Building a Chiropractic Practice With Jeff Langmaid

I knew I wanted, you know, open concept, for lack of a better way to say it, not necessarily open adjusting, but I wanted big windows. I was going to be downtown. I wanted a small footprint. Essentially, I didn't want it to look like a medical facility, you know. So I had some very strict ideas of what I was looking for. It took a while to find a space, negotiate on the space. You know, never fun. First time doing anything like that. So it was like every challenge possible. Office design and building forms, difficult as far as that goes. And then the fun really began, I say that tongue in cheek, and I started marketing, and I had like no idea what I was doing.

You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey, guys. It's Sebastian Gonzales, the host, your host, of the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining the Movement Movement. Today, we have on a guest. As you heard, there's a little snippet of the conversation there. This is Jeff Langmade from the Evidence-Based Chiropractor. He has a podcast as well as a website which helps out with not just business-related stuff with chiropractic, but also to just how to keep yourself well-informed.

And so I strongly urge you to go to his podcast and website to collect a bunch of information that way. You won't be disappointed. Now, as we go into this interview, just a couple things we're going to cover is we're going to go through his history of how he came to practice, how he does. But also, too, just a lot of tips that you can use as you're starting to build your practice, how to use emails, how to use automation, how to create content, and a lot of barriers that he and I have actually run into as we started to build our businesses. And so you guys are probably going to run into them, too.

And so stick with me here as we go into that. And first, I'll share a little bit about myself, your host, before we go into that. Again, it's not because I want to toot my own horn, but I just want you to know me as the host, all right? I think everyone should know and like their host. Everyone likes Conan. Maybe you don't like Letterman, all right? And that's my goal here. And I think you'll stick with me longer so you can actually learn more of what I have to share and what other people like Jeff have to share. So let's get into that story real quickly, and then we'll get straight into the interview.

So growing up, we actually, my grandparents lived in Mammoth. They actually resided there. They moved there for retirement. And so me and my family, we go up and visit them. And I think I was probably, I mean, I remember pictures when I was probably, I mean, I was before high school. I was probably about 12 years old or so. Like, we were already going up there and pictures catching fish and so on. And so there was years where, years and years where we go there every summer. And so my grandma would really want us to have a good time because she wanted us to come back. You know, it's a week trip or so we spent up there.

And so the worst thing that she would possibly endure is that we were bored and didn't want to be there. And so she would plan out all these little things to do. And she saw us kind of idle. She'd start giving us things to do, not chores to do, but just options of, hey, why don't you go do this? Why don't you go do that? We'd go shoot BB guns out in the forest. We would go to the shooting range, you'd go fish in the morning, they'd go fish in the afternoon, go shoot arrows, go for hikes, things of that nature. And so one of the things, though, that she would have us do is, so she thought we can go collect some money.

And so we had our bicycles there, I remember one year. I think this was only a couple years this happened. So she lived at the end of the cul-de-sac and so in the middle was a big old tree. And so the cul-de-sac was, so there was a circular because the tree was in the middle as well as the planter. And so she'd say, hey, you go out there and you go, for every lap that you go around that tree, I'll give you a penny. And so we'd be out there just doing circles around this tree, you know. And I think one time I went about 200 times around that thing. I don't know how long it took me or so, but I got two bucks.

And so I will do circles for pennies. So that was a fond memory that I had that I think I had this little BMX or it was a BMX bike, which was a Diamondback. That thing eventually, I think, got stolen. But anyways, that was a story about me right there. And I hope you guys enjoyed it. Let's get on to the content now, okay? All right, everyone, welcome on Jeff Langmaid, the evidence-based chiropractor. Thank you. Happy to be here. It took us a little while to connect, and I'm happy to finally make it happen and talk. And hopefully help some docs out there and go from there. Yeah, yeah, I think it took us – I think we've been on this journey to get a conversation for, what, like a month now?

A little while. I'm sure that you've had longer incubation periods, but this one took a little while. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely been longer ones, though. But it's actually given me a good chance to go over a little bit more of your information, too, to make sure that there's any relevant topics that you had new stuff coming up. So you helped me out, actually. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. So I thought I would have you on with – so this podcast, in case you don't know, it's targeted at a lot of clinicians, but more so with good communication with patients. And I tend to think of it kind of like we're all having a beer, and there's two docs and a CPA, and it's not really cool if you're not explaining things along the way.

And so I thought with your communication style, it would be really good just to go through a bunch of random stuff and just help us all better understand each other. I'm into it. I'll do my best. Okay, good. So tell everyone just a little bit about yourself and how you came to – because you have a podcast, you have marketing material, you have an ethical-based chiropractic practice. Just tell everyone how you got to be that way. Yeah, so kind of tracing back – so I'm a chiropractor, and when I trace it back to the origin story is how a lot of people get into healthcare. I was super interested in being a doctor, being a physician, being a healthcare provider when I was growing up.

I actually was really focused on endoscopic knee surgery, of all things, even when I was in elementary school, doing presentations on that. To kind of fast forward, I ended up getting – in high school and college, still was going that direction, and my dad injured his low back when I was in college. My dad injures his low back, goes to a chiropractor, lo and behold, gets well, and says to me, next time you're home on Christmas break, come meet this guy. So I meet the chiropractor. One thing leads to another, and bottom line is the more that I learned about that mindset and that sort of application of healthcare, the more it resonated with what I already believed, and I started to take the steps down that path.

So as I went through chiropractic school, I went to Palmer, Florida, and when I graduated, since that time in the last, oh boy, probably about 12 or 13 years, I practiced in just about every manner possible. So I came out as an associate. I actually covered a doc's office that was climbing Mount Everest, which is a whole story in amongst itself, and then opened up my own practice, which was like a mix between a salon and retail space, small footprint, cash-only downtown Providence, which was, you know, now it's the way that a lot of practices are going, you know, 10, 15 years ago, 10, 11 years ago.

It was a unique thing. Then I joined a multidisciplinary surgical group, which is embedded in the hospital system, so totally, you know, different model. And then I joined an outpatient surgery center that did a ton of medical tourism and super high ad spend from a patient acquisition standpoint. Coming to where we stand today, I run and own the Evidence-Based Chiropractor, which is essentially is a chiropractic brand, and we have verticals that include, you know, hard goods, posters, postcards for clinicians' offices, you know, marketing, software systems, and products. We shoot a ton of educational videos, so there's YouTube channels, Instagram, podcasts, you name it.

We're kind of out there covering the profession at large, and I own a couple imaging centers that do dynamic spinal imaging. So that's what a lot of my day-to-day is caught up in as we sit here today. So that was like 15 years, like wrapped up in 60 seconds, but hopefully that gives a little context from where I'm coming from. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, God, there's so many angles to take here. I think we should probably start with then, how did you feel about being an associate doctor? It was all right. I mean, it wasn't great. I mean, so being an associate doc typically is tough, right?

You know, unless the practice is really, really thriving, it can be a challenging situation where, you know, what does my salary look like? What's a good contract? What's it not? You know, how do I negotiate? You know, what's the expectations? I mean, am I meeting them or not? It can become really challenging. For me, I actually was pretty fortunate. The doc that got me in, the doc that helped my dad, was the one I went to be an associate for. So he had been in practice 20 years at the time. And for anybody that doesn't know, the climbing season for Everest is spring. Spring, I use that term loosely, right?

So it's like March to June-ish is Everest climbing season. So I was graduating in December. So I graduated school in December, like trained, quote unquote, aka learned process and procedure with him for like two and a half months. And then he was, that was it. It was just like him and the whole practice. So he was like, peace. Hopefully I'll come back and hopefully I summit. But, you know, it's pretty dangerous, right? So it was really thrown into the deep end seeing, you know, not insane numbers, but over 100 people a week I saw with my second month of practice. And that took place over the course of multi-months.

Now that was all great. But then when he came back, this is where we started to encounter some of those challenges, right? Well, what's this look like going forward? We didn't talk about any of that before you left. So that's where a lot of those things came up where it was clear pretty quickly that like, well, we have different ideas of what each of us want and need. So it's probably best for me to get out there and start my own thing, which of course is always super scary, you know, and everything else that comes with it. That's fun. That's funny that like you think about the mindset of like someone who just go into Everest and like, look, I'm going to stick this guy in Jeff in my practice.

I might not come back. And like, did he like sign the lease over to you and like all that kind of stuff before you left? Good question. We had, we had the worst arrangement, which was like verbal. It's like, yeah, like this could all be yours, which is like, you know, it's like, and you don't even want to talk, you know, it's like, so it's, I mean, it's a really weird thing as far as preparation is concerned, because, you know, different years of Everest have obviously had, you know, different challenges, right? Some years are just like heavy death toll and you'll see it on CNN.com and you can go multiple years and not hear everything about Everest.

So a lot of it plays with the specific conditions, the guides, how many people are there. There's so many factors. He was like a trained mountaineer at the time going for seven summits. He had already done like three of the seven. So, you know, it wasn't like his first rodeo, so to speak, but I mean, it's, it's pretty heavy. I mean, you're going for like months on end and there's a realistic chance things can go wrong quick. Right. So it's, it was, it was pretty heavy time. It was a lot of, a lot of emotion, a lot of action. And I mean, that's exciting at the same time for everybody. Yeah. Well, there's always a possibility to, to that.

So he's going there like on a journey quest and just goes and lives with the Sherpas forever and you would just never hear from him again. Right. Yes. That is also true. Yeah. There was, there was like, it was like the phone or something. I think we heard from him like twice in three months before he came home because it was like a satellite phone and like a normal cell phone. You know, it's like 10 years ago there were cell phones. He had a cell phone, but it was like, you're up there at altitude. It's not like the communication is not easy either. Uh, and, or it's really expensive. So it's, it's just a really weird thing.

That's it. So I'm, I'm kind of curious then if say, say you want to implement your own style there, right? We're just going to wait for like however months that he didn't come back. And then just all of a sudden, look, I'm going to, I'm going to start doing exactly what I want to do with these patients. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it when he was gone was really just taking the reins, right? I mean, it wasn't necessarily about growing the practice or doing new and different things. It was really about let's keep the train going. Like we know we're going to have a little bit of probably a downturn because, and I was like new.

So it's like as a new doc two months in, like, you know, I didn't exactly come out with like this, here's exactly what I want to do. And I have all this education and training. I can't, like, I was kind of just like a moldable, let's say. So my goal was just like, man, I just want to keep the train going down the tracks here and cause as little disruption as possible. So it wasn't until, yeah, when he came back and, you know, as far as the business side of things, it seemed like that wasn't going to really work out in a way that suited both of us. So that's when my wheels really started turning with like, okay, well, here's how, if I was building this from scratch, here's how I'm going to go about it.

So, you know, that's where, but it was just, it was so hectic on the front end that like those thoughts weren't even going through. I'm just like, I just got to keep up and make it till Friday. Yeah. Okay. So I thought I would actually start that way when you told your story, because I think there's, there's quite a few student listeners. And so I did have a, I had a workshop here recently where one of my friends had been through an associateship. And so it was, it was, it was, it was good. And then it went poorly and then they split ways and so on. And he spent like four years there and I was like, dude, can you, can you like stand up a little bit and just, and there's a group of, there's a handful of students here.

Can you, can you share your experience? And your experience would then help someone decide what they want to do with their practice or do they do with their career. And he's like, I don't want to share. I'm like, why not? And he's like, I don't, I, why would I want to share that? I'm like, cause it's going to help somebody, you know? And I, and I thought that, that you've already been through that. And as you go in, as you went into and started your, your practice after that, then how did that go? And what challenges did you have? And cause I know you got a lot of materials now probably that you wish you probably would have had then.

Yeah, a hundred percent. It's like, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. So yeah, I mean, every challenge in the book, right? So, I mean, finding a space was a challenge in and amongst itself. I kind of knew I wanted to be more of a boutique space. I knew I wanted, you know, open concept for lack of a better way to say it, not necessarily open adjusting, but I wanted big windows. I was going to be downtown. I wanted a small footprint. Essentially, I didn't want it to look like a medical facility, you know? So, um, so I had some very strict ideas of what I was looking for.

Took a while to find a space, negotiate on the space, you know, never fun. First time doing anything like that. So it was like every challenge possible office design and building forms difficult as far as that goes. And then the fun really began. I say that tongue in cheek as I started marketing and I had like no idea what I was doing. So, you know, marketing was like absolutely terrible. Like I wasn't really wanting to get out and just do like, you know, morning networking breakfast. So, but I like online was kind of just starting, but there wasn't like too much, it was a little early on the online stuff.

It was hard. So I was like, well, maybe I'll do like these advertorial kind of things. And, you know, the Providence specific paper epic failure as far as that's concerned. And I was running kind of a cash model, but not necessarily a like sport style practice or not necessarily something that had this specific niche. I was running more of what I'd call a traditional chiropractic practice with a cash model. So there's like friction on people wanting to use their insurance when there's no definable unique selling proposition that I bring to the table. So, yeah, I mean, everything in the kitchen sink became a super big challenge and all those things compounded on top of each other.

At the time, I also was playing music. So I was doing traveling on the weekends, like touring and playing in a rock band. So it was very, it was a very mishmash and hodgepodge together, you know, type type situation, which is brutally difficult to build and grow a business when that's the case. Hindsight 2020. I mean, that's, but of course, at the time it was like, I can do this. I can make it work. And all of those things just became supreme challenges. And really, you know, inevitably, as you're kind of saying, have led to probably the product and service offerings that now I've built an offer today.

It was like, man, this is the stuff that would have made my life way easier back then and or continues to make my life way easier today. It's like the stuff I use. Yeah. Well, that's, that's good. I know that I had, I mean, I had a lot of struggles through. I like, I do, I wasn't an associate. I, but I rented a room from a guy and it was, it was, it was a bit overpriced looking back, you know, and there's your 2020 again and 2025. What is, is that better than 20? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so, yeah. And, and I, as I started to, as I started to like building relationships like one-on-one and just meeting people, like it seemed like it worked well for me, but then it's fun.

I also too fell into a little bit more of, of online. I started a website. Um, it, it still continues to drive new patients in today and even YouTube videos. And, and so it was all useful stuff, but it's, um, I think it's menacing for, for students and new docs and, and even by season docs to know where to start. Cause there's so many things. Um, what would you start on now? Do you think, uh, if you had a brand new practice? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, so it depends upon personality type, right? So I think if when I think of like a BNI group or like these local, you know, these breakfast groups or what I'm going to call them, I mean, they, if you had, that's your personality, then I think that that's, that's a great way to start a practice for me.

It's like the opposite of my personality. So I know a bunch of docs that like do very little social, very little online in just pretty hardcore, aggressive one-on-one networking locally in their areas. And they do very well. And that's awesome. For me, I've always just been a little bit more. I'm not afraid to go one-on-one, but I've always been a little bit more technology and scale driven. And it's just been an interest of mine. I don't mind shooting video. I don't mind. So, you know, for me, I look more towards, you know, utilizing things online. So when I say that, you know, I think there's, there's a, there's a playbook for that to get started.

I mean, number one is, you know, have a website that can perform well in search and all these things don't need to be like super expensive either, but make sure that you have a website that looks presentable and professional and make sure that you have the keywords there that will give you the availability to be seen when somebody searches that locally. It's not that hard to do that. There's a lot of website companies that drastically overcharge for those services. Why is why important to pick your partners carefully? But getting seen via Google search is a great idea. The other thing that I'd encourage everybody to do as quickly as possible is on that website, get a lead capture tool.

So give something in exchange for an email, build your email list. So that could be the five exercises to get rid of back pain. It could be the shoulder strength training, you know, video or PDF series, but write a blog post or two quote unquote, and put it into a PDF format and start collecting emails. That's the top of funnel as we call it in marketing. Those are the people within your audience who you can build a relationship of no trust and like, and they can trickle in over time when they're ready to become patients. So that's where I love online is it gives you the availability to scale that much, much wider than me being able to meet five or 10 people a day.

The best way to do it, of course, as you can imagine, is a hybrid of both. Get out there, go to those local events, meet other healthcare providers. And while I'm on this thought, I'm going to complete it before I let you go. Come in here. And that is... You can see me chomping at the bit, huh? Yeah. Get on. If you are a Facebook or an Instagram, whatever the platform is for you, get out to the other local business owners who are seeing the people who you'd like to see. Interview them, feature them, tag them, and they will then share that with their audience. So if you are a chiropractor, that might be somebody who owns a local CrossFit gym.

It could be a medical doctor who resonates with your paradigm of care. It could be a midwife or a doula, depending upon what kind of... It could be the local restaurateur who owns a healthy and organic food. Don't limit it just to health, but ask yourself, where are the people... If I had 100 people come into my practice next week, where are those people going in town? Go to those businesses, interview those business owners or the lead general managers, the faces of that company, share that across your social media platform. Even if your platform has two followers, I can assure you, they probably won't care.

They'll be happy you did. They'll share it to theirs, at which point you dramatically increase the awareness of who you are. You become that connector and that trusted resource, just organically, for lack of a better way to say it. So, I think a couple of points on that. I think... So, I went through B&I for a little bit too. I think... Well, they called that a power group or something? Something like that, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. And I guess on... We'll retract real quickly to the website thing, because I'm personally interested. Which one do you think is better? And... Or in which situation would you use one or the other?

Lead generating or pixeling to remarket? And not have to go through the menacing... Give a fake email or real email thing, you know? Right. So, I mean, in an ideal world, both. I mean, I just... I do both, right? So, I mean, personally, my website has a Facebook pixel on every single page. So that anybody who visits my website goes into a custom audience that then I could retarget on Facebook or third party. So, that's built in under the surface. Then I have lead capture that is now I'll do predominantly exit intent. So, I'll have a box right at the front. So, somebody comes to the website. I want to enable them to exchange an email address for more information.

I make it... I've been doing this a while, so it's a little bit sophisticated. But I make it page specific. So, if somebody goes to a how do I get better search engine optimization blog post, I want a little pop-up box to come up on exit intent when they're ready to leave the page that says, hey, would you like to download this article as a PDF into your email here? So, that acts as lead gen, right? I've already got their, quote-unquote, anonymized information via the fact that they just visited the page. That's the pixel that puts them into the custom group. But I also always have, as long as it makes sense, right?

I'm not trying to overwhelm or burden people. But if it makes sense, I'm going to try to have something that can collect an email on any page that provides value. Because if you're providing value, there's probably always a deeper layer that you could go. So, offering that deeper layer to somebody is valuable to them, not obtrusive. Then it's really just delivering on your promise. And so, when you follow up with those people then via email, then what's the, how many touch points, how, what type of value do you give them, and when do you finally ask them to do an actionable step to get better?

So, you must see, I just went through like a large audit in my infusion soft. So, this is like, and yes, I had one million problems. So, same as everybody else. So, here's the way I go about it. Is that, you know, somebody gives me their email address. What I'll typically do is that, you know, I'll deliver them immediately what I said I would, right? So, I'll address for something. They'll get that immediately. Then what I'll do is, two days later, I'll send a follow-up email with something that is tightly wound to that topic, value, education, information, engaging only, not an ask, two days later.

And I'll do that one more time, two days after that. So, somebody puts in their email, they'll typically get three emails within six days. They'll get immediately delivered, or I guess four or five days, immediately delivered what they asked for. Two days later, they'll get a little piece of education or information that ties to it. And then two days later, one other piece. Now, the way that I do it is, if they didn't click on anything in those emails that I delivered, those three emails, that's where the sequence stops. And they'll just get a once-a-week touchpoint from me that I send out to everybody on my email list.

But if they click something in those emails, that tells me they actually were engaged, they were really interested. That's when they'll go to a follow-up sequence with an ask after they get still, they'll still get those value emails, those delivery and two more. But if they click anything in those, then they'll go into a three to four email sequence afterward that's a little bit more towards the fact of, hey, here's the action step I might be able to help you with. And again, we can go through examples, but it depends upon what the delivery was and what they were asking for, which is going to, in turn, say what I am going to ask for or deliver for them.

So with those people who engage, then they're excluded from the same email weekly touchpoints that the other ones are, I'm guessing. Good question. The weeklies go to everybody because the weeklies are not. I make the weeklies new each week. So the weeklies are never the same stuff that's in the value delivery sequence. The weeklies are really up to the date. Hey, what did I post about this week? Here's a cool article. Here's a video that I put out. So those are real time. Whereas some of those, what we'll call that value sequence after somebody puts in their email, those are a little bit more evergreen, so to speak.

In other words, they change much, much less frequently. Mm-hmm. Okay. And just to break down a barrier for people listening, they're probably thinking, this sounds really complicated now. How do you start and how long to actually create the emails needed? And then how would they implement the system? So, yeah, it can be overwhelming. I know, you know, and I put, I send out a lot of emails. Imagine, hutch, hutch are this exactly this topic. Somebody's like, man, I locked into MailChimp and I didn't even know what to click. This guy's talking about like lead magnets and automations and follow up.

Oh my gosh, like the programs typically are not super intuitive if you're not a marketer, right? So, you know, that's just, that's part of it. There's going to be a little bit of a learning curve, but the big thing about it, I'll give a little bit of framework and then I'll dive into the weeds. The big thing about it is that this is your availability, you know, email, once you get over that hump, whether you learn it yourself or you kind of outsource some of that, it's such an important part of building your brand and it's going to help you so much tremendously long-term to build trust with people, to build rapport and to follow up.

Like, you know, the other thing, I'll go off on a little bit of a tangent here, but, you know, docs of all, all healthcare providers, we see patients, they have a great experience and then, you know, they, they, you know, they're not in the office for any given amount of time and we don't follow up with them at all. Like, unless maybe it's like a birthday card, like it seems crazy. They know trust and like you already. Deliver weekly information to them, stay top of mind, continue to deepen that relationship and build trust and rapport. Then when, if, and when they are ready for your service again, you're not competing for ad space on Google.

It's like, oh, well I get an email from Dr. Jeff every single Friday. That's like really cool and interesting. Yeah. When I'm ready, I'm just going to give him a call. You know, so it just makes a ton of sense business wise, longevity wise and cost effectiveness wise to get out there via email and social for that matter. Um, but in terms of specific things to, to get done, what I'd recommend would be this. Um, I'll try to make this as simple as possible. It's much easier if I whiteboard this out, but I'll kind of, I'll do it verbally and try to make it as easy. Do you happen to have a reference on your site somewhere that people can find too?

Yeah, we can. I'll leave it in the show notes. Yeah. I have a, I have kind of a simplistic, uh, lead magnet follow-up sequence that has a graphic and we can leave a, we'll leave a link in the show notes. Okay. So, uh, the gist of it is this, is that I would get together a blog post. If you are somebody that writes, you can literally type it. Or if you are somebody that with a few that is willing to venture out into video, film it and then just transcribe your video. And then you have it right there. All you have to do at that point is make, and it should be something interesting, right? So what's a pain point that your audience is dealing with?

How do you help solve that pain point and what's their call to action? So that's all you have to have, you know, so what's the pain point? What are people struggling with and it'll come into your practice? What, uh, how can you help fix that problem or solve it for them? And then what are the action steps you would like them to take? So that's kind of your PDF or, you know, that little blog post, make it in. Then you just put that into a PDF. You can do that nearly every program export as PDF. That's pretty much your lead magnet, so to speak, right there. Then all you have to do is speak to the person who runs your website, or you could use a tool like Sumo or Leadpages that help make those little boxes show up.

So that's going to be the, hey, get my insert title of your blog post here, right? Get my five secrets to eliminate low back pain by typing your email address below. So there's a bunch of programs out there that do that. Some website providers even have it built in. And then all you have to do is connect that to whoever you utilize for email. So if that's Aweber or Constant Contact or MailChimp, you have your email provider. And all you do is one time, just hook those two up. It depends upon the software programs, how you hook them up. You hook them up. And then you just get that PDF in that first email.

Hey, and keep it short and sweet. Here it is. Hope you think it's awesome. I'll touch base in a couple days. At that point, you're at least off to the races. Yeah, good. I know that I, like, actually, some of the stuff you said reminded me of the, I heard your podcast on making content creation easy. And the video, export the audio, transcribe it, blah, blah, blah. And so, actually, and I think that one is right along with the onboarding sequence, which I haven't really done too much of with my patient email list. But I decided after I heard it on yours, I'm like, I'm going to do it. And so, I started, and let me know if there, how I can improve this, if you find any holes in there.

The welcome. The common questions you're going to get as their symptoms resolve or get worse or whatever. You know, what to do if you're getting better? What to do if you're getting worse? What to do if you're not, or if there's no change at all? You know, like, is it going to cost this much forever because I'm a cash-based model? How am I going to know if I'm not, if I don't need to be in your care anymore? And then lastly is, what else am I good at treating and what am I not good at treating? And the reason why I added that last one is because, I don't know if you've had this experience or if you have a remedy with it, is someone comes to you for their shoulder, and then you find out, like, a year later, they went to, they've been dealing with this foot problem for years on end, and you're like, dude, why didn't you just talk to me?

I could deal with feet. It's not a big deal. And they're like, oh, okay, I'll come back in. Like, they don't see that. Thoughts on any of that? Yeah. This is a great job. Getting started with it is 90% of the battle. So, that now it's just optimizing and improving. So, my thoughts would be this. Awesome job. And you are 100% correct. All of us take care of, I thought you were the low back doctor. Like, you know, as if that's the only thing you ever addressed. You know what I mean? So, that is, I love that you're addressing that in the onboarding. That is also where those once a week emails come in so valuably over time, is it gives you the opportunity to dive a little bit deeper on every single condition or symptom or challenge or, you know, pain point over a significant period of time.

So, it really allows you to stretch your wings. The only thing that I would say that I hear missing from what you're, that I hear missing from what you currently have is what I'll say is, you know, maybe two things. Pushing them to a platform in a good way. So, it might be an email of saying, hey, join our audience on Facebook where I put up bi-weekly updates to keep you healthy and fit. Or it might be, you know, check out my podcast where we interview this or check out my YouTube channel. You could, I would put one email in pushing them to a platform where you'd like to engage with them further.

It's a great idea. Could be back to your website also. And then, perhaps one, that would be, this would be careful on the timing on this one. But one at the end, if you're not, or if you don't have another system that's doing this, that encourages a review or a testimonial. Right, right. Actually, it's funny on those. There's, I don't know if you've delved into this yet. So, good versus bad testimonial, not in regards to harmful testimonial, but like, yeah, I felt better. Dr. Jeff was awesome, you know, versus a sob story, which became a success story and then told an actual tale of a specific condition, all their pain points.

Do you coach them at all into like how to do things like that or you just kind of let them write freely? That's a good question. It depends. So, if you wanted to control the whole process, what I'd encourage you to do is send an email with like three specific questions and ask them just to reply to you. That gives you the availability to control that conversation and edit it how you see fit. And again, this is about, you know, you'll get the quality through the quantity. Not everybody will reply. Of course, you're going to have significant drop off, but one is better than zero, two is better than one kind of thing.

So, if you wanted to control the process, it's going to be a little bit less conversion, a little bit more friction, probably for somebody to reply to you and answer, like, let's say, two to three questions. But you'll be able to help them craft the story. Question number one, right? You know, what were the quality of life issues that drove you to call, you know, that stimulated you to call our practice? Question, you know, answer, you know, question number two. You know, how did our practice help you overcome that issue? Question number three, what are you looking forward to doing now that you've achieved some results in the practice, right?

So, those are really easy where you can put together a great story with a lot of people. So, if you wanted to control the whole process, that's one way. The other way would be just to hyperlink to your favorite testimonial platform. So, if you're, like, trying to get Google reviews, just hyperlink there or hyperlink to a web form or something like that. But you are going to give up the control. And, yeah, you might end up with a lot of just, it was great. It's like, oh, well, I don't want to like a little bit more meat there. So, you know, two to three questions where you just ask them to reply to you can certainly help you get more out of it.

Now, the catch on that, the catch is that it's a lot harder for you then to post that to Google because you can't do it as the person. And you end up with a little bit of friction there. So, it would be more used internally than externally, meaning you could utilize those on your website or make a posting on your Facebook page as long as the patient gives you permission and all that kind of stuff, obviously. Right. I actually did, I did some recently that it was, so I got a really great testimonial from an ideal niche client. Like, it was IT band, sorry, this person was a hip flexor. Actually, I'll start with what I love.

I love lumbar spine, disc. I love hip flexor or IT band piriformis syndrome. Basically, that cluster around the hip. It's just easy. And so, someone came in with a really great story, great pain points at the beginning, great exit, good time frame, very excited person. And so, I got her to write a review. And then, I basically crafted that into an anonymous story, which is a quote-unquote case study that I posted on the site. And that's just a blog posting right there. And what I'm hoping is that when people find that from that main page, that they say, oh, that person resonates. Like, that's what I want to be.

Like, I want to do exactly what that person wants. And I want to have the same success that they do. So, maybe they'll see that as like a storyline. Like, everyone loves Luke Skywalker, you know, I don't know why, but they want to be Luke Skywalker. And so, I'm hoping that they resonate well with the character. And so, it's better than just an informational, you know, what would you do with or how to fix hip, you know, hip flexor syndrome or something, you know? Yeah, 100%. I mean, most of those, all of those tales should be aspirational, right? It's, you know, it's the features versus benefits.

It's the benefits that people receive from the care that are exciting and interesting. And the closer that aligns with who they are or, more importantly, who they strive to be, the more likely that person is to take an action step. So, I could not agree more. I think that's a great idea to use a case study example of that because, you know, it's a little bit on the clinical realm. You're getting the marketing legs out of it, but it's tying back to kind of clinical realm. And it's just something that, again, showcases the stories and the benefits of what people receive when they come in to see you in a true and ethical fashion.

And those are just great things to get out there in the community and get out there long tail. You put it out, as you said, as a case study or a blog post. That's going to live on forever. So, you know, it's like, you know, the ripple today affects, you know, millions later on kind of thing where it might not generate 20 patients next week, but it's going to inevitably make a difference. And, again, as that one becomes 10, becomes 100, becomes 1,000, it just starts to become you as the real obvious choice to anybody even remotely close to your vicinity, you know, that has a resonance with your patient niche, so to speak.

So, we've talked about a lot of, I guess, techie stuff, maybe. And I'm sure all this is a very foreign topic to some of the listeners, especially the young clinicians and probably the older ones, too. How the hell do you – I mean, I've gone through learning a bunch of this stuff in random places as well, but how long did it take you to learn to think of things in this fashion, and where can people go to learn more about that kind of stuff? So, that's a tough one, right? So, I'm going to give the honest response here, which has taken a decade. I mean, I spend about 50% of my time going to chiropractic events and about 50% going to tech and entrepreneurial events.

So, I spend personally a massive amount of time, energy, and money, but also it's because you have to remember, at this point, the evidence-based chiropractor is kind of like a media company. We put out a ridiculous amount of content. I have multiple things going on. There's just a lot going on behind the scenes. That's not necessary for a lot of docs, but I'll answer your question very directly. It's taking a massive amount of time, energy, and money. So, what are some tricks or tips that I think docs can utilize? I think number one is listening to podcasts like this, listening to podcasts that revolve around clinical practice, but also dive occasionally into the marketing side of things.

It's a great way just to start to get your feet wet with things. Of course, I'd be remiss to say not to check out the evidence-based chiropractor.com and the free tools and the blog posts because there's hundreds of them there that can piece together different aspects or our YouTube channel as well. I kind of break things down on video. Those would be some really basic, interesting starting points, I think, for most docs to get started. Also, the other thing is if you see somebody or meet somebody at a conference or you see somebody online that you think is doing a great job, just reach out to that person and ask some questions.

Hey, I'm looking to get started. What was the first step that you took? I love it when I get those messages. I always happily respond, especially when there's kind of a specific question that I can help with. So I would say if you're a doc out there saying, man, I'd love to do this, but I don't really know where to start. Well, number one, get on the platforms you think that you'd like to engage with, if that's Instagram or Facebook. Find a couple people who you think are doing a great job and then reach out to those people and say, hey, I love what you're doing. It's really cool. If you would tell me this one or two questions, I'd be super appreciative.

And I think you'll get a lot of information that way to kind of just get those puzzle pieces starting one step after the other. Good suggestions. I like it. It's non-menacing. It's very doable. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the key thing. I mean, obviously, there's also events, right? There's conferences. There's events. I run events that dive into this stuff. So there's plenty of opportunity to do deep dives. But if you're kind of sitting there right now and like, hey, I'd love to get started today, hop on a platform, check out somebody who you respect or admire, shoot them a message, and you'd probably be surprised at what you'll get back as far as answers.

Now, on a personal note, I talked to Grant Elliott recently. He went to your workshop. I didn't talk too much about it. I didn't realize he went until he posted it. How'd it go? Oh, great. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, yeah, I was thrilled. Yeah. It was about a day and a half or so. Yeah, so we did, we did, kicked it off Friday night, went until Sunday afternoon, and basically went through 30-minute workshop and 30-minute lecture. So each platform, we broke down content pyramid, and then we built it, right? So we talked about it and then built it with every attendee. Then we talked about Facebook.

We talked about Facebook. Then we built stuff. We talked about website and SEO. We looked at people's websites, search engine optimization, and we built better. So it really was about working one-on-one with every single doc. We had, like, social events. We took a riverboat cruise out in the Bay of Tampa at sunset, and it was like, we had, like, open bar and stuff like this all weekend long. So it was like, yeah, it was super cool. I think the docs that came, you know, got the feedback that I received was awesome. I can tell you from a personal antidote here, I'd been probably talking about doing an event for three years but kept finding every excuse possible not to do it.

Because it was like, this is a ridiculous amount of work and super stressful. But inevitably, I'm glad I did. Yeah, that's good. I think, I mean, I recently had my first workshop, and it was, I felt the same way. Like, I was, I wrote, like, 400 slides because I was like, I don't know how long, I don't know how fast I'll get through this or if anyone's going to interact. But I feel like at the end, everybody had a really good, like, someone walked away with a clinical nugget that was going to be helpful to them. And I'm like, oh, good, I will do this again, I think. And with yours, it's actually, it's funny with, so I have interns in here right now.

And part of the syllabus that I've given them is that by week eight, I expect them to start a website. And so it's, like, it's probably, like, the hardest thing for them to even fathom. I'll sit down, and I haven't done my own site in a long time in regards to have started up from hosting and, you know, putting a theme in it and stuff. But I'll try to walk them through it. It sounds like then if you guys, it's your guys' workshop, you basically, if someone walked away, it was some type of framework to build upon. Yeah, I mean, the goal was to get stuff done. I mean, so it was not necessarily, I mean, half of it was about learning, but it wasn't to fill a notebook to then look back on six months and be like, that was nice.

You know, it really was, like, you know, beat in the fire kind of thing. We, like, filmed live. So people that were like, I'm scared to do video, I was like, well, let's go. It's go time. Let's work through this framework. You know, what's the topic you want to talk about? What are you passionate about? Let's work through the worksheet. What are three pain points that people are dealing with regarding that? What are three awesome facts or ways that you can help guide them? And then what would you like the call to action to be? So we jammed through literally every single thing. Yeah, I mean, I looked at nearly everybody's website and was like, you know, here's what I'm seeing.

Here's where you can make improvements. Here's some copy changes. What do you guys think? So, yeah, it was all about literal action. I think that's really valuable. But action is where things actually happen. Yeah, I think that's really valuable. Like, I've actually never heard of another workshop where you actually just do it. Like, it's just so you're talking about it, you know? So that's, I think you should do more. That'd be great. The yearly event? Especially, well, I'll say now that some people have asked me, like, hey, you're going to do another one? And it's like, well, and I jokingly say this, but it's the truth.

It's like, well, now that I built all this stuff, that was like so much work. It's like, now I got to do it again because I spent so much time building all of these, all the individual modules and sessions and workshop. It's like, man, I want to get more than just one oomph out of it, right? I want to make sure I can get multiple value points out of it. And I think the feedback was way over the top. I'm probably way underselling kind of what it was like. But I'm just, I'm not a hard sell kind of guy. But it was awesome. The feedback that I got was super good and everything that I heard from the docs was, you know, this is literally going to make improvements next week.

And there's not too many things out there outside of the clinical world where that holds true. So, you know, as a guy who comes more maybe from the marketing side than the technique or clinical side of things, a lot of what I've seen is slow burn over time. But this really kind of made that a pressure cooker, right? Diamonds come from pressure kind of thing. So, getting in there for a weekend, working and jamming through it, having a workbook, physical, a swipe file, everything on PDFs. We gave away camera gear so people have like lights and phones. Like the swag bag was killer. So, people have actually the gear also as soon as they go home to get started.

Nice. So, I'm pretty proud of what we put together. And I think the feedback reinforced it. Yeah, it's nice. I do feel like you should do more. And I think this can turn into a module, an online module too. That's a good idea. Yeah. I'm definitely willing to explore all of it because it's information that a lot of docs need. There's so many docs out there that just aren't at capacity and quite frankly, aren't even close to capacity. You don't have to want to open up multiple offices. You don't have to want to have multiple associates. For some docs, that's what they want. Awesome. Well, you definitely need to have growth.

But even if you want to have a strong, sustainable practice over time, you need to have good patient flow. You can't always be putting out fires and I don't think you should always be running coupons online. The bottom line is you don't have to, but you have to have systems and processes to be able to communicate with people in your community and be available for them. It doesn't mean sleazy and cheesy and all this other crap, but it means that you need to put out high quality content consistently and you need to have the systems in place to follow up as automated and systematized as possible.

So that you can do the hard work of helping people get well and do it in a way where you're not sitting around trying to put out marketing fires and bummed out because you're not reaching the goals and expectations that you set out for yourself. Yeah. Well, I think the challenge for a lot of people, too, is that they I think we're used to doing like we're like we're go getters. Like I think going through school, like you kind of just like you're used to it's like, oh, I can build this cabinet like I've done cabinetry in my own house like I can do that. It's like you're going to charge me 10 grand.

No, I'll just do myself, you know. And with like with website stuff and everything, I know that we have the best intent to do it and videos. And we just we need we need some guidance, I think, and guidance from someone who who is you feel like is not going to cheat you basically, you know, like it's a necessity. But you just don't I think most of us don't just don't know where to go, you know, and so you just don't do it. Yeah, it's it's difficult. I mean, it's like I mean, it's the old joke, right? I mean, it's like you get like 27 LinkedIn messages a day of everybody promising you like 80 leads for free or whatever.

And it's just like somebody you never heard of. It looks like they're like, you know, 12 years old. It's like, well, who doesn't live? Who doesn't live in the country you reside in? It's like, well, what is what's going on here? I mean, occasionally some of those people might be all stars. I don't mean to disparage all of them. But the bottom line is, it is it's difficult to find those trustworthy sources. And really, you know, that's where I mean, that's where I think I found my niche is kind of straddling that line. I say evidence-based carbohydrate is the intersection of research and marketing.

That's where I like to sit. That's where I want the brand to sit. And hopefully that's where I deliver value is within the research side of things by promoting the good research that's out there, the great research that's out there. I'm not a researcher myself, so to speak, in the lab, but as far as getting the word out across the platform about things that are cool and interesting, that helps support what you do. And that ties directly back to the marketing. So how are you taking that, as I say, taking the content and putting it in the proper context? Because nobody wants to read the paper, physicians, let alone, you know, the lay public.

So how do you take that new and interesting information and deliver it in a way that actually makes sense to the people in your neighborhood, right? I mean, I'm doing my best job and my best work. I feel like within the evidence-based chiropractor, we're helping docs with that process, taking what's out there, taking the latest and greatest and putting it into a way that they can utilize to build value and trust and rapport in their community and educate, entertain, and engage with people in their community. Because that's how practice will grow long-term. Nice. Yeah. Before we start to close up, is there anything that you feel like we need to cover, but we didn't?

I guess the biggest thing, well, I don't know. That's a really good question. That's like, you've got me, you threw me for a loop there. You know, I think the biggest thing would be, you know, the docs out there, young healthcare providers of all types, you know, you have those clinical tools. And many of us probably, you know, underestimate some of that when we go out. Now we're confident and ready to go, but, you know, there can be an intimidation factor when you're going out and speaking with another healthcare provider, right? Or you're speaking with somebody, you might, gosh, you know, you might second guess things.

And I would encourage everybody, you know, be confident with what you know. And we've seen this with Grant, as you brought up earlier, where, you know, he started and he's amassed, you know, 75,000 plus followers on Instagram as a student. And it's not through exploiting the fact that he's a doctor when he's not. It's actually the complete opposite. He's shown his journey to a certain extent, and he's educated in the realm that he's passionate about, and people have resonated with that dramatically. So what I'd encourage everybody to do is, you know, choose that platform. So one thing that I just would say I'd like to cover is I would encourage every provider listening, you know, choose the platform that you love.

It might be Twitter. It might be your website. It might be video on YouTube. It might be Instagram, you know, but choose one. You just got to be one out there. Do you like to write? Do you like to shoot pictures? Do you like to take video? Ideally, all of the above. And you can, you know, systematize that. But if you just choose one to start, I'm not a big Twitter guy, for instance, so you don't need to be everywhere. But choose that one and just get started and just start feeling it out. Put some things out. You're going to improve. You're going to get better. It's about, just as with any skill, just as when you were in school and you were learning an exercise, a stretch, learning an adjustment if you're a chiropractor, you're probably doing a lot better now than when you started, right?

So, you know, the same thing will hold true. Your skill set will develop online. You're not expected to be, we went through a lot of technical stuff at the top of this where, you know, it can be overwhelming. You're not going to go from zero to 2000 just based upon, you know, listening to our episode today. But what you can do is say, okay, I want to dive deep. This is a platform that I love personally. I use personally, and I think I can get some traction on. Let me reach out to those couple people who I think are doing a great job. See if they'll give me a little bit of tips, advice, or, you know, I'd love to know a little bit more about how they're doing things.

And start to learn a little bit at a time. That will get you a long way. And once you start that process, you'll already be ahead of 95% of your competition who never even get started. Nice. So everyone knows, he was so excited during that, his glasses nearly fell off. He had to put them back on his face. So how can everyone reach you? Or what's the best way? Yeah. So the easiest way is just to head over to the evidence-based chiropractor.com. That's kind of the hub of all things. You could also go to Jeff Langmaid or drjefflangmaid.com. But those are probably the two biggest hubs. From there, you'll be able to see anything you want to see.

If you want to check out videos, you can check out the YouTube page from there. If you are into podcasts, we have a weekly podcast as well that does research and marketing in the time it takes to get to your practice. Or any of the free tools and blog resources are all there for the taking. So there's a lot to dive into at theevidencebasedchiropractor.com. But I'd encourage you to go over it, check it out. I'd be shocked if you – I would ask you – you can personally email me, jeff at theevidencebasedchiropractor.com, if you don't find something over there that you think can help you get where you want to go in your practice.

Nice. Well, cool. Thank you for being on. My pleasure. All right, everyone. That was Jeff Langmaid from The Evidence-Based Chiropractor. If you haven't heard his podcast, you really need to. They're short to the point. I think they're under 30 minutes. Some of them are like 17 minutes and so on. But I listen to them when I go for runs. And actually, because I'm used to long format kind of like this, I go through about two of them when I go through a run. I'm like, dude, I've got to download a couple before I actually leave since I don't like using my data out there. But thanks so much, Jeff, for being on.

That was good information. And actually, so everyone knows, we got even better information when we went off air. I should have recorded all that too. So please visit his site, though. There is a lot of great information on there. And I think, you know, as we kind of agreed that our goal is to really help out people in the profession that are good-hearted, well-trained doctors that don't get eaten up with the system. And it happens a lot. You know, we get burnt out. I've even had a couple friends through school that they kind of stopped practicing already. You know, we're only 10 years out. And so it's frustrating.

And I don't think there's a lot of job opportunities for chiropractors out there. I think there's a little bit more for PTs because they can spread themselves out a little bit more. But we want to really build the ability of people who are good-hearted, good clinicians, and really effective at what they do, build their businesses, and make it easy for them. And so Jeff has a lot of information on his site with that. So please go through there and check out his stuff. Now, lastly, the housekeeping thing is if you guys have not already heard on the other podcasts, we're still going to be doing that August 24th workshop here.

And the price did go up. I'm sorry. I'm a man of my word. And it went up after July 4th. So it's just $600 right now. There is no student discounts because there's already a student workshop available. And if you have questions about that, just direct message me. But basically the idea is I'm going to show you guys how to go through really effective loading to decrease people's symptoms without even really having to touch them much. And although there is a time and place for manual therapy, I think we just overutilize it a little bit too much in our profession. And I've been guilty of that over the last few years.

And I've learned a lot more. So now I want you to learn a different tool if you haven't already. If you don't feel comfortable using a corrective exercise, a loading strategy, or some type of effortful movement with someone in an acute, subacute, or chronic phase injury, then you're going to learn how to do that through this workshop. So please direct message me or email me. That is seb at p2sportscare.com. And I will see you guys next week. Leave people a button on how you found them. If you're dating, date an Eagle Scout. Peace.