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Hello and welcome to our show Growth Without Risk. My name is Dr. Janice Hughes, and I’m excited to be your host of this week show now. I’m looking forward to the conversation today, first of all, because it’s somebody that I wanted to catch up with and I’ve watched what she and another doctor that she practices with have done.
And I thought it was going to be really pertinent. Number one, to practitioners considering a change right now. I think the craziness of the world has allowed us all to say, are we practicing and doing what. And if the answer is yes, fabulous. And if, no, it really means that it’s time for change and sometimes it’s time for a drastic change.
But I also think this is going to be pertinent to any of you that are brand new practitioners in startup mode. And I’ll share a little bit more along the way, and you’ll really realize. So I’m excited to bring to you today, a really dear friend and wonderful, amazing chiropractor, Dr. Jennifer Rozenhart.
So welcome Jennifer. And I’m really excited about having you think. I’m really excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation, Janice. It’s always great to catch up with you as well. And I’m excited to share what our journey has looked like over the last little while I really linked it. I called the title, this idea about your values to business startups.
So just share, spend the first couple of minutes telling people about the change you’ve made and why you made that change. Sure. I practiced in San Jose, California. I went to Palmer west and I graduated in, oh my gosh, 1997. So for a while it was 20 plus years in the bay area and had a great thriving practice and just decided I practiced with my sister by the way.
So she’s also a Palmer west Chiro, Dr. Steph Rozenhart, our bet. And we had been in practice in the bay area. May 24 years. And one day we just started chatting, and said, do we love it here? The bay area, for those of you who don’t know is like the San Francisco bay area is like millions of, I don’t know, 10 million people.
And, in your twenties, it was cool. We loved it. It was high pace. It was you could get everything, you could go to the beach in an hour, you could go skiing and four hours, it was just a really thriving, high energy place to live. But, as you. Grow older as your values change. Ours did too, and it became a very hustle, bustle, very intense place to live.
And traffic had increased and humans had increased and it was just became not where we want it to be anymore. So we decided that we would that we would leave that we started looking for different states that we wanted to move to. And examining all of our options, what would we do with our practice?
And just started that, that exploration and what had happened was every, as everyone knows is COVID happened and that really just accelerated our departure that just really made us think, you know what? This is our opportunity. This is a crazy time. And in California, it can, it. The craziest.
And then we looked at it as an opportunity. This is an opportunity for us to make, live this plan, work, this plan of leaving and relocating. So that’s what we did. We decided, okay, by the end of 2020, we’re going to be out of California. And I make it sound a lot, maybe simpler, easier by the end of 2020.
And we moved to Arizona and reopened practice. I think that’s why this is such an interesting and pertinent conversation to be having all of you listening. We know it’s almost the holiday season is end of year. We all have these goals. We have all these aspirations and sometimes we are going, wait a minute, is this it?
Or I’m not completely congruent and practicing, like with some things that align for my. And that’s even important for any of you in the beginning of startup, you’re graduating and where would you love to live? And so not also thinking, oh, I have to do that for the rest of my lot, life like, like you guys did that for 20, some odd years. Maybe it’s even just for five years. So I think it’s really clarifying what is it that we want? And you guys had to go through the mental, thinking and approach to the. First, but then share a couple of the, I’ll call it the real skills.
Like how do you relocate? How do you throw that dart saying here’s where we’re going to go and for everybody listening, what do you guys think? You personally think now after a year into this, like what are three or four of the key startup things? Oh boy. Okay. First question what was okay. I think, okay.
So three of the four startup things I want to start there because it is a big project. And one of the things that you have to look at is yes, absolutely. Where do you want to be? And why? So at first, living in California was all about lifestyle and it was weather and it was beautiful and it was cutting edge and it was Silicon valley.
And when we were looking at well, what aligns with our values now? No. Did we need to have the hustle bustle? No. Did we want to be close to a big city within, 30 or 45 minutes of a major airport? Yes. That was important. But did we need to, did we need to be right in the middle of thick snow?
Did we want to be in a more suburban type of environment? Yes. So looking at those things, once we picked the place and I’ll tell you, like our family had a lot to do with that, we were looking for a state that had handled. Freedom’s medical freedoms much better than California has, so that narrowed our choices down.
But family was a big decision-maker for us and our parents are live here. Half-time in the winter. So for my sister and I, when we practiced together, we thought this is a no brainer. Like Arizona is beautiful. We’ll live here. But once that decision was made, then the process began. Okay. We need some sort of ongoing project management software list, something, because inevitably there were many sleepless nights where we use, you’d sit up at 3:00 AM.
What do you know, we have to, we gotta look at this. We have to figure this piece out. So we ended up, creating a living document and ongoing spreadsheet of just all of the things. And what you don’t realize is the dominoes that have to fall in order for everything to go smoothly. You just learn that as you go.
But I would say the three or four things as startups. That you have to do is one is just get well known and get well known in your community. That was the thing that really kicked our office off in the beginning a year ago. It’ll be a year in January was just getting to know our community and that.
Do everything. I know it sounds exhausting and it can be, but do everything get, well-known go to your chamber, go to events, join networking groups like that really made the biggest impact for us. Secondarily would be getting your presence known online. That’s where everybody is. So you have to do that.
You have to do that. Your number one job is marketing like that. That is your job. Hopefully you know how to be a chiropractor after. Your number one job is marketing your entire job to get a new practice. I really want to make a key point there because what Jennifer’s identifying is the importance of two types of work.
And I’ll call that the electronic I’ve spent a long time going to some of the colleges and working and creating, doing some business courses. And I know the tendency for some of you listening is we can just do all that on. Yeah. You talked about that online presence had online marketing, but do not forget about looking at someone shaking someone’s hand.
And I get that we’re in this post COVID world and some places are more extreme than others, it doesn’t stop you again from being seen, being out there, even if that’s at the grocery store at the, some things that your kids are going to be involved in, if you have children, but you really talked about the two and I can’t say that.
Yeah, it’s it is, it was the one way. That we really kicked off strong was from in-person networking. And you can’t discount it. You cannot discount it. And I would default, I our practice in San Jose was on autopilot. It really, we didn’t have to do a lot of that after 20 plus years of being in that valley.
Brand new. Nobody knew us. That was really difficult. And it was difficult for us because we were used to being the go-to person for our patients who would come to us and say who do you know, who, does this or that? And we were so well-networked there that I always, oh, I got a guy for you.
Or I got a, I got this woman. She’s amazing. I love her. And we didn’t have that here. So part of it was selfishly. I needed to grow our network so that I could become the go-to person again for our patients in our community. Yeah, that’s the value of a network is, is everything you have to start rebuilding and getting out there.
Yeah. And it’s interesting to stop and think about it. Some of you that if you’re going into startup and you’re going back to somewhere where you were known, what I want to remind you is you were known as. A teenager or a 20 something like you were no. For some things that may actually serve you in practice, but some things that may not serve you in practice, so it’s important, no matter if it is, oh, I’m going back to my hometown, people do know me well, it’s important that they, that you still do all of these things or realize the importance of this piece because.
You’re a new person. You’re a professional now, so you want to have, and build the kind of network that Dr. Jennifer’s talking about regardless. Like you don’t want them to rely on somebody that knew you when you were 17. Yes. Good point. Good point. Yeah. And it’s, I can’t stress it enough.
People do default nowadays, especially I think more new grads would be, oh, I’ll just do it online. I can do all my promotion online, but like you said earlier, nothing replaces looking someone in the eye, you cannot build. Trust as quickly and as effectively with your future patients, as you can, when you show up week after week two events, you look at them, you smile, you chat about what’s important to them.
You build amazing rapport with people in person. You can’t do that online. You can’t as great as your videos are. Your offer is it’s not it’s, it just doesn’t work. Yeah. That’s why it’s definitely both. So keep going. So you’ve really talked about that, that key pinnacle, figure out where you want to be.
Here’s where you come in, you do the marketing, you do the networking. What else? What other clues for people? I think from a. From a mental, emotional health standpoint, deciding, making the decision as one thing. And that’s a big thing, but you have to have a level of mental toughness and resilience to.
Go through the process to, to be willing, to uproot yourself, make a change. And again, you’re talking about new grads in startup mode, but also people who were, perhaps considering a change is that you have to realize that things are going to take a left turn at some point that they’re not, everything is not going to go according to your plan.
I can count, oh my gosh, five or six things that happened during our whole process of timing this. And like we moved our. Our x-ray unit. We had to have an engineer come and do that. There was just so many pieces and moving parts that didn’t sign up for the, I did sign up for it.
It turns out, you just have to have a certain level of positivity, of resilience of This may not happen exactly according to plan, but keeping that end goal in mind that we’re going to get there and everything will happen. It’s not going to happen all at once or in the right order, but it will get there.
So I think just knowing, going in that it’s not going to be super smooth can really help your ability to get. I agree. I definitely think it is some of that mental toughness or connection at least to the bigness of the vision and why you’re doing this and that ultimately it is going to work itself out.
Another interesting thing that I’d love you to share with everybody, I think that there are definitely, those are like really hard details, like the decisions about the move and then the action steps related to the move, all that’s great. And then you open your door. And I assume that everyone listening is a great chiropractor.
For me, that’s just a given, but I think there’s some other really important. We might want to call them the soft skills. The things that. Distinguished, not only say people then first coming to you, how do you like create that instant connection? And for lack of better word, sell people that you’re the right clinic that now they’re going to stick with you too.
So because you’ve got some background and share with everybody why I bring up the word selling, those are some skills and how do we help people get those? Yes, those are absolutely skills. So a little background. I am definitely, I’m one of the partners with CloseforChiro and that’s that’s what we do is we teach doctors how to convert, how to sell, how to have those conversations, how to have your your day one, so that at the end of their consult, they feel like this is the place for me.
And not only just. For their day too. But then, like you said, Janice ongoing retention. That is the key piece about building a practice. And I spent 16 years in practice before being trained properly. I had a lot of training in chiropractic. I had a lot of coaches. I had a lot of those types of services for my practice, but it wasn’t until I really learned the profession.
Of sales and how it applies to chiropractic that changed the course of our career, our practice, and ultimately allowed us to be able to make this move, knowing I, we can do what we do in California. We can do the same thing in Arizona. So it is a skill set, no doubt about it. And there are many steps to it, but it really is.
Gives our dogs gave us and gave our doctors that we coach and train now the confidence to do things that they never thought they would do because they know what they’re doing. They have a system, they have a system that works every time. Because that I think is a big piece of I’ll call it the mental stress too.
That takes us away from that tenacity and toughness. It’s one thing to do the startup and all of you kinda that have been through it, and that’s why some people never want to move because they don’t want to do it all over again. So there are all these details that we’ve talked about and where it is and how do you network.
Here’s the biggest challenge I see for our profession for the majority of us as chiropractors is how do we communicate? How do we sell? And I like to say, I had one of your partners on here for a previous interview, and I always like to language it, selling equal, serving that, getting away from the stigma, in, we want this for more of you listening.
We want you to have the opportunity, not just to bring someone in, but to convert, to work with them and then show them a, I’ll just call it the bigness of. We all throw that around, like chiropractic in our life and how much it helps us. Who I am is a big part of, because of being a chiropractor and having chiropractic care that how do we get people to that, so that you don’t want to always for now in startup mode.
And it’s the new patient treadmill because you’re turning them over so fast. So that’s why I think it’s also a really important piece to talk about these softer. It’s a, it’s super important. And I think, you brought this up that sales has a stigma on it, and it’s why it’s never been brought into chiropractic until maybe we did it and CloseforChiro probably eight years ago.
Before that it just didn’t exist. And when we first came out, everyone was like, oh, what are you doing? You can’t say that word we’re healthcare practitioners. And if you’ve ever adjusted somebody in exchange. For money. You’re in sales. I hate to tell you, I hate to break it to you, but can we get better at this?
And sales absolutely is service. We cannot. Oh, there’s so many trains of thought. I have we cannot continue to serve people if we are not a profitable business. That is the bottom line. And every chiropractor I talks to, I talked to say, I just love what I do, and I want to serve more people.
I get it. I want you to serve more people, but you can’t do that. If you’re, if you can’t keep the lights on, you can’t do that. If you’re not. Actually having a wonderful revenue producing practice, it’s just not. And it doesn’t support your own values when you love to be the biggest donor to your church.
Would you love to be the biggest donor to the SPCA, like the biggest donor to your chiropractic college? These are things that we can only do when we are profitable as doctors. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting that there is nothing wrong with wanting to grow your business from a revenue standpoint for revenue.
That is great. We all have hearts of gold. We didn’t get into chiropractic to be. To not help people like we’re not selling nuclear arms. We’re selling something that is going to change people’s lives and save people’s lives. But the way that we get there is systematic. There is an approach that works really well.
And it’s getting it is meeting people where they’re at it is figuring out what is that person’s goal? What do they want? Why are they here? Not. Not our goals for them, but their grades and finding that out because that is what will tie them to your practice for forever, for a lifetime, however long they want to be.
So everyone listening. I think it’s pretty obvious why I want to Dr. Jennifer on this show, and the timing of December. And I really like you to think about what would you love for 2022? Whether you are in this brand new startup, whether you’re just in, I’ll call it the wonderful practice that you’ve built, but how could you even grow it?
How could you expand it? How do you maybe bring another wonderful young doc into that by having so much. So I think that there’s just some real clues that you’ve heard from Dr. Jennifer. Now we keep these short Dr. Jen. And so what would you love to leave people with, heading from your own learning, from your own experiences, your wish for them, just share with us, what you’d love to leave.
I think I would love to encourage people that like really anything is possible it’s it really is. And it doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but anything is possible. If you are thinking about making a change. Just do it and know that you’re going to reach out for support. That’s the other thing you have to know what you don’t know, and you have to be willing to ask for support, to ask for help in the areas that you’re not strong.
And if it happens to be, business related I’m happy to have conversations. I’m happy to have people reach out to me. I’m more than willing to have conversation about how we can help. The Gulf war do it. Life’s too short. If anything, this last year, two years told us is that life is too short and figuring out how to make yourself happy.
I summarize that by saying, learning your life. What are the hell knows and what are the hell? Are you. And if the hell yes is it’s time for a change, then you’re going to be back into some level of start-up mode. Thank you for all of the sharing and the wisdom. Please know everyone we will, by all means, put Dr. Jennifer Rozenhart’s contact information, also CloseforChiros contact information, just so that you have those kinds of resources, but again, figure out what are those. Hell yeses for 2022. So thank you all for listening. Please know, join next week. I’m the host of next week’s Growth Without Risk is Mike Miscoe.
And I know that he’s going to leave you with amazing tools and information. Happy holidays.