382 - How to Build a High-Touch, High-Tech Practice Operating System and Crush It

[00:00:00] So I think the black and white of it is decreased overhead. Most people, Dr. Stephen, probably think what? I'm gonna let my team members go. Yeah, I'm gonna fire people, reduce their hours and pay them less. That's not what we're talking about. First thing that people think of, and I'm gonna say to all, we're saying to you guys, it's none of those. That's actually not what we're gonna talk about. So that hopefully piques everyone's curiosity.

[00:00:29] 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. Peter Camiolo and Dr. Stephen Franson.

[00:00:52] What's up, Remarkables? Welcome to another episode of The Remarkable CEO Podcast, Chiropractic's number one business podcast. And man, we're gonna earn that title today. I'm Dr. Stephen Franson. And I'm Dr. Pete Camiolo. Hey man, so psyched to be back in the studio with you. It's good to be back at the desk back in town after just an incredible trip out to Texas. Good to be with some of our boys out in Texas.

[00:01:18] Dr. Caleb and Dr. Chad from Genesis and their world class team had an opportunity to be at their summit last week, which is just so awesome. I have the privilege of coaching those guys and coaching their enterprise and watching that rocket ship growth. When I first started working with them, they were at 35 practices. Now they're pushing 95 practices. It's been like a 15 month, just absolute rocket ship. What a privilege to be part of that team and helping them help more people, help more people, bro. This place was awesome. And I'll tell you what, I was in that room with so many of their docs.

[00:01:47] And we had probably 10, 10 or more TRP docs in there now, which is just fantastic. And so many people came up and like, Hey, thanks for the podcast. I love the podcast. So if that was you, I'm talking to you right now. Thanks so much. We love to get that kind of feedback because, you know, we know there's thousands of you guys out there listening. We know we see our stats, but it's so nice to put a face to the numbers. So I love the high fives, love the squeezes. And I love when people say, man, I cannot believe how you guys don't gatekeep. You just give so much great content and it's amazing. Right?

[00:02:17] So it's like, we love to share it. We want to demarketize this stuff and, you know, serve our mission, which is to help more people, help more people. And Dr. P we're going to do just that next week. We are going to be heading to Maryland for the remarkable practice immersion, which today we had to declare sold out. We can't get any more people. The fire marshal told us we're going to have more people in there. We got a room for seven 50. We're crossing eight 50. Now it's like, we've got so many people coming out to Maryland.

[00:02:43] It's going to be awesome because between those folks, our guests, our success partners and our team, we are going to invade that campus. We're going to invade that hotel. And everybody in that hotel is going to learn a little bit more about chiropractic. And I just love that. I love invading a territory and claiming it, putting a flag in it for chiropractic. Cannot wait to get there. Yeah. And it's the right spot too. I mean, of all the places we could have been, it's our first time doing the DC area.

[00:03:08] And of course that's also where our nation's capital is. So, you know, I think there's a spiritual significance to everything. It's not a surprise that we're in the capital city, right around the capital of our nation. As we, we released the launch of the TRP 3.0. So Dr. Stephen, I'm eager, energized to get there. I'm looking forward to seeing so many of you who are listening to this podcast, because like Dr. Stephen said,

[00:03:35] we regularly hear from you that you were listening to an episode and you know, that you find this podcast very helpful and valuable. And so thank you for all of our listeners who listen. Thank you for also commenting, sharing. Thank you for telling us and the feedback that we receive is just, it means the world. So thank you for that. And I look forward to embracing so many of you together because we're used to this virtual stuff. But it's like, man, when you get together, Dr. Stephen boots on the ground, we're all together.

[00:04:02] Something spectacular happens when you get a bunch of on purpose, principled chiropractors and world-class human beings together. It's just magical. It's beautiful. So I had the opportunity to be at a chiropractic conference last weekend as well, the chiropractic revolution, which I'm incredibly grateful for. And, you know, one of the themes of the event that I really took away as I was listening to all the different speakers and that event is very much a faithful Christian event where it's about God, family and chiropractic.

[00:04:29] And one of the things that I heard consistently, Dr. Stephen through the event was so many people that are so committed to their faith walk and their family and their business is consistently like how hard it is to do them all well. And I think today's topic is so powerful because for whether you're a faith-filled entrepreneur or not, but to do it all well, like I want to do my walk with the Lord well.

[00:04:57] I want to do my walk with my family and my marriage. I want to do my walk with my children. Well, I want to, I want to do the walk with business. Well, to say that and do it is so, it's wildly, you know, difficult. Like it's so challenging. We say it's wicked hard, right? And Dr. Stephen says with his Boston accent, and if it was easy, everybody do it. And now we're, we're layering in, you know, a level of virtual and AI.

[00:05:22] And that's what we're going to talk about today, because I truly believe Dr. Stephen, this should help you buy back the time that you want and you need with the Lord. The buyback time that you want and you need with your spouse. Buy back the time that you want and you need with your children. Buy back the time that you want and you need with your team and with your patients who you serve. So that's what this is about. It's about leverage, Dr. Stephen. We're going to have a leverage conversation. So, and it made me think about that, being in that room, listening to so many of those

[00:05:50] speakers where people were very open and honest on where they were at. That's right. And Dr. Stephen, this, this, this, this, so this hits everybody, regardless of whether you've been in business for a year, you've been in the game for 35, 40 years, wherever you're at in your arc in the journey and launching, building, scaling, exiting, whether things are going great and you're hitting PRs and best evers, or we're in struggle bus, struggle city. There's hope for you and there's help for you.

[00:06:19] And you're not alone. And Dr. Stephen, I'm thrilled that we get to run with so many amazing chiros. We get to support them and support you. So thank you for tuning in. And the conversation we're going to have today is going to be on point and it's going to be timely for everybody. I'm glad you're shedding a light on that, Dr. Pete, because growth means many things. And as there are as many definitions of success, there's as many definitions of growth, right?

[00:06:45] So some people, you know, they just, they paint things into a box and they're just like, oh, growth just means more revenue, more collections, more money, more volume, more adjustments, more new patients, more services. And all that might be true. It's like, there's nothing wrong with that kind of growth, right? It says like, that's productivity, right? It says like, but growth could also be, hey, I'm growing in my time freedom. Hey, I know that I'm growing in my impact because I'm actually freeing myself from busy work

[00:07:13] and I'm actually able to connect people, connect with people better and be more intentional, right? I'm not so rushed and hurried. So I know I'm doing my best clinical work or I'm doing my best leadership work, right? So I'm, or I'm influencing stronger because I'm present with my people because I've got technology helping me to be more effective and more efficient, right? So growth might be, I'm actually walking more in alignment, right? So I've actually freed up time so that I can spend more time with my faith walk. I can spend more time with my marriage. I can spend more time with my children.

[00:07:43] Technology might've freed you up. So it was like, we're not actually necessarily seeing more patients or even driving more revenue, but we're making a greater profit. And man, I need the profit to take home to, to, and to fuel the life that I want to live. Right? So you can actually, actually not necessarily have to do more, but you could make more and take more. Maybe you hit your tithing goals because now you're more profitable as it was. There's so many ways that you're just like, oh man, it's just growth, right?

[00:08:10] So let's just say we're growing more in alignment because it is exhausting. If you're like, oh yeah, I'm trying to do my faith work, walk perfectly. And I'm trying to do my marriage perfectly and my parenting perfectly. And my, my work life and my team leadership perfectly. My productivity and profitability perfectly. Hey, you know what? Good luck with that. We did a, we said a couple episodes back that good is the enemy of great, but so is perfect, right? This is not about being perfect. It's about optimizing, right?

[00:08:40] It's about realizing potential. It's about getting an alignment. And for me personally, I know that the, the closer I am to walking in alignment, that's for me, that's where I'm rubbing right up against my, the possibility, right? So where, where I'm actually reaching my potential at any given point is when I'm in alignment, right? So if we can use today's conversation to say, Hey, let's use technology to experience growth in alignment. Okay. So that's what we're talking about today.

[00:09:07] We're talking about how do you drive greater profitability in your business by leveraging technology. And so let's, let's go deeper on this conversation around AI. We're actually going to bring in a few other elements around AI and how these things are not just additive. They're multiplicative. It's a great conversation. Something that I talked about in Texas and I knew it was, I actually struck a nerve in a positive way because people are like, man, tell me more about that thing.

[00:09:34] You were just talking about how to implement remote or virtual, virtual CAs, right? So, and how do you leverage AI employees and agentic solutions, AI actually agents inside of your business? And how can you use all of these solutions to basically drive greater productivity, be more effective and be more efficient, which is going to drive greater profitability. Yeah. I think again, you're, you're talking about, let's just create context.

[00:10:02] So the group of people that you're talking to are chiropractors who have chiropractic practices who've expanded, they've added in another value center. And you guys have heard us talk a lot about the pivot foot and keep the pivot planet and doing this really well. So these are doctors who are successful, established practices, who've added in more value centers, more opportunity to make a bigger impact, make a bigger income. And these are the ones that you were talking to, right? These are the people in the audience. And this is the group that's like, tell me more, right?

[00:10:31] So think about this. So Dr. Steven, I think everyone needs to know more about this. There's no- 100%. Yeah. Regardless of how you practice or where you practice or where you are in practice, this conversation is absolutely going to be vital. Yeah. So I think what you, what you're, you're, the title essay of, if we were to title this episode, it's the lever driven profit, how AI and remote and virtual employees can help you do that, right? That's what we're going to talk about. I know, you know, we don't have an hour, Dr. Steven, we've got 15, 20 minutes to go through this.

[00:11:01] So I'll start with just something that we teach is that growth is the natural state of a business, right? Profit is the unnatural part. And so I think just to kick us off as a framework, regardless of whether you practice in 1950s or you're practicing now, right? Like that's just the reality in business. So I think we all just need to take a breath. I don't want anybody to, to just stress out here. So growth is an actual state of business. So you should be growing. The profit profitability is the part that's unnatural and that's why we have to get this right. So we had Dr.

[00:11:30] Josiah on a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Steven, on one of our episodes, it's probably been maybe a month or two ago and talked about how, how much more profitable the TRP offices have been over other practices that they have visibility into, uh, who are also some of the more successful chiropractors in the nation, which was really encouraging. And so there's some things that you've discovered and we've discovered in the, in a study. And as we've analyzed this, like why, what's the thing that makes a difference? We're going to, we're going to be able to unpack some of that for all of the, our listeners

[00:11:59] here today, but ultimately there's money and there's profit that's hidden in your business. And we're going to help you on earth and discover some of that here today during this episode. Yeah, a hundred percent. So we've done this series, you know, we've been talking along the lines of found money, right? There's money hiding in your practice. We talked about charging for the services that you're delivering that you're not charging for. And we talked about increasing your prices, right? So making sure that your, your prices match the value you're delivering, fixing your money models. We talked about financial plans.

[00:12:27] We talked about bundles and bundling your services. We talked about care plans. We talked about increasing your volume with greater effectiveness and efficiency, which drives profit, adding profit centers. Like you just listed as like, how do we add just verticals into the business that will be delivered at a profit that drives better outcomes for the patient, but also better incomes for the business, right? So that's adding profit centers. But this last one, the final one on this list is today's topic, which is decreasing your overhead, right?

[00:12:54] So forgive me if I sound really academic when I say it this way, but what is profit? Profit is inflows minus outflows equals profit, right? So inflows, the money coming into the business minus outflows, which is the costs of running your business. Whatever's left over after you're paid, that's profit, right? So those are the profits of the business. So we're talking about how do we increase the profits of the business? And one of the ways to increase profit in that equation is to decrease overhead, decrease the outflows.

[00:13:21] When you look at your overhead, if you look at your P&L, your balance sheet, if you look at your bookkeeping, the number one cost in your business is labor costs, right? So number two is probably marketing, right? So labor costs and marketing, those are the number one and number two. Labor costs is a big one. So these are two big levers, Dr. Pete. Like when you always say like, man, so many of my costs are fixed from month to month to month to month. But the things that I could actually really pull levers on and change up or down to affect

[00:13:48] my bottom line, the two that I could really influence from week to week to month is actually my labor costs and my marketing investments, right? So it's like at the end of the day, when things get tight, one of the first things, sort of an amateur approach to dealing with this is people, what they'll do is they'll actually pull back on their marketing investment as opposed to saying, how can I tighten up and optimize my labor cost so I can free up monies to actually increase my investment in my marketing?

[00:14:16] That's how you pull a plane up so it doesn't crash, right? So it's like, it's counterintuitive, but it's like, you should be thinking about how to optimize your labor costs so that you can free up the monies to invest in marketing, effective marketing to grow your business. But today's conversation is about that first part of it, which is optimizing labor costs. And we're going to go over a methodology of how to, we're going to give you three things that you can do to actually optimize your labor costs, right?

[00:14:43] So you guys know how, what we teach around this is like, it's operationalized, professionalized and optimized. The third operationalize is getting your systems right, professionalizing, getting the right people in the right seats, doing the right work the right way. And then it's optimized being data driven. So you make sure that everyone is as effective as an efficient as possible. Effectiveness means productivity. Efficiency means profitability, right? So, and let's remember when we're trying to affect profit, the ways you can increase profit is charge more per unit pricing.

[00:15:13] That's a pricing conversation. Sell more units. That's a volume or productivity throughput conversation or reducing overhead, right? Which is an efficiency conversation, right? So Dr. Pete, we're going to drill down on this third bullet, reducing overhead. And we're going to narrow the conversation right down to our labor costs and how we invest in our team and how we can optimize that number one cost in the business. Yeah. We're going to come at it from a slightly different angle than maybe what everybody's thinking. I like that. That's what I like about this conversation.

[00:15:43] So I think the black and white of it is decreased overhead. Most people, Dr. Stephen, probably think, what? I'm going to let my team members go. Yeah. I'm going to fire people, reduce their hours and pay them less. That's not what we're talking about. First thing that people think of. And I'm going to say to you all, we're saying to you guys, it's none of those. That's actually not what we're going to talk about. So that hopefully piques everyone's curiosity because you hear about, oh, this company, major layoffs, right? Happening in some major, I don't know, Fortune 100 company. You know, you hear about that. That's not what we're talking about.

[00:16:13] We're actually talking about, you said, efficiency, effectiveness, really looking at what are the opportunities you have. And guys, we have some amazing opportunities right now. Yes. In chiropractic. And I'm excited, Dr. Stephen, because, you know, we, you and I, we get to have the opportunity to be in conversations with a lot of chiros worldwide. We get to see a lot of data, talk to a lot of docs, understand what's going on from a variety of angles around the world. And we say the phrase, there's never been a better time to be a chiropractor.

[00:16:42] I actually truly believe that. There has not been a better time for us to be chiropractors, especially principled chiropractors who we know the truth and we, you have the ability to communicate it and you communicate it well. There's so much that's going to be able to help you reach your people more effectively, have your team do better, more efficient work, drive bigger impact, make a bigger income, do it more profitably now than ever before. So if anybody is listening to this podcast and they're like, man, I was just, I feel like I'm ready to, I'm on my way out.

[00:17:12] I hope this actually energizes you to stay in and re-engage and re-engage in your, in re-engage in your practice, re-engage in, in, in the work that you're doing. Cause you maybe are exhausted because you have felt, man, our margins were just so thin. We haven't been able to get ahead. I've been trying to invest ahead of my growth. I've done the things that you guys talk about in the podcast, but I haven't seen the fruit yet on that tree. This is for you. I truly believe this is for you. And this is your, this is your moment.

[00:17:41] 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. 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?

[00:18:10] 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? 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?

[00:18:38] Let me ask you the most telling question. Doc, what would happen if you took 90 days off? What breaks? 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.

[00:19:03] 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? 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.

[00:19:29] 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. 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 and creating the business that supports your

[00:19:58] Remarkable life, not competes with it. Dr. Stephen, let's jump in. All right, so when we talk about optimizing, right? So we talk about operationalizing, that's your systems, professionalize, that's your people. Optimizing, that's using your data, right? So it's using your data to make sure you're getting all the juice for the squeeze, right? So if you are not measuring something, you cannot master it. If you don't master something, you can't optimize it. So I'm just telling you right now, hopefully I'm hitting you right between the eyes, right back to the data thing again. Yes, it's about being data-driven.

[00:20:26] And we're going to talk about two very important data points when we're talking about your labor costs. One is RPE, revenue per employee ratio, and the second one is PPE, or profit per employee ratio. So when we're talking about productivity and profitability, we're talking about RPE's productivity. PPE is profitability, right? So revenue per employee. So how much revenue, collections, is driven by each head on the head count, right? So for every person on your team, how much revenue are they generating, right? That's revenue per employee, that's productivity.

[00:20:56] So that's a measurement of effectiveness, Dr. Pete, right? So it's like we want to measure how much productivity throughput are we getting per head on our team, right? And then there's profitability, which is how efficient are we producing those revenues so we're actually making a profit, right? So now we're having an efficiency conversation. You can see how they're tightly related, but they're two totally different things, right? So that first one, RPE, what can I do to drive more production per person on my team? So we're going to give you some solutions here.

[00:21:25] And you know what? Sometimes it is people need to be fired. Sometimes it is you got to reduce people's hours. Sometimes it is that you got to have to do some kind of cutbacks or it's just like sometimes it is addition by subtraction. Sometimes that is the situation. That's not today's conversation, right? So don't negate that as like, well, that's never the answer. What we're saying is that that's not for a stop, right? So it's like, let's look at like, how can we optimize our labor investment, our labor costs so we get the greatest return on that investment.

[00:21:55] So I'm going to suggest those three things that we need to consider as CEOs, as business owners, people that are paying the payroll. I need to ask myself, where can I use remote employees? Where can I use the AI solutions or an intelligence layer to make us more effective? And where can I use AI employees or agentic solutions to make us far more profitable, right? So number one, remote employees. So there's a remote employee is a virtual employee or VCA, for example, right?

[00:22:24] So now a remote, all my businesses are remote. I'm here in the studio by myself, five businesses. Every one of them is remote. Well, the fifth business is actually a brick and mortar, right? All my other businesses are remote, right? So they're all over the world. People are all over the world, right? So we run remote businesses and they're incredibly effective and incredibly efficient, right? Really productive, really profitable. So I want us to mentally get over the, well, wait a minute, doesn't every employee have to be in my brick and mortar practice? No, right?

[00:22:52] You can have virtual assistants or VCAs, virtual chiropractic assistants or remote people that are not actually on site or local, right? So that's a huge leverage point. Now, full transparency here. I'm an owner, a founder and an owner at Chiro Matchmakers. And one of our solutions, one of our big market makers is VCAs. We have hundreds of VCAs deployed through chiropractic offices. It's awesome, right? The reason we started that business is because of this issue.

[00:23:19] We need to help chiropractors with their broken money blueprint and their broken business model try to create greater profit. A great solution is how about you pay somebody nine bucks an hour instead of paying somebody 29 bucks an hour, right? So at the end of the day, you're getting the work of an expert who's in our situation. I know I can speak for chiropractic. You're talking about somebody who's college educated, English as a first language and is a professional, like a full on professional. These are real producers, right? So, and you can get somebody at nine bucks an hour, which by the way, is a life changing

[00:23:49] rate for that person's family. Don't feel like you're taking advantage of somebody. You're changing somebody's life in a country like the Philippines, right? So, and you're employing somebody who is actually excellent. It's, you know, you're not making sacrifices about hiring these people. They're fantastic, right? So $9 versus $29 an hour, Dr. B, that's money straight to the bottom line, right? So now you have a virtual employee, right? So that's a remote employee, right? So they're just part of your team. They're not a contractor, not an outside thing.

[00:24:19] They are on your accountability chart. They're on your accountability grid. They're part of your team, right? So they're just not standing in your office. This is where you take all of that busy work off of your humans that are working in the office, that are on-site humans and say, hey, let's pull some of the busy work that's either keeping you distracted and not able to interact and be facing face forward to our customers, to our patients, interacting, engaging, and doing what only humans can do. Let's take away the busy work.

[00:24:46] So your eyes are up facing the patients as opposed to down pounding on a keyboard or out back staring at a monitor. Let's get you customer facing, patient facing, right? And get the busy work off of your desk and onto the desk of a remote person. Those things that never get done because we all know the truth is urgent kicks importance ass every day in your practice. So the things that you know are important that never get done, the urgency of whatever's

[00:25:11] going on today in the busyness of your practice overrides the fact that stuff needs to get done. But it seems to, we run out of day every day, right? And then we run out of week. One way to just make sure that's getting done and is to offload that to a person who's outside the office, who's not having the practice pull at them. They're just getting the work done, Dr. Pete. And that's where you see the productivity go through the roof. Well, I'll just speak to this one first for all of our listeners. So some of you may have engaged with a virtual CA.

[00:25:42] Maybe you have done that. And you've seen the benefit of it. Maybe some of you haven't. I can speak to it from that perspective of I've seen how this exact phrase, busy work, being taken off of the plate of a CEO, of a COO or office manager, off of CAs, off of DCs. I've seen that happen and create greater focus, greater productivity, increase joy in the workplace.

[00:26:10] I mean, just quality of life, quality of work. I've watched this happen over and over again, Doc. And I can speak to that from our own business because we have, well, you said it, I mean, it's a virtual business, but even leveraging more virtual people, we've done this. And then watching chiropractors who are in a brick and mortar setting in a neighborhood, in a town, do it as well very effectively.

[00:26:36] So I'll speak to chiro matchmakers because what they have done a really good job of is vetting and finding great people. You can go out on your own and try to find this person. You can go and do that. What I love about CMM and chiro matchmaking is what they've done is they really understand the chiropractic business, number one, and they understand the virtual space, virtual employee space so well. So it's a really great fit. So if anybody's wondering, like, where do we go from here?

[00:27:03] Because this is a podcast, but giving direction is also part of what we do. Check them out. Like you should get on a call, talk to the chiro matchmaker people about this, Dr. Steven, because they're there. They've been doing this for years and this is not their first rodeo. They know how to win in this game. So definitely recommend connecting with them. Number two is, and I'll speak to this and I want to hear from you, Dr. Steven, the intelligence layer. So we're going to talk about, you know, where can I use AI and intelligence layer inside your business? I'll tell you how we've done it. So about a year ago, we released what's called the Sherpa.

[00:27:33] So I'm a coach. So Dr. Steven, you're a coach. So we have amazing doctors who we serve in teams that we serve. And, you know, obviously a coaching client, anybody that we work with has questions, things they want to get answered. They got challenges. They got CAs and associate docs that have challenges and they're like, man, we need help. So oftentimes those questions will come to our customer service team or they come to us as a coach. Maybe they have to wait for two more weeks just to get that answered because they're not going to be on their mastermind for two more weeks or they're not going to have a call with you for a while. We created a solution for that.

[00:28:00] We have this amazing vault of resources and a lot of times people have a hard time finding them, right? They didn't know where to go. So we created what's called the Sherpa, the remarkable Sherpa. And it was an avatar of Dr. Steven and his clone. It was amazing. It is amazing. And anyway, long story short, we released it about a year ago. And it's been incredible to see the fruit that's come out of this one thing that we did, which we said, hey, we're going to make an investment, time, energy, focus, and money into building this thing because we just want to make it better for all of our

[00:28:27] clients to have a better experience because that's one of our core values is innovation. And then another one is to remarkable means talk of the town and over delivering value is another one. So it's hit three core values. We're like, yeah, it's easy. We, of course we're going to do this. And it's been a game changer for our organization, Dr. Steven, an intelligence layer. So we thought, hey, we run a coaching business. How can we do this? And we brought it into our business and it's been amazing to have an intelligence layer. So the question we're asking today, Dr.

[00:28:53] Steven, as you're listening and you're running a chiropractic business is how can you integrate an intelligence layer inside of your business? Is there an opportunity? So let's talk about that, Dr. Steven. Yeah. So I think it goes all the way back to like your operating system. So at the end of the day, for most of you, if you're sitting there going, what's an operating system? If you're asking yourself that question, you are the operating system, right? So that you are, Doc. If you're the founder and you're like, I don't know what an operating system is, it's like, oh, this is easy. Look in the mirror. You are the, you, you started the business, right?

[00:29:23] So everything comes from you or goes through you, right? That means you are the operating system, right? So you touch everything, right? That's the, you're the operating system, right? So in TRP 2.0, we released the chiropractic operating system, right? So our COS system, right? Which was inspired by EOS. We have the chiropractic operating system, which is a series of reports and meeting rhythms that give you visibility and accountability.

[00:29:48] And your business runs according to this operating system, all your data, your meeting rhythms, all your expectations and agreements, right? All the interfaces, everything's combined on this platform called the chiropractic operating system. Well, we are now releasing TRP 3.0. By the time this airs, it's already released, right? So we're releasing in October TRP 3.0, which is the AI-powered chiropractic operating system. So we now have an artificial intelligence layer just over all of our content, organizing all

[00:30:17] of our tools, resources, and our community so that you're now, it's, the Sherpa's had an upgrade. It's now called Remy, right? It's remarkable intelligence. We've actually layered Remy over the entire machine. And now the interface and the interactivity, the UX is just extraordinarily more effective and more productive, right? Because we've added the intelligence layer to it, right? So it has become 50 times more efficient, 50 times more effective, which is a much better user experience, gets greater productivity for our people, right?

[00:30:46] So that's an example of using an intelligence layer as part of your operating system. Now, the third piece of this is AI employees, right? So agents, right? So there's a difference between a chatbot and an agent, right? A chatbot is like, you ask a question, it gives you an answer. You ask it to bring you something to go get something for it. It's like, it's like tasks, right? Versus assigning responsibilities and accountabilities to an AI employee, right? So it's like the difference between having a driver that you have to sit in the back seat and tell them, okay, take this right. Okay, wait a minute.

[00:31:15] You got a red light. Stop there. Now take a right. Now that's your exit up there. Take that. Go left up at that light where you'd have to tell a person what to do all the way versus, hey, I'm going to fall asleep in the back seat because this driver knows exactly where my house is. They're going to pick me up every time I land in Logan Airport. They're following my flight online. They see that my flight's delayed. I don't have to call them. They text me and tell me, all right, Dr. Franson, I see that your plane's delayed. I'm going to pick you up. See, it looks like you're coming in on Delta Flight 401, and I will be there curbside outside of baggage claim at door number five, right?

[00:31:45] So it's like, that's my driver. I don't have to tell him anything. I hired him to be my driver. He has all the information, and he stays active. That's like an agent. There's not somebody I'm sitting in the back seat telling him everything what to do. He actually now has the responsibility of transportation for me, right? So an agentic solution is having an AI employee on your accountability chart doing tasks, doing the – when you look at the 15 functions of your business, these primary functions of

[00:32:14] the business, you can assign them to an agent, and they'll do it exactly right every time over and over and over again until you tell them to stop, right? So, Dr. B, this is another example of leveraging technology to drive greater productivity and profitability so you can free up your people, take the busy work, the manual labor off your people so that your people can do what we need them to do, which is focus on the human beings in front of them. This is the human element. This is the essence of the barbell concept.

[00:32:43] We in chiropractic have been famously high-touch, low-tech. Well, it's time in this next iteration. In TRP 3.0, we are high-touch, high-tech, and we're leveraging high-tech to free up our people so that they can be even more high-touch. 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.

[00:33:13] Hey, everyone. We've got James Chester from Blue Rhino here. Very excited to have him on. Looking forward to having him down under at our immersion in another very short time. So welcome to the floor, James Chester from Blue Rhino. So to start with, James, I know that your business with Ryan is around marketing, particularly the AI part of it.

[00:33:38] So can you let me know, just let our listeners know, how did you come to partner with Ryan and what is the service that you offer our chiropractic clients? I appreciate you having me on, Mal. I'm really looking forward to linking arms with the TRP community and helping serve more docs with our services. But talking about Ryan a little bit, and then I'll give a quick backstory on me, and then I'll say how we kind of started working together. And why I believe it's effective.

[00:34:06] Ryan Hummel, he's my partner, 20-year chiropractor, succeeded heavily with figuring out how to grow digital marketing. And he did that for his practice. And then he had a bunch of friends reach out and ask him how he was doing it. So he started running their ads for them. He started studying with Russell Brunson, who is the guy that created the ClickFunnels. So anyways, Ryan became a marketing architect.

[00:34:35] And he started to realize that the things he was doing could help more docs. He reached out to me about a year and a half ago, and he knows that I run Cairo Hustle, and I have a big podcast, and travel around the world, and all these things. And he's like, hey, I want to find a good partner. And he said, I think you'd be a great partner for me. And I was like, well, show me what you're doing.

[00:35:00] And then I saw what he was doing and his designs of what he was doing for ads. And I said, well, can I give you some insight on what I think we should do? Anyways, we married together this business called Blue Rhino AI. And really what we do is we mine data with our ad sets, and we discover what's performing the best on what particular day with what particular ad spend.

[00:35:27] So we've learned how to navigate not only building creative ad that works, because there's a lot of people out there that are agency models. But what we actually do is we audit what's happening every day, and we get a chance to give a real live snapshot of how and what is performing and what is not. Anyways, I think that working with the TRP offices, I believe that we're a multiplier for people that need help.

[00:35:56] And I think that when people connect with me, whether it's coaches in the TRP community or the clients in the TRP community, you guys are just going to see that we run a different model. Yeah. So working with Ryan, doing Blue Rhino, it's been a whole lot of fun. And we're just looking to help more of these people in the group. Yeah. So you mentioned about agencies, and I know this is something that has boomed over the last six, seven years, particularly for the agency model.

[00:36:23] So you have mentioned briefly about how Blue Rhino AI marketing is very different to the agencies. Can you explore that a little bit more? Yeah. Just the model that people should know about. It's a setup fee. You're probably never going to get away from not doing that with an agency. We do that. A management fee, you're probably never going to get away from having an agency that works with you that doesn't charge a management fee. And then ad spend.

[00:36:53] They're the three people at the table when it comes to running a campaign. And the real part that matters is that middle ground, is that people that manage it, running it in the middle ground and what they're doing. Before anybody works with us, we give them a 13-page detailed analysis of where their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities are in their community.

[00:37:19] We look at everything that does that character makeup of that practice, and then we tell them exactly what it would take for us to help them, what their demographics are. And then we go look for those exact people with the way that we look at the data that we put the ads towards. So it's the creative that makes us different. It's the audience that makes us look different.

[00:37:46] And the last thing, we hyper-qualify these people. So a lot of agencies will tell you that they can get you a lot of leads and a lot of, I guess, action through the funnel or whatever it is, prospects. 85% of the people that hit our funnels show up to that office. So it's a hyper-pre-qualified client.

[00:38:13] And most of them, you'd be lucky if 50% of the people from an ad monthly would show up to your office. So it's all one in that middle ground. And I think that that's what I told Ryan that we had to win, is that middle ground to make us different from all the other people. And I think everybody needs what we do. They just don't know we exist yet. That's going to be different after this, right? So is that middle ground? Because I know that a lot of marketers are looking at, you know, oh, it's amazing.

[00:38:40] We're getting cost per click, cost per lead, what they call a lead, which we call a prospect, which is people who are raising their hand, showing they're interested. But getting that from that to a, like, we're looking at a cost per acquisition to get someone to convert. So the more people you have who are pre-qualified, the better bang for your buck you're going to get every single time. Well, it's not going to burn out the office by seeing a bunch of people and having no conversions. Yes.

[00:39:05] And what I found also is when the doc is really clear on what their offer is, it's so easy for them to convert these people that come through our funnels. Yes. So, yeah, and that's where you guys come in, you know? You make sure that people know what they're doing when they show up. Yes. So it's a dual agenda. You guys get a chance to make sure that that coach becomes super successful and profitable, and we get a chance to make sure that that person's seen enough people coming through the doors in order to do so. Exactly.

[00:39:36] Exactly. I mean, as we were talking earlier about how TRP turns the rowboat into the battleship and you need that battleship. And then it's all a matter of then getting the right people through the front door so that you can actually convert them into the chiropractic lifestyle over time. I love the way you're doing the analysis and making sure that people are getting their ideal part. And that's it. How does that ongoing work?

[00:40:01] You said on a daily basis, you're looking at what's working, what's not working, because spirit of action is so important in this space. We do something also different that I didn't mention is we create anywhere between 25 to 35 pieces of content before we deploy our ads. Yes. So we're above industry standard because most agencies are putting out possibly three pieces of creative.

[00:40:29] So we look at deploying this creative into the marketplace and sees what actually gets attention and what gets more priority from the news feed or from the scroll feed. And whatever gets more priority, we know which one's getting the priority and we put that one in to get more reps. So we put more money behind it. So we find out which one is working and they will tell us which one is performing best.

[00:40:55] And then we're like, OK, it's like to me, it's like day trading traffic. We find out which ones are performing. We're like, OK, that one's performing good. Put more money into it. So we ride that until that creative starts to get sleepy. And then we find the next piece of creative that's performing well. Boom. And now you have like the next threshold there. Yeah. Yeah. So you're constantly adapting and changing depending on what's happening through the marketing. It's a new model. It really is a new model. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:24] And I think people are looking for this. Of course. Yeah. People are. I mean, it's a big space. It's an area of chiropractic practice. The question we get asked for a lot of our, particularly our new coaching clients, is how do we get more people? How do we get more new people? How do we get more new patients? So having some science behind it, the data, and getting qualified, pre-qualified to a degree that the ideal clients coming in is going to make all the difference. It saves with the churn.

[00:41:54] It saves with the hours worked. It's more value creation rather than clocking hours on your time clock. You're actually getting people that want to come in and stay. And I think that really that's the golden goose of marketing. Anybody can say that they get great numbers, but if people don't come in and they want to stay, it's not real effective marketing. No. No. I mean, practices are built on retention, but they have to start on attractions.

[00:42:21] You have to get people in the front door and then keep them. So the better qualified, the better. So who are the people that you love to serve? What style of practice is your sweet spot of people that you love to serve? Good question. We have a couple different offerings that we do. We have a chiropractic facing program that we have. We also have what we call the joint health package, which is a package that's more for rehab based clinics.

[00:42:48] And I think between those two, we have two lanes. I like whoever wants to work with us, number one, because I know I can help them. But if I had one lane to say that we get the most performance with is it's our joint health package, because not everybody is looking for a specific chiropractic solution for their health.

[00:43:11] But they are looking for somebody that can help them with elbows and knees and things of that nature and shoulders. So a lot of our clients work with us on that package, and they're actually getting more cases coming in that become better chiropractic cases because people are interested in just recovering from whatever they're dealing with. So I think just knowing who our avatar is, you're either one of two offices.

[00:43:39] You offer therapies, and you have a higher value stack of what you offer, and we use that for our artillery. Or you're a straight chiropractor, and we figure out what your offerings are, and we use that for your artillery. Whichever hunting ground we go to, we are effective with either one of those models. But I like chiropractors that want to work with us. Yes. How do people get in contact with Blue Rhino, James?

[00:44:09] You can always find me on Facebook, James Chester. If you guys want to WhatsApp, I know it's a popular thing from that side of the world, connecting with us North Americaners. But it's 720-940-8207. I'm old school. I like text messages. I like instant messages. If you want to send me an email, you can always do it at jamestechester at gmail.com. Yeah, I think there's a lot of moving pieces to this, but I want to leave with this message, Mal.

[00:44:38] What excites me about working with a remarkable practice is that we're not replacing the coaches. We're actually a multiplier for the coaches. And when TRP helps more doctors build remarkable practices, right? We help more people discover those practices. Yeah. So I think it's just being a good steward of people's money and making it work for them and not causing them further stress with their finances.

[00:45:04] So I believe that whatever we've done, we've done something pretty special in the marketing world. And yeah, reach out to me and let us be your solution for how you grow your practice. Absolutely. So it's great to have you into the TRP family as a new success partner with us. We're very excited to let you loose on our practice and our clients so that they can help more people help more people.

[00:45:31] So always good to catch up with you, James, and looking forward to seeing you soon. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Thanks, TRP. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Remarkable CEO Podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic. 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.

[00:45:57] And if you'd like to connect with us personally, direct message us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Now go and be remarkable.