and solving the one constraint that matters most right now. This episode sets the strategic framework for eliminating overwhelm, creating clarity, and unlocking the next level of performance. The payoff is a shift from reactive problem-solving to intentional, CEO-level decision making that drives real momentum.

In This Episode You Will:

  • Understand why solving multiple problems keeps you stuck
  • Learn the difference between constraints and symptoms
  • Discover how to identify your single primary constraint
  • See why sequencing problems is the key to growth
  • Clarify how to think like a CEO instead of an operator

Episode Highlights

01:55 - Recognize that every business faces multiple challenges, yet one primary constraint ultimately determines growth trajectory
03:55 - Understand the distinction between having many problems and identifying the single priority that creates leverage
08:40 - Discover that most growth plateaus are caused by a lack of focus rather than a lack of effort
09:05 - Explore the CEO’s role as the “human magnifying glass” directing energy and resources toward one outcome
11:10 - Examine how concentrated focus ignites momentum instead of spreading effort across multiple weak initiatives
16:03 - Identify the importance of sequencing constraints rather than attempting to solve everything simultaneously
17:31 - Differentiate between symptoms and true constraints when moving to the next level of growth
18:21 - Clarify how the five domains of business align with the patient journey and operational structure
22:12 - Reveal the hidden cost of ignoring constraints in both impact and income
25:21 - Uncover the most common primary constraints across attraction, conversion, retention, team, and money
27:48 - Dr. Eric DiMartino is joined by Mark Murdock of Aspen Live Well to explore how light therapy expands chiropractic impact and revenue. They discuss class IV laser, full-body photobiomodulation, and scalable business models that generate recurring income without requiring doctor time. Light therapy accelerates healing, attracts new patients, and creates a profitable business within a practice.

 

Resources Mentioned

Download your copy of the Accountability Grid here: https://go.theremarkablepractice.com/remceo-ep357-acctgrid

To learn more about the REM CEO Program, please visit: http://www.theremarkablepractice.com/rem-ceo

For more information about Aspen Live Well please visit: https://aspenlivewell.com/

Book a Strategy Session with Dr. Pete - https://go.oncehub.com/PodcastPC

Prefer to watch? Catch the podcast on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRemarkablePractice1

To listen to more episodes, visit https://theremarkablepractice.com/podcast or follow on your favorite podcast app.

 

[00:00:00] You can't chase two rabbits, nevermind five, right? So you've got to be able to identify it's like I'm going after that one first and there needs to be an intelligence around why am I selecting that as the first domino? Because what happens is when you address the primary constraint, you go to the next level.

[00:00:24] Hello and welcome to the Remarkable CEO podcast, a show dedicated to chiropractors who want to transform their job into a business so that they can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. With your hosts, Dr. Pete Camiolo and Dr. Stephen Franson.

[00:00:49] What's up, Remarkables? Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable CEO podcast, chiropractic's number one business podcast. I'm Dr. Stephen Franson. And I'm Dr. Pete Camiolo. And always crew, we are showing up here loaded for bear. So you got problems, you got challenges, you got issues, you're in the right place. So Dr. Pete, we're gonna have a conversation, we're gonna have a rich conversation that's gonna kick off a series on solving the issues, right?

[00:01:18] So at the end of the day, Dr. Pete, what I know is true is everyone who's a business owner, anybody who's in practice, they feel like, you know, we're surrounded by it, right? So you got issues all over the place across all the domains, attraction issues, conversion issues, I got retention issues, I got team building issues, I got financial issues. People right now are like, Francie, you read my journal. It's like, yeah, there's issues, there's problems, there's challenges all around you. That's called being in business. That's called being in practice.

[00:01:44] But here's what I know. There is a singular issue. There is one primary issue that is keeping you stuck. We call it the gap, Dr. Pete, we're gonna have a gap closing gap bridging gap eradicating conversations a whole series. We're gonna talk about the five most common primary constraints in the practices, the businesses, the 1000s of practices that we work for, we're gonna talk about how to annihilate the top five gaps in practice.

[00:02:13] I cannot wait, man, because I know that the repercussions of this series is going to be a million people getting under regular chiropractic care. You know, when we, we talk about the word priority, Dr. Steven, you talk about this, and I've heard you say this multiple times, which is a lot of times people use the word priorities. And it's like priorities is not a word. The word is priority. It's singular.

[00:02:35] So what we're gonna do in this series is identify, help you identify your priority, period. There is one priority. There's the most important constraint, the one thing.

[00:02:53] It's not saying it's the only thing. It's saying what's the most important, what's the one constraint that when that domino gets, you knock that domino, the rest of them go, the domino effect, you know that. That's what this is about. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna identify what is the priority, what is the one constraint, and we're going to break it down through the lens, the framework of your accountability grid,

[00:03:21] the five domains and 15 primary functions of your business, the chiropractic business, whether you're in launch, build, scale, or exit, whether you're at the break point one, break point two, break point three, break point four, wherever you find yourself. This training, I'm gonna call it a training in many ways, it will apply to you wherever you're at in your journey. We're not asking you if you have constraints.

[00:03:45] What Dr. Steven, you just said, we want you to identify what is the one primary constraint. So if you're listening to this in its second quarter, because we're recording it in the second quarter of 2026, you could be listening to this two years from now. That's right. Because I know there's gonna be people that are joining us in 2028. Hey guys, welcome to the show. This is 2026, by the way. Yeah.

[00:04:07] Anyway, so this will be true then, because this is what we call a principle of business. This is a principle when you understand that there's one primary constraint. And Dr. Steven, I want to say one more thing. So one of the things we say when we coach people is we tell them, coaching, it's a creative process. We've built a template. There's a framework for how we do things.

[00:04:35] So we don't play problem whack-a-mole. This is so powerful because this episode and the future episodes that we're inspired to do aren't just us playing problem whack-a-mole. No, we're gonna come in and we're gonna tell you, here's what we believe is the number one constraint. From thousands of conversations over decades of time and present time, like fresh, hot out of the oven,

[00:05:04] we've recognized like this is the primary constraint. That's what we're gonna give you guys. So this is gonna be an exciting series. And today we're gonna give you an overview of it. Then we're gonna dig in and double click on it and go deep, deeper. So Doc Stephen, I'm excited for this series. I know it's coming with some real inspiration. I'm inspired to be in a conversation with you. You know, I was interviewed this week on a podcast, another podcast by Dr. Nick Silveri from Leverage Media. He was an awesome guy, awesome chiropractor, awesome client, awesome success partner,

[00:05:31] and helps a lot of our clients help more people, right? So Leverage Media, they're awesome. Shout out to Dr. Nick. He's been coaching with us, I think he said 10 years, right? He is smart, capable, and an incredible student. And he's somebody who is committed to not only learning how to be a better business owner, but he's somebody who's working on, you know, how to be coachable and be an implementer.

[00:05:59] He's somebody who puts things, he learns and puts things into place. And it's, and as he put it, it explains why he's able to, he has multiple seven figure businesses now, right? So, and he said the second business he started since he's been a coaching client, and he's like, I can't even separate that business from the remarkable practice. He's like, everything I did to build this business from scratch was, I was in the remarkable CEO program. So I just build it right from the beginning. I'm like, that's just awesome. And he said to me, he goes, you know, I listen to the podcast every Tuesday.

[00:06:29] He's like, what's amazing is you guys don't gatekeep at all. He's like, I hear you guys talking. He's like, you're not gatekeeping. Right. That's our, we are walking out our mission here. It's like helping more people help more people. And he's like, you're, it's amazing. I listened to the podcast. I'm like, I cannot believe that they actually just let all this information out. So this is going to be an example of that in this series. Right. So guys get out your pens and paper, right? So this is going to be a note taking series.

[00:06:57] You're definitely going to be wanting to take capture notes because you know, our coaching clients pass thousands and thousands of dollars for this information. We're going to give it to you right now. So don't miss this series. Get ready to rock. We're going to go through all five domains. We're going to talk about the five most common constraints, primary constraints. Now, Dr. Pete, what I know is, is that this is, you know, most chiropractors find themselves stuck at different stages, right? So, you know, they might get stuck. You talked about the break points.

[00:07:25] The break points are 1 million, 3 million, 8 million, 15 million, 35 million. Those are the business break points, right? But there's also break points that people experience at volume levels, right? So, you know, we talk about if you get stuck somewhere between zero and 150 patient visits a week, that's doctor training, right? So you get stuck somewhere between 150 and 300 patient visits a week. That's team training, right? So you get stuck somewhere between 300 and 600 patient visits per week. That's patient training, right? There's all kinds of break points.

[00:07:54] We talk about the team building break points of every $250,000 per full-time employee equivalent, right? This is a science, guys. Like, building a practice and building a business is a science. One thing that I know is that these break points, they're not happening. You don't get stuck because you lack effort. It's not that you're not working hard. You're not trying hard. You're not working long enough or strong enough, right? That's not the issue. It comes down to this, gang. Ready? Write this down.

[00:08:24] It's a focus issue. This is a focus issue. You don't know how to focus or you don't know what to focus on. And that's a terrible combination. I don't know how to focus and I don't know what to focus on. Listen, CEOs, you're the chief energy officer, right? So your job is to capture, collect, and direct the resources of your business. Picture you are the human magnifying glass. And picture those sunbeams as being the time, energy, focus, and money of your organization, of everybody in your team.

[00:08:54] Your job is to be the human magnifying glass that captures and collects all those sun rays and points it exactly where you want the fire to start. Listen, we're not in the business of warming surfaces. We're in the business of starting fires. And Dr. Pete, the most important thing is you need to know where do I want to point those resources? I need to know exactly what to focus on and get my team focused on.

[00:09:21] Otherwise, we are spreading it out all over the place and just warming surfaces. Yeah, so I want to speak to two things. The first one was the gate thing, the gatekeeper thing. And as you were talking, I thought, and I'll speak to Dr. Nick and everybody else. So thanks for listening, Dr. Nick. Love you, brother. And everybody else, we're super grateful to be on that journey with you. I know many of you who listen regularly, we're very grateful. It's really. So thinking of you, but the gate.

[00:09:49] So I was thinking about the gate and I was like, the reason why we don't gatekeep is because we're on the other side of the gate. That's why. People that gatekeep, my concern is they're probably not on the other side of the gate. They're not in it with you. We're in it with you. We feel the pain, the weight, the suffering. We understand the challenges. They're real. So why would we gatekeep if our heart is to serve and help you break through? It's already hard enough. Why make it any harder? Why gatekeep and make somebody question and be like, that was awesome, but I didn't get anything from it.

[00:10:17] It's like, that serves no one. So we understand that that's why, thinking of the gate. Because if I think of the gate and I think, think of a bunch of sheep and cattle or something behind a gate and it's like kind of chaotic in there. Like, yeah, we're in there trying to herd all that stuff and get it all where it needs to go. So that's what we're doing on a daily, weekly basis with chiropractors, our brothers and sisters. And so we don't have a need to do it because we already know how hard it is and challenging it is and hasn't gotten any easier.

[00:10:46] So we are fully committed to serving and to equipping and empowering. I love the word equip. To equip is to give someone tools, right? To give someone tools and training comes with that. And then to empower is to transfer authority, right? So to give you the authority in your domain where you have dominion, which is in your business.

[00:11:11] And a lot of people lack what you might call confidence or certainty, clarity or conviction, right? The big ones, commitment, the big five C's we always talk about. You lack any of those things, it's going to be really hard to build a remarkable business, right? It's going to be challenging for you to turn that job into a business. It's going to be. So we recognize that. And that's what this podcast is for. It's why we're going to do this series, because if you can identify what the primary

[00:11:38] constraint is right now, and you can put all that energy, like you said, instead of spreading it out, but really getting it. Like we use, you know, we use the magnifying glass example to light a fire, that you can put all that energy, marshal all those resources into one area and turn that thing, ignite that fire. That's our hope in this series. Hey doc, Stephen Franson here. If you're like me, you know that we're in the business of saving lives. And when business is good, everybody wins. That's the good news.

[00:12:08] But here's the bad news. Most chiropractors don't own a business at all. They own a job. It's a job they love, but it's a job. And far too often, it feels like that job owns them. Is this true for you? Do you own a business or a job? Have you built and do you run your practice on brute force? Does it rely fully on your time, your effort, a pound of your flesh? Are you responsible for all growth, for all new patient generation?

[00:12:38] How about new patient conversions? Is it all up to you? How about patient care and delivery? Are you a sole practitioner, an owner operator who owns the practice, but is also the only one that is head down and bum up, taking care of all the patients? Is revenue generation or collections all up to you? Let me ask you the most telling question. Doc, what would happen if you took 90 days off? What breaks?

[00:13:04] In my experience, most on-purpose chiropractors do not lay awake at night worrying about their practice. They worry about their business. Let's slay that dragon. The Remarkable CEO program has helped hundreds of chiropractors just like you turn the job that they love into the business that they've always wanted. Are you ready to run and build your practice on leverage instead of brute force? Do you want to create the scalability and durability that will allow you to make a bigger impact and a bigger income?

[00:13:32] What would it mean to grow your practice, increase your productivity and your profitability? Do you want to get your time freedom back? Are you ready to turn your pirate ship into a battleship? If this sounds like you, then the Remarkable CEO program is for you. Just last year, 53 of our Remarkable clients received the 7-Figure Club Award, meaning they hit the million-dollar mark for the first time or their next million-dollar level. Be it 2 million, 3 million, 10 million, up to 36 million and growing.

[00:14:02] Now, Doc, is it crazy to imagine that your practice could be next? Click the link below and learn how to apply for the next cohort of the Remarkable CEO program. We look forward to working closely with you in creating the business that supports your Remarkable life, not competes with it. As we go through each one of the domains, Dr. Stephen, we're going to look at, and we talked about this before, but we've identified what we believe are the primary constraints very organically. And we're aligned.

[00:14:32] We're on the same exact page. And that's not by accident. It's because we're in it with you. We're behind the gate. So to that point, Dr. Stephen, I want to go through each one of the five because we're not going to go through them all in the depth that we're going to go through in this series, but I'd like to hit on all five unless you want to go somewhere else. I'd like to start with the first one. Before we dive into them, because I think we'll go high level and then we'll let everybody know what's coming in this series, right? But you talked about the accountability grid.

[00:15:01] First and foremost, I think it's a great idea that we give away two things here. We should give away the accountability grid with its training. And we should give away the KPI legend for both the practice and the business. Like, let's give that so that they have those tools in their hand, right? So because we actually want you guys to go through this process, right? It's not like, you know, this is not a jacuzzi experience, as my friend Patch and Tempo likes to say. It's like, if you guys just listen to this podcast and you walk away and we're like, oh, wow, that was really informative. We failed you, right?

[00:15:29] So this is about transformation, not information, guys. You have all the information. You don't need any more information, right? You need transformation and transformation means implementation. You actually take action. We want you to be taking action, right? So let's give them the tool. It's the accountability grid, comes with the training. They can do it with their team and also the KPI legend so that we're being data driven when we have these conversations. Because when you're unearthing, you guys have done this exercise. If you're a longtime listener, you've done this exercise with us, which is where you are

[00:15:59] identifying the constraints, plural, in your business. You guys know how to do that. We're not going to use this time now to talk about that. The video will explain it. If you don't know how to do it, it's a 45-minute training video for you and your team to go through this tool. We're giving you a tool, right? There'll be a link somewhere here. Grab that tool. You'll use this as we're going through this series together. And you're going to unearth your constraints in the business, right? So the constraints are the choke points. So what is preventing this business whose natural state is growth?

[00:16:29] What is it keeping you from growing? What's the interference? Where are the toxicities? Where are the deficiencies across the 15 primary functions of the business? If you don't know what I'm talking about right now, you're going to be stoked when you watch this video and watch this training and be like, holy crap, this tool is unbelievable, right? So now you've identified the constraints, multiple. This series is going to be about identifying the sequence of how you should be addressing these constraints because that's the secret here, right? So you might identify you've got five.

[00:16:59] Yeah, I've got five of those constraints, right? So here's what we know to be true. You can't chase two rabbits, nevermind five, right? So you've got to be able to identify. It's like, I'm going after that one first. And there needs to be an intelligence around why am I selecting that as the first domino? Because what happens is when you address the primary constraint, you go to the next level. And when you go to the next level, there'll be a new devil, right? So it may be, it'll be, yes, that's the number two. Now we have to address that.

[00:17:26] And then it'll be number three that I addressed when I was back there, right? So, but the truth is, Dr. Pete, this is not a linear horizontal east to west exercise. What happens is this goes north to south, right? This is vertical integration, right? So this is like not horizontal, right? So when you break through and go to the next level, you might say, oh, wow, what I thought was a constraint down before, that was actually just a symptom downstream from my primary constraint. Now I have a different constraint, right?

[00:17:54] So you might just go from a demand constraint to a supply constraint. And I'll tell you what, I'll take a supply constraint all day long over a demand constraint. For those of you who I'm speaking French to right now, it's just like, hang in there, right? So we're going to live in this space, right? You're going to get an MBA on how to build your practice and build your business if you hang in there with us through this series. Dr. Pete, I'm super stoked for it. We'll go over all five domains, go high level, and then we'll kick the series off. So number one is you talked about sequence.

[00:18:23] So we're going to go in a sequence. It doesn't mean this is the order for you, but we're going to go in a sequence as we go through these and through this series in the order that the accountability grid is laid out. And by the way, the order of the patient journey. So we are going to begin starting at the top of the funnel, so to speak, through the patient journey with attraction. We're going to flow from attraction through the conversion.

[00:18:49] We're going to flow through conversion into retention, then we're going to flow into the team, and then we're going to get into the money in the business office. We're going to go through what we've identified. So the five domains and the 15 primary functions, we're going to go through the five domains and what we have identified as right now, the primary constraint for businesses. Now, if you are in a different season, so let's say you're in launch, that might be a different gap than if you're in build and there's different gaps in build than there

[00:19:19] are in scale and scale and exit. But these constraints actually apply to all four seasons of your career. Now, you have to have discernment and understanding of what that might be. And so that's what the power of this grid is. So download the tool, watch the video, 45 minutes, so helpful, and then go through answering the two questions. What you'll get as a result of doing this exercise is you'll get what we call the constraints. Now, there might be more than five because you, Dr. Stephen, just talked about there's five and you're going to sequence the first one.

[00:19:47] I have people that go through this and they have three. I have some people that go through and have 12. So it just depends on what your goals are and what your performance has been. That's going to be a big part of this. And so as you go through this exercise, number one is recognize you want to capture what all those constraints are first in your constraints document. That's going to be a really powerful next step because it's going to enable you to have from

[00:20:12] an above view to look at your business from above and see it holistically. And then from that view, you can then begin to look at, and again, I'm probably moving pretty fast here, but you have to understand, okay, what is your vision of what success looks like? What are you trying to accomplish? Right? So you can only determine what the primary one is in your sequence. If you know what you're, where you're going, where you want to, what success looks like.

[00:20:38] So vision and ask the question, going back to troubleshooting the question, what does success look like? Or what are you committed to accomplish? Or where are you going? That answers the vision question. You got to have clarity there. That question is organized into a measurable called a goal. From there, you can determine what the primary constraint is and then get it in a sequence.

[00:21:02] So doing the exercise, organizing the areas of what we would consider constraints in the constraints document, and then with your eye on your vision of knowing what's important next, what's important ultimately, I can determine what's important now, okay? So what's the now primary in the sequence? Because if it's, I can tip the now domino, next, it'll be this one, then it'll be that one. And ultimately, we're going to get here.

[00:21:32] Now you're starting to think like a remarkable CEO who is working on the business and then above the business. And that's where we're doing here. So we're putting on our CEO cap right now. It's a strategic exercise, very strategic. And it's going to, you want to almost come out of yourself as an operator, come up above it to do this exercise, to be unemotional, data-driven. And as we go through this, you'll see why that's important.

[00:22:00] So I just wanted to say that, Dr. Stephen, as we build this out, like that's the order of steps to get to what we're going to go to. Otherwise, if you skip steps, this is going to, we're going to miss. It's going to be a miss. Yeah, Dr. Pete. So let me just tease it a little bit. Okay. But before we jump into that, I want people to really see this. Okay. Not addressing your constraints, not identifying the gap is costing you. Okay.

[00:22:26] And I need you to just, I think you feel it, but I want you to see it. Okay. Not addressing the gap is costing you. Okay. And you probably are not yet calculating how much it's costing. Okay. Okay. So it's costing you and it's costing your community. So we'll talk about impact and income. So what we know to be true is in our experience, working with thousands of chiropractors through this exercise, that when you optimize each of the 15 primary functions, when you look

[00:22:56] at that accountability grid, each one of those 15 boxes, each one, when it comes to impact is worth a hundred patient visits a week. Right? So when you optimize it nines and tens, you're talking about a hundred patient visits a week in each one of the 15 boxes, do the math quick. 15 times a hundred. That's 1500 a week in volume. Now I'm not projecting on you. You're saying you got to see 1500 a week. So you have to be a special kind of crazy to want to do a thousand a week. Right? You're talking to two guys who've done it. Right? So that we're not telling you what success looks like.

[00:23:25] We're just telling you that a thousand a week chiropractor has the chiropractic MBA. Right? So we're going to be able to tell you, listen, if you're, if you're trying to go to a thousand a week, that's great. We're the guys to talk to. But if you're trying to go from zero to 200 a week, guess what? Been there. You're trying to go from 200 to 300 or 400 a week. Guess what? Been there. Right? So the pain, the challenge of the problems you have to go from 400 to 600. Yep. Been there too. 600. 800. Yep. Been there. 800,000. Yep. Been there. Right? So what happens when you break a thousand, but been there. Right?

[00:23:55] So it's like, you guys, what you're talking to a couple of tour guides, right? Who are going to show you around, regardless of how your pain points are showing up. Now, if impact doesn't get you income will, right? Because each one of those boxes is also worth $250,000. Right? So if you do the math on this, right? So when you recognize that's $250,000 of revenue, annual income, right?

[00:24:18] So 15 times 250 is $3,750,000 when you optimize nines and tens, all 15 primary functions. And Dr. Pete, you know what I love to say? Every $3,750,000 helps, right? So every one of those boxes optimizes worth $250,000 of annual revenue. Do I have your attention now? Okay. So listen, guys, regardless of what your vision of the remarkable life is, you're going to need to fund that, right?

[00:24:46] So this is about creating the remarkable business that will support your remarkable life, not compete with it, right? So that's what this series is about. It's identifying the gap, the primary constraint that's keeping you going from the next level. Now, Dr. Pete, from a high level, we're going to talk about attraction. And you and I both know that this is very often a combination of a couple of things, but it usually boils down to just illiteracy around metrics and understanding the data, right?

[00:25:12] So at the end of the day, we know chiropractors are grossly under-investing in marketing because they don't understand how to measure the marketing that they're doing. Because if they did understand what to measure, how to measure it, what it means and how to impact those numbers, they would be 5Xing their investment in marketing. But they're not doing that because they don't know what to measure. So they're under-investing. Number two on conversion. We've got an offering issue, right? So the problem in the conversion process is your offer.

[00:25:41] So we're going to get into like, what does it take to create a compelling offer where people are literally saying, shut up and take my money, right? So you've got to be able to position what your services are, what your product is, right? So what outcomes you have in your conversion process, you have an offer issue. When it comes to retention and delivery, for most people, they've got a compliance issue, right? So they don't create a compelling reason for people to stay under regular chiropractic care. Listen, we know the truth.

[00:26:10] People start care for one reason. They stay under care for another. People start something to solve a problem. They stay under care to achieve a goal. You have to learn how to position this properly. And it all drives compliance. Compliance drives results, retention, referral, and revenue, right? All of our favorite R's. When it comes to team building, Dr. Pete, you know where we're going with this. A players only, right? So we're going to have a conversation around your biggest gap is probably a team gap. It's probably a person gap.

[00:26:39] Either you're missing somebody's knowledge base, somebody's skill set, right? A specific genius on your team is missing, or maybe it's a manpower issue or a combination of all the above. Guys, this is about finding that next A player hire and acting like a professional, not an amateur when it comes to building your team. And then finally, money. For most chiropractors, love chiropractors. Married my chiropractor. My favorite people in the world are chiropractors.

[00:27:05] But unfortunately, even though we're in school for seven, eight, nine years, we come out with financial illiteracy, and that hurts you, right? So economics, accounting is the language of business. And if you don't speak accounting, you don't understand your business. If you don't understand something, there is absolutely no chance you can optimize it, never mind reach your potential. Dr. Pete, people are leaving so much money on the table because they've got a jacked up money model.

[00:27:32] And you can't out-adjust a broken business model. You can't out-hustle a broken business model. You can't out-volume a broken business model. We're going to get into it. We're going to get after it. We're going to find these gaps. We're going to bridge those gaps and help everybody get to the next level. Please stick around for more business insights from this week's bonus interview with our remarkable success partner dedicated to helping you more successfully help more people. Enjoy.

[00:28:02] Hello, Remarkable CEOs. It's Coach Dr. Eric DeMartino here. I'm excited to be in studio today with Mark from Aspen Live Well. Mark and Aspen Live Well is one of our remarkable success partners, and we just love our remarkable success partners because they help further our mission of helping our docs help more people. So welcome today, Mark. It's great to be in studio with you. Please take some time to tell the audience a little bit about you and what your business does. Sure, sure.

[00:28:31] So I was a college basketball coach for 17 years. I got out of coaching in 2010 and started the whole body cryotherapy industry in the United States. So I was the originator, one of the originators of that industry and launched that. I got involved in light therapy about 2015 and then went into that full time about 2018. And I'm now with Aspen Live Well. I'm their VP. And we've got four brands under that.

[00:28:59] We do class four medical laser. We do whole body full photobodulation light beds. We do panels for in-home use. And then we do topical, the world's first optical clearing gel for on-skin and off-skin laser and light panels. Great. That's great. And so, you know, we always are teaching our remarkable CEOs out there that every business exists to solve problems, right?

[00:29:25] So can you kind of share with our listeners what problems do you guys specifically solve for chiropractors? Yeah, I mean, light is a photochemical solution that most chiropractors can't address in their office. It doesn't mean that adjustments don't have some chemical reactions in the tissue. They do, but not at a photochemical level that would be like injecting somebody or giving somebody a chemical drug. So first, it would be like morphine.

[00:29:52] I can take a laser and have a morphine or tramadol or toradol effect on a nerve. I can turn a nerve off within 10 minutes of the first visit and get 90% of people pain-free right away. So that's pretty amazing in and of itself. But then the real benefit of light is the long-term tissue repair. Ligament, tendon, bone, muscle, brain, disc, skin, all of those things.

[00:30:18] Every tissue in the human body heals about 30% to 40% faster with a photochemical infusion of light. And whether that's a laser or a panel or a bed, we're still getting those kinds of responses. So the first problem it solves is it gives chiropractors a whole nother patient population that they currently can't address with traditional chiropractic or decompression or the things that they're doing right now. So it's a whole nother skew.

[00:30:46] And in business, we're always looking for as many skews as we can to bring revenue in. So it brings people in the door that may also take chiropractic services or may leave their chiropractor and go, well, I can go to my chiropractor and then I can go over here to Dr. DiMartino and do light therapy. But why don't I just put everything over with Dr. DiMartino and do it all at one stop? So that's the other part.

[00:31:12] The real problem we also serve for chiropractors is we give them a business within a business revenue stream that doesn't involve their brain, their time and their hands and their back. A light business can operate completely independent of the chiropractor. Chiropractor doesn't have to be there, doesn't have to meet the patient, doesn't have to do an assessment, doesn't have to write a prescription. The staff can run the light therapy business and produce as much or more revenue than a chiropractor

[00:31:39] can produce with their own time and their own hands or their own talent. So that's a pretty big metric for everybody that's in the remarkable practice. It's in that looking to scale, right? How do you scale if you're just one chiropractor and one assistant and one front desk billing girl, right? You can only scale so far and you can't clone yourself, right? And assistants are more expensive, right? So staff and payroll are more expensive.

[00:32:05] So if you can clone a business within your business and it doesn't involve you and it can send you revenue, we call that freedom, right? I mean, that's when you get exit, when you get all the way to scale, grow exit, that means it's sending me money and I can choose to continue to work or I can choose not to continue to be in the office and it still sends me money. And that's really what the light therapy business does for chiropractors. Absolutely.

[00:32:33] And like you said, it helps solve complex problems when the body can't heal itself, right? And as chiropractors, we, you know, we remove subluxations to allow the body to heal itself and the body can do that. But when you can use other services that speed that process up, it's a huge advantage for the patient, obviously, but also for the office as well. And so just for my listeners to say, no, I use Mark's class four laser in my office. We implemented it last year and it's just, it's pretty amazing what it can do.

[00:33:01] I was always kind of skeptical because I was always that hardcore chiropractor. No, adjustment only, adjustment only. And then my, it's actually my associates that twisted my arm into getting one. And it was, it was amazingly impressive. And what I love about it is that it sells itself. Like what Mark said earlier, that literally he can turn off a nerve in like 10 minutes, like a tramadol does. It does that. And so it's the easiest sell ever. And we just started to offer it to our existing patients who had maybe other issues, knee issues,

[00:33:28] hip issues, or even spinal issues that just weren't progressing as fast as they want. We offer them a free session, right? And, and literally the free session sells itself because this person who's had years and years of chronic pain, let's say it's a shoulder issue. You do a five, 10 minute session with laser. They go from a 10 out of 10 to like a two out of 10. Yeah. And suddenly they have this massive range of motion. Like, holy cow, I've had this for 10 years and now I can move. Like I haven't been able to in over 10 years. Now, obviously that doesn't last. We need repeated sessions to reinforce that, but it sells itself.

[00:33:57] Cause they're just like, oh my gosh. Right. Whereas most services don't give that immediate response to, but it sells itself. So we offer a free session, existing people and boom, they just buy packages. It's really a simple thing in the office. So super powerful. Yeah. And I appreciate you guys for providing that. So, you know, as CEOs, we always talk about, you know, anything that we do, we want to get a positive return on investment for it. So how do you guys provide that positive ROI for docs? You kind of went into this a little bit, but I don't know if you can share like some of

[00:34:25] the, you know, the, the financial benefits that offices can see what kind of return to the offices you guys work with typically see from using your services. Yeah. From the laser, you know, we see anywhere from 12,000 additional revenue per month, all the way up to 30,000. It just depends on how many sessions you're doing a day. A course of care and laser is six sessions over the first 14 days. That's where we start everybody, no matter what they're coming in for. We want to hit them with six sessions in 14 days.

[00:34:52] That package usually in the United States sells for somewhere around 360 to $450. So if you're selling three, six packs a day, it's over a thousand dollars a day of laser revenue. We don't really do it by how many sessions we do because those are prepaid packages, but we do it by how many laser sessions we sell a day. So what I talk to most docs is when I do a demo day to say, okay, now you've seen these results. You've seen us do 15 patients and get 15, 15 out of 15 results. 100% batting, your thousand percent batting average, right?

[00:35:22] How many six packs do you think you could sell in a day? And they're like, oh, a lot. I said, do you think one is, they say, well, I think, yeah, that's a pretty low bar. Well, great. I mean, if you're selling one six pack a day, you just put another six grand into your bank account. And that's our super low bar. I've got docs selling five, six packs a day. So that's kind of the light there. The light bed is even better because it can actually operate 24 hours a day. It needs no practitioner.

[00:35:51] So you could have it memberships and we do that in membership. So you could say, we're going to have memberships and people come into the office anytime we're open and do it. And then after hours, when we're closed, they just give a little key fob, just like your gym, right? Your gym is open 24 hours a day, most of them now. And nobody has to be there. You just slide that key fob. And if you have an active membership, the door unlocks and you go in and do it. Well, the Theralite can be done the same way. It unlocks the front door and then unlocks the room. Now, everything else in your office is locked up, records, laser, right?

[00:36:21] You know, nutritional, that's all locked up. But the Theralite room and the front door open with that key fob. Now you have a 24 hour income with zero payroll attached. That's the dream, right? Payroll is the most expensive thing we can do in business. And then when you've got the Therago, which are light panel products, doctors are now selling our Therago panels to their patients for in-home use because the patient may say, look, doc, I love coming up here and getting the whole body Theralite, but I can only come twice a week.

[00:36:50] Is there something I can do at home to kind of accentuate and add to kind of homework, right? We're always looking to get patients homework. We know that when they come in once or twice a week and we adjust them and they go home and do nothing else, that's an uphill battle. But if they'll participate and be compliant in the things we're giving them to do and the bridging exercises and all of them stretching, right? They'll be better. So the same thing with light. People want something to do at home. So that's what the light panels. And then the last thing is the topical, which is lucium.

[00:37:18] And that has just now hit the market. That's the optical clearing gel. You sell that to your patients on the light bed side. They put that on their skin and then they get in front of a light panel or in the Theralite bed. And that makes the skin no longer be a barrier to light where light is absorbed. It passes through like a window and goes deeper into the tissue. And then on the laser side with lucium, you wouldn't actually sell lucium to your patients. But Eric, you're going to find out when we send you next month, your first bottle of

[00:37:46] lucium, you're just going to put that on before you apply laser. And you're going to have another level of response that you, you're, you're, you know, ecstatically happy with what you're getting now. But now with that gel on there that optically clears the skin, light goes through even deeper and you get a faster result. So what's taken you seven and a half minutes on average to do right now with the laser is going to drop down to about five minutes, if even that much. So pretty amazing result with that. So all of those suite of package really build a business within your business.

[00:38:16] Because again, that you can be gone for a month and you're, that business operates without you as a practitioner. Yep. It's that monthly recurring revenue model. We love to have as CEOs as well. You know, it's great. And, and my experience was we, you know, we got a pretty nice high end laser that, you know, wasn't cheap, but within four months it was paid off. And we honestly didn't promote it that well. We could have probably done a way better job, but in four months it's completely paid off. And so everything now is just pure profit that comes in from it. And, you know, patients getting great results.

[00:38:45] So with light therapy, you go from being pursuing and trying to sell and convince to, like you said, give them that first session. And then they say, can I come back tomorrow? And, and usually it's no, but I'll see in 48 hours, right? It's a process, not an event. We just follow the process, but it makes your staff. A lot of us have a really good as practitioners in closing, but who's the main closer. It's not us every time. It's our, it's our staff. And some of them aren't real great at that yet.

[00:39:14] And we're coaching them and we're sending them to the markable practice and we're teaching them how to close and overcome objections and reverse the risk. If the patient's going to walk out the door and they're not going to buy, right? But the, the light therapy part of it makes the patient pursue them. So I've taken some really terrible closers and had them at about an 80, 90% close rate. Cause all they have to do is apply a laser and go say nothing. And the patient goes, I want to do, I want to come back. I want to do it again.

[00:39:44] Can I buy more? And I like, yeah, well, let's, let's start you with a six pack. We just did the first one. Let's buy five more and we'll schedule you for 48 hours from now. We'll have you come back in again. So that's a really refreshing change. And then if you, if you look at the explosion of full body red light therapy right now in the marketplace, it's amazing how rampant it is and how fast it's growing. So now you have people going full body light therapy near me, boom, you pop up, they walk

[00:40:10] in the door and you haven't spent a dime bringing that, that new prospect in, right? We're always cost of customer acquisition is really important. When you spend $0 on customer acquisition and they buy a $200 a month membership. And stay with you for an average of 13 months. Can you beat that return? I mean, you can't beat it in the stock market. So it's a pretty good rate of return. Oh, absolutely. And what I really love about you guys too, is your customer service and like your onboarding.

[00:40:39] And so like, I'll share with the listeners, you know, when, when you, one of my hesitations about bringing laser in is I just didn't understand it and I didn't know how to sell it. Right. That was really one of my things. And, but what you guys did so well is you, you know, you, you know, Mark came into my office, spent, he flew to my office on his dime, spent a whole day with my team, explained like the chemistry behind it, like what light does in the cells and why it works so well. And so my team would understand on a very basic level. And he told me, he had me do something. I was shocked.

[00:41:06] He said, bring in 10 of your, your biggest challenges. Are there patients yours? Bring them in and we'll do a free session with them and I'll walk you through and actually do it. So we did that. We brought in some really challenging cases and these people got unbelievable results, like unbelievable. I'll share the one guy had horrible knee arthritis. I don't know if you remember this guy, Mark, but horrible. He's probably only 60, not that old, but man, horrible knee arthritis where he kind of walked crooked 10 years of this pain, did a laser on both of his knees. He's able to walk normally with no pain. And he was just blown away.

[00:41:35] And, and, and so I was like, I could not believe immediate results happen with that. And so it's, and so I love how you guys really kind of hold the practitioner's hand with you explain it all. You train the team how to do it. So it's, it's just a really easy onboarding process and just makes everything much simpler. So I really appreciate it. I always prefer to do that in person. I mean, a lot of them will do send your manual and do some online courses. And I think that face-to-face person, cause we're not just showing you how to use the device. We're, we're showing you how to educate the client.

[00:42:04] Your educated patients are your best patients that know why you're doing what you're doing. They buy in, they they're compliant with everything you ask them to do because they have the most education. The people that are just there and go, I just walk in, get fixed and walk out and really don't think about it. They tend to drift off. And, and that now we talk about ROI again, lifetime value of a patient decreases. The higher the education, the higher the lifetime value of that patient, the longer they stay with your practice. Absolutely. It's great.

[00:42:34] So Mark, tell me where can our, how can our listeners connect with you guys learn more about what you do? Yeah. I always just give people, I mean, obviously you can go to the website, AspenLiveWell.com. It's got everything under there of all four brands, but I just give people my email and cell phone that I like people just call me directly. I mean, I have thousands of clients like you are across the world in 21 countries that have my cell phone and that's the way I like to do it.

[00:42:58] So email is Mark Murdoch, first and last name, M-A-R-K-M-U-R-D-O-C-K at AspenLiveWell.com. And then cell phone is 214-641-1827. If I'm not asleep and I'm alive, I'll answer. That's true. You always do when I text you. So that's great. So listeners, definitely reach out, see how Aspen LiveWell can help you guys help more people. So I want to thank you so much for being here, Mark.

[00:43:25] Thanks again for being a success partner, for supporting our, the TRP, supporting all our clients. And again, just helping our docs impact more people in our communities, which is what TRP is all about. So Remarkable CEOs, remember to tune in each week to the Remarkable CEO podcast. Everyone have a blessed day. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Remarkable CEO podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic.

[00:43:53] And what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, share with a friend and leave us a review. And if you'd like to connect with us personally, direct message us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. Now go and be remarkable.

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