Welcome to More Patients, More Impact, More Income. The podcast for real holistic medical practitioners who want to grow their high impact, high income practice without selling out. Now, here's your host, Chris Axelrad.
What's up, people? It's early, 8:20, here in the Houston anyway. I'm up here at the office, got a big day ahead. We have interviews because we have a new person that we're going to hire for this office to sit right here in this seat and we have got four interviews today, three interviews on Thursday, looking forward to meeting some new people, hopefully finding somebody who can really be a good fit for us, you know. We're a really tight-knit team and it's all about positivity. It's all about serving our clients, serving our patients, making their day better and making their day brighter, meeting people every single day. [0:00:59.6]
We get new people in our office every day. We get new patients every shift, and when new people walk in here, they've got to feel comfortable, welcome, and immediately know that we have our shit together. That's so important, right? Any time you go to a new place, I don’t care if it's a restaurant, if it's a store, if it's a hospital. If it's a clinic like this, you feel weird when you walk in, right, and like something just doesn’t seem right, it's a little disorganized, you're not greeted properly, there's not a process. So that's why I'm so, I'm so relentless and ruthless about systems and processes in clinic and making sure that everything's done in a very clear sequence with a very clear intention, and that's actually a big secret to getting lots of referrals and growing your practice is to be systematic and to be and to really have the discipline to commit to that so that people actually want to come back. They actually want to be in your space. [0:02:02.2]
So that's a little side note that I didn’t even intend to say and talk about. Yeah, so I'm opening, we're opening our fourth location and as I was sitting here filling my Amazon shopping cart, starting to gear up basically, you know, I've got to gear up, man. Got to get our Wi-Fi router, got to get our printer, got to get our -- what else did I put in the shopping cart, label printer, and the, oh, the iPad and the square stand. I mean like, we're gearing up, and you know, I look at the shopping cart and the shopping cart, you know, it's not cheap, right. None of this stuff is cheap. None of this stuff is discount. When you try to discount your growth, here's what you're discounting – number one, you're discounting yourself. Number two, you're discounting the people who need your help. When I started to open other offices, the reason I opened my second office initially, which was back in 2011, was why? Because I knew there were people that were calling us. [0:03:00.4]
Now, Houston is this sprawling metropolis, and it's kind of like LA. Now, I'm not real familiar with the LA area, but I know that there are certain areas of LA that, I mean, if you want to drive to that other part of LA, it's going to be like 45 minutes, 60-minute drive. Right? So, Houston is the same way. Like there's this far north area of Houston, really nice area of Houston and that's where I opened my first satellite office. The reason I did it is because we were getting a lot of calls from up there and people would book their free consultation. They would come down here. They would do it. Then when they would go home, they would really think about, they realized, you know, it's going to be really tough for me to make that drive every week. They would ask me, "Who do you know up there?" And at that time, I didn’t know anybody up there. Honestly, because I specialize in endocrinology and fertility, I can't just refer to just any acupuncturist. I really want to make sure they know their stuff with fertility and endocrinology and you know, I really have never had another acupuncturist that I've seen in our area who has come to me or who I have seen either advertising or through some type of outreach that they do that kind of stuff that was up in that area. [0:04:12.5]
So I was like, well, I guess I have to go up there. So what was the decision? Was the decision about money? No, it wasn’t actually. It was about the I wanted to help more people. Was it going to potentially, potentially be a good source of income? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn’t feel comfortable investing tens of thousands of dollars of money into rent and setting space up and the advertising and all the logistics and the equipment and all that if I didn’t feel like I was going to at least make a little bit of money back. But you know what? I was willing to take that risk. I realized I was willing to do it because I just love to help people, man. I love the process of getting patients in and just taking care of patients. [0:05:03.3]
It's the most awesome feeling in the world. So I can get never get enough of that. And so, that's why I decided to open up another office. Did it scare the hell out of me? Hell, yeah. When I signed that lease, okay, on that first second office and the rent was going to be like, I think this office where I'm sitting right now was my first office. I opened it in 2008. I moved here after four years in practice. I finally arrived at this space where now we have four treatment rooms. When I first moved in, we had two. We have expanded a little bit, but this office, because of the building and where we were at the time, actually the lease was pretty reasonable, and the lease on my second office was actually over $1000 more than this one, and I remember signing that lease, and I'm going, "What the hell am I doing?" But it was the best feeling too. It was like I was so excited, and I just didn’t think about failing, you know. [0:06:00.9]
I mean of course I always want to look at worst case scenario and the key is this, to be really clear on what your worst case scenario is and you know, the worst case scenario is like, "Okay, I failed, but I'm still me and I still can practice acupuncture and I still have the skills and the training to help people and I have actually, I'm smart enough to go get a job if I have to and just start over, but that's not the end of the fucking world. Right? And I think a lot of people limit their growth because they're afraid to really think about worst case scenario. The first worst case scenario that pops in their head is some complete disaster scenario like being homeless, living under a bridge, etc., etc., etc. right? When that's not even realistic. That's not going to happen. I'm never going to let that happen to myself; I guarantee you that. Okay? I am, I have no shame when it comes to if I gotta go get a job at some point or something like that, I'm not, so what. [0:07:06.3]
I don’t care what people think about me; if I have to get a second job to pay my bills. It's not going to happen now, as far as how I've progressed in my practice, but back then, when I opened my first satellite office, there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t bankrupt myself, but I will say this - I made the decision, very clearly and very methodically, and I just did the numbers and I knew, I knew what the bottom line was. I knew what the bottom line was and I knew that that bottom line, that if I couldn’t hit that bottom line, it was where okay, I deserve to fail. I deserve to fail because my bottom line was I needed to have 10 patients a week just to break even on that office. So this office was already paying my bills at home, okay. I mean, I wasn’t getting rich or anything, but I was eating every day and living and having a good time and getting to do what I love to do. [0:08:00.8]
You know to me, there's nothing better than that. Right? I mean, I feel like, I feel like I get paid, like, you know all these people love to play golf, all these people who love to, I don't know, just think of any hobby, right, and people who love to do their hobbies. Like, this would be my hobby. Right? I get paid to do the thing that I would do if I was on my spare time, if I had a regular job. So, that to me is like the reward of it, not the dollars and cents, not the feeling of security, not the proving people, you know, that I can do this or not, not what people think about me, but just the fact that I get to do something I have a blast doing every single day. And you know, if you are going to make big decisions, it's always about your safety and it's always about getting a discount, and it's always about you know, not taking risks, then you're really not, in my opinion, and I'm just going to be real straight with you, look, I'm not trying to like, I don’t want to sound like I'm being negative or any way like that. I'm just going to be straight. Okay? [0:09:14.3]
I'm going to be really straight. That we're out here to heal. We're out here to help people who are having trouble. The reason they're having trouble is because they've gotten themselves into territory that they can't navigate on their own. Alright? If you're going to meet those people, and you're really going to make a big difference in their life, you're going to have to learn to navigate territory that is scary. You're going to have to learn to navigate territory that puts you at risk. You're going to have to learn how to put yourself out there, how to put yourself in front of people, how to talk to people about what you do, how to run ads so that everybody knows, everybody possible, everybody you can possibly know knows who you are and what you do and who you help. [0:10:05.1]
And you can't grow an impactful business practice life on the cheap. It ain't going to happen. And what made me think of that is when I was looking at my Amazon shopping cart, which I'm filling up with stuff to outfit my fourth office and just putting in like some of the electronics alone, the shopping cart is already almost 1500 bucks. And that's like a small little fraction of what the outfitting of this office is going to be. But you know what makes it worth it? Every time I get scared and every time I start to feel a little like wow, you know, here we go. This is the fourth time I've done this. This is going to be the fourth time. Well it's the third time I've opened another location, but including the time that I opened this one, it's the fourth time I've opened an office, okay. And like, it's never not scary. That's the other thing. You can't wait until something isn't scary to move on. [0:11:07.3]
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If you wait until something isn't scary to move on it, you're going to wait forever. Because you know why? People, see, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the ability to step forward in the face of fear, even though you're scared shitless, you're going to move forward. Someone who steps onto a battle field is scared. I don’t care who they are. I don't care if they're Navy Seals or if they're a medic, or if they're whoever they are, they're fucking scared. But you know what? They do it anyway. And the key is this - you've got to move forward whether you're scared or not. This scares me. It does. At the same time, but you know what offsets the fear? What offsets the fear is the excitement I get thinking about all the people that we're going to be able to help. [0:12:06.4]
That's what gets me fired up. And you know what? Even if this office never has a huge profit, this office may never profit huge. It may blow up. I don't know. Again, I know my bottom line. I know what I need to pay the bills at this office including the acupuncturist that's going to staff it and a front desk person and the rent and the basic shit that it costs to run the office. I know what the bottom line is in terms of how many patients it's going to take, and again, if that's all we can get to, then, you know, okay. It kind of sucks because it's not a very high number, but if we suck that bad, and that's all we can get to, fine. I'll live with that. I'm not going to take it personally. I'm not going to like, you know, beat myself up about it or go cry about it or feel sorry for myself, and even if we lose a little money every month on it, the other offices can like, you know, can help support it. [0:13:02.8]
But you know what? Chances are that's not going to happen. The chances are here's what's going to happen and this is why I love doing this because the chances are what's going to happen is, because we have a powerful marketing process that I've already developed, refined, and it works and I know it works. Because we have a powerful system within the office to get our patients on board, to get our patients really fired up, to get them committed to their care, to let them know that we really do honestly fucking care about our patients, like with integrity, like we're not just selling. We're not just trying to like upsell them on shit all the time, etc., etc., etc. I mean we really care and we really take them seriously. We help them with their problems. We stay in touch with them for the rest of their lives so that they can always refer to us, and we have got that shit down. So, the more likely story here, and it's a story that I'm holding in my ..., inside my mental and emotional space, that's the story that I am telling because that's the story that is guiding me forward, is that we're going to open that office. [0:14:19.9]
The word is going to get out and within the first two or three months, we'll have 40 or 50 patients a week because why? The word gets out that we're down there, and we have done a lot to, you know, I've done a lot to build the reputation of this clinic and the name, and I will make sure that people know we're down there. Within three or four months, we'll have 40 or 50 patients a week. The people will be super happy. They'll be feeling tons better and they're going to start to tell other people that we're down there and you know, by the end of the year, we'll easily be at 75 to 80 patients a week at that one office. That's what's going to happen. Okay? And to me those numbers are not, those numbers aren’t dollars. [0:15:05.8]
You know, I never think like…of course, who doesn't like money. Okay? I like having money. Money is great. Money gives us choices. It gives us options. Like I can take a week off and go travel and I'm not going broke. I mean, all kinds of great things that money does for us. But at the end of the day, like to me, it's like, when I go to one of my other offices and sometimes I do go and I'll do the front desk or something like that, you know, and I'll just hang out. I just kind of want to see what's going on because I only work in this office now. So, there's the north Houston office. There's the west Houston office. There's this office, and now, there's going to be a southwest Houston office and I like to go to those and just hang out, and what's so cool is, man, you know I see all these people coming through the front desk, checking out, and they're happy. They're smiling. And I never fucking met them, you know. I've never met these people. [0:16:01.3]
They're not my patients, per se, but they are patients within the construct of my clinic, but I've never met them and it's like just to know that people are getting good vibes from this and like these are people I've never met and there's tons of people I never will meet who have already come through the clinic and gone on their merry way and accomplished what they were looking to accomplish. That's what it's all about, man. So, you know, when it came down to just making this decision and signing that lease and moving forward, the desire to be of service, the desire to be part of spreading the power of this medicine and making it more available to people who need it, because who doesn’t need this? Like we all need this. Offsets any fear or any uncertainty that's there, you know, because the fear is going to keep coming up. Like I said, I'm filling my Amazon shopping cart with stuff. I'm already like up to 1500 bucks and this is the first round of me buying shit, okay. [0:17:11.6]
The fear is going to be there. There's going to be all kinds of moments for me, opportunities for me to follow thoughts that are self-destructive, self-doubting, you know, full of fear, trepidation, questioning my decisions, all that. There are so many opportunities to go down those rabbit holes. But what's keeping me out of that rabbit hole is my commitment to just make this happen, to help other people. Every time I think about those other people, every time I think about all these people smiling after getting their treatment, telling their friends and just whatever's going on. Whenever I think about that, there's, it's a no-brainer. We're done. I don’t even have to think about it anymore. And if I go down in a ball of flames trying to do that, I'll fucking take it, you know. I'll take it. Alright guys, peace out. [0:18:08.1]
I just wanted to share that with you guys because it was something that was on my mind as I was filling my Amazon shopping cart, which I'm just getting started, man. We're probably going to be like seven or eight grand down by the end of today once we already all the stuff. They're bringing my keys today. I'm going to go down there tomorrow. In fact, I'll take some pictures for you guys and some videos tomorrow when I go down there and yeah, it's fucking happening, man. It's crazy. And I'm going to tell y'all' what -- if this shit, if this shit hits, okay, like my goal is within three to six months that this office will be operating at a decent profit, you know. So it's not going to be, it'll be paying its bills plus. I think I'm going to open up a fifth one. I'm calling my shot right now. There's a south, like there's a far south part of Houston that's called the bay area, and man, we get shit tons of people calling us from down there, and who want… see, the thing is, man, this is what happens when you're known as the expert in your community around certain problems. [0:19:14.9]
People call you even though they live 50 miles away, and people from that area that have been coming here for years have been begging me, like "Why don't you open up an office down there? Why don’t you open an office down there?" So, man, as soon as this office hits profit and it's like three months in a row profitable, I'm, I think I'm just going to go for it, man. Like, fuck it. So anyway, peace out guys. And by the way, my War Room program, which is my business and marketing mentorship, the enrollment is open for five more days, yeah. Let's see, today, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yes. And you have to apply before Sunday, midnight. Applying is not an obligation to say yes to join. It is simply you saying, "Yes, Chris, I would like to talk about what it takes to get your help directly in growing my practice." [0:20:09.8]
And then we'll talk about it, and my fees are not exorbitant, by any stretch of the imagination. Why? Because I actually have a practice where I actually make a living. I don’t need to, you know, I'm not desperate for money to, you know, price gouge people with my coaching. So it's not exorbitantly expensive. It's not super cheap, either because I will say this. When you join my program, you're getting what, in my opinion, of course, I mean, you know, hey, it's me, right? Whatever. You're getting some of the best business and marketing mentorship for acupuncturists and holistic practitioners on the planet. Period. Period. And I mean that. And I say that because when it was just me, okay, and I'm like man, I think I'm on to something, you know. I could probably teach this to people, but I didn’t do that for like five or six years. [0:21:03.9]
Why? Because I just wanted to keep focused on growing my practices and I didn’t want to do coaching until I really made sure that my practice could run itself and that I could spend the time and energy to actually coach people. But what I teach, I've had dozens of people now, dozens and dozens who have had dramatic growth in their practice from what we have been able to help them do. I mean, people have doubled and tripled their practice in less than a year, people who have moved out of shared space or rented space got their own space and they're growing. People who have hired their first associates or even are getting ready to hire their second associate, and all kinds of other stuff, man. I mean, the blueprint is there and it just takes you out of this trying to figure it all out yourself, like being out on this island, asking your friends for advice, which is cool, but you know, sometimes your friends aren’t going to call you out on your bullshit, and sometimes, that's exactly what we all need is for someone to like say, yo, like that, no, don’t do that. [0:22:10.8]
Or you know, just be more transparent and more real. There's nothing like this program. So I'm going to put the link here, and actually there's a free training if you want to check it out. I'll put the link to the training and there's a button on there. Enjoy it and if it fires you up and you resonate with what I'm saying and you want me to work with you direct, like literally we will be on the phone, we'll be talking to each other. You'll get two coaching calls every single week for a whole year, you know. I mean, it's ridiculous what this is and how helpful it can be. I'll help you set up your ads. I'll help you do all kinds of shit, you know. So the goal is what? A practice that's always cool. It's fun. It's profitable. And life changes to the people, not only for you, but for the people who are coming through, your patients. So that's all I've got for today, peeps. Good to see y'all.
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