My wiring is to be very bold, right? Like, fuck it, let's try it. But what happens is that society gives you a little Nick and a Little Nick, and then like all the wiring of your growing up, like what my mom would say, you know, usually entrepreneurs have conservative parents.

And so they get that voice going. What happens, is we think it's wrong for us to have multiple different things going on. It's fine as long as you have an orchestrator or an implementer.

You didn't build your clinic to feel like an employee in your own business. I'm Matthew Kalogli and on Out of the System, hosted by Doctor Talks, we challenge the broken rules holding healthcare entrepreneurs back.

Hear from clinic owners, rebels, and builders who are creating bold, profitable patient center practices and doing it their way. Yes. How the hell are you, bro?

Dude, I am amazing. Welcome back and you're in OC. Look at me talking like I was a freaking born and raised in California. You, uh, you left Idaho. Yeah.

There's a great joke about Idaho, but I, if I say it'll, anyway, so I'm with Sammy Casa, Casa of the Casa Collective. Casa or Casa? Casa. Cosa. Four years ago?

Four year ago. When you were working at Idaho, what was the name of it? It's now called Functional Medicine Institute, FMI. F-M-I, functional medicine institute, it's in Boise, Idaho.

Yep. A lot of providers. Yes. Part insurance, part cash at the time. And that's where our worlds collided. That's why our world's colliding. You were in charge of the marketing of a behemoth.

Yeah. Right? 14 doctors or something like that? 20 plus. 20-plus doctors. 23 plus, yeah. So, for those of you that are listening, no, we're not going to talk about how weird it is to live in Southern California.

We're going talk to about marketing, practices, functional medicine, your book, the unforgettable brand, wherever it. Thank you, thank you. There you go.

Talk about that. So it's even autograph. Look at your autograph is like cooler than mine. Practice. So practice. Is that what you did as a kid growing up?

You sit in your room signing your name? I knew one day. It's come in handy. You know what I did, because I used to be really into art and photography.

My work is my art. And I get a lot of photographs and I use to practice signing my name. I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, I know you're a photographer too.

like, you know, black and white. I did a lot of I would do like I, I'd be fascinated with people's hands or people feed or peoples ears or something like that.

Yeah, I got accepted like wrote on school design Parsons, New York. I gotta eat in some school out here. That was amazing That's no longer around or something like that.

Well, not about RIT and Rochester New york free for a year and then I was like, oh wow, that's awesome I like to be outside. And I don't like be inside in the same.

Yeah same here So Sammy, yes, what the hell? Hello. What are you doing? Well it's so cuz you're no, longer it isn't the functional metal in Functional Medicine Institute now Yeah, a lot has happened.

So I'm so glad we're reconnecting. Yeah. Because you met me at the start of my functional medicine journey. Four years ago. Really? So you had just started doing your new?

Brand new. Yep. Backtracking a little bit from there, I used to be a worldwide wedding photographer. Did you really? Yep, so I use to travel the world taking the most beautiful photographs of amazing people.

Landed in People Magazine, so here in Southern California. Wow. I was in a lot of magazines, blogs, all that stuff. So I learned a lots of my marketing from just running my own businesses, starting in the photography world.

The first book I wrote was 2014 and it was all about photography and just what we learned, the lessons that my wife and I learnt. So like marketing photography, like a practice, a business, or like how to take photos, what was it?

It was more so our journey to being top-rated photographers in California, how we got to that place in our career. And it was inspired from emails, phone calls we've got from fellow photographers, photographers asking us to meet up for coffee, just asking like, How did you do it, and how did go from it being a hobby to it becoming your full-time career, you're traveling the world.

And so we're like, man, there's so much we can share about the lessons we learned because it didn't just happen overnight. Yeah. You know, many people see success and they think like that just happened or you're lucky.

So I'm like you know. It's all luck. Don't mind the 16 hour days. Selling blood plasma to make payroll. I'm like, let's write a book and just give away all of our secrets.

And so that was book number one, it was called Storytelling. Okay. It was a journey of the failures, the successes, and the things we had learned to build a successful photography business.

That was my background before going into Functional Medicine Institute. In 2020, actually before COVID, we moved to Idaho just to essentially start fresh Growing kids.

Well, you were born and raised in… Born and raise in Orange County, my whole life. Orange county, okay. So at the age of… Your wife? Yeah, pretty much since she was one.

Okay. Yeah. Both her parents are first generation. It's a lot. I mean, it's lot, I could like… Southern California? Yes. Yes, but it is beautiful. Christina and I talked if we were to have a child, which, everybody else out there you can do the math.

But if were two, we'd be like, How do you effectively raise a child in Southern California? Because there's a lot of shit. And so those were the conversations we had in 2019. Bullying your faith is very central to what you do as well.

So there is kind of that. Yeah, so we're like, okay, where's the great place to raise the family? This was 2019, in 2020, January, we made the decision to move to Boise, Idaho, after just lots of research.

The pandemic happened, I think, four weeks later. It's perfect timing. Great, yeah, perfect time to moved to a town that you know nobody. Yes, because you couldn't do anything anyway.

Well, if you're going to do the pandemic, you might as well do it in Idaho. It was, yes, it was a different experience from what I've heard because we'd have family go to Idaho during the Pandemic and feel so free.

Yeah, I was in Charlotte and Charlotte's right on the border of North Carolina, South Carolina. Charlotte, North Carolina, a very draconian shutdown. South Carolina, three miles away.

Come on down, everybody. Restaurants are open. Isn't it so wild to think of that season, though? It's just such a different time. We just were making that shit up.

It was totally being made. Nobody knew what the hell they were doing. And it was all made up, and everybody was like… And then you remember how people were getting arguments over, you can't come over to my house because you're not vaccinated.

Make sure you call people and call the cops or whatever. Yeah, it was a wild time. So we didn't experience it to that extent, but that's why one of the reasons we moved was like, okay, let's, our kids are getting a little bit older.

Let's have a, create a no, pretty much a child of like we had in the nineties. My wife and I were like how can we kind of recreate that? And so based off- No helmets even on me.

No helmet's wearing, eating on you, drinking out of a water fountain. 100%. But also just like going to kid's house, like riding your bike without being concerned and having kids over and just kind a very free childhood.

So in 2020, I was also part of the affiliate marketing company at the time that I stepped away from because of kind of COVID things that were happening and integrity things, that was a little weary.

Really weary, yeah. Affiliate marketing is a bit of a… Yeah, so decided to step away. And so during that time I asked some of my mentors at that like, hey, kindof starting over, starting fresh.

I'm in a new state. What do you think I should do with my life, like career-wise? I need to make money. Yeah. You need money to provide for my family.

They all said marketing. And I was like, okay, I'm marketing, so I started my own agency, COSA Collective. And my first contract was FMI. So F MI was my fist contract.

I almost didn't even take it because the pay was so low, because I had a feeling the initial position was a part-time blogger. So that's why I almost didn't take it.

A part-time blogger. Yeah. And it's crazy. Only do you think this was about five years ago, but the way I wrote blogs five year ago is I came home with a dozen books that I had to read, take the content, make sure it was related to whatever I'm finding online as well.

Make sure that it is like well, Just to make sense like everything I'm saying is correct and then blog about it So I take pretty much 20 hours a week writing one blog one to two blogs So that was my position that lasted a month and Then after a months the owner the CEO came to me and said hey, there's some insurance things happening We're in an audit right now I'm looking at your resume.

I see that you have a lot of background on entrepreneurship, marketing. Do you think you can step up to helping build a cash pay practice? So that's where you stepped in.

Yeah. What was your boss's name again? Sam. That's right. I think it was like LinkedIn or something. I mean, Penick. Dr. Penik? Do you remember Dr Penic?

Yeah, I remember. Yeah. He's recommended. Oh, so that's how. Okay. You have so many clients come through. It's hard to remember, right? So I come into the practice as a part-time blogger.

within one month, become the director of marketing, business development, and eventually sales as well. But you met me when we were building the cash pay practice.

Yeah, because it was… Because it's the first time that they had gone through this massive insurance audit that didn't know if they would survive at the time.

I remember having… And I won't… But I remembered having conversations with Sam and his wife. It's like, you can survive this, but you have to be really…

You've got to really honest with yourself. And remember that audit, And there was one other audit that a client mind was going through at the time. Santucci was goin' through one.

And in his case, it was different. He said, well, I'm gonna do this reimbursement thing for like, nerve stimulation or some shit like that. Reimbursement rate was huge.

I go, what are you doing? You know they're gonna change it, and you know, they are gonna claw back. You now they gonna screw you. Sure enough, 15 months later, the clawed back like a million five, right?

Just one day. And he calls me in a panic. And then I remember talking with your owners one-on-one and I just, it's your talking to them hit me. It hit.

There's no way you can ever scale your way out of insurance. Meaning. People think I can, every provider that I add, if I had a PA, they should generate whatever the number is.

Let's say, start at $25,000 a month and $50,00 a months and maybe get to 70, $75,0000 a monthly, we'll have to pay them whatever, 200, 000. No, because the margins are so thin, there's no way, and the people, everytime you add one of those, you have add two billing people or whatever it is, right?

Plus an MA. It just doesn't make sense. You add like an entire office, Right? Right. And I was helping Patrick Polly get out of insurance. I Was helping a bunch of others get Out of Insurance at that same time and I just remember looking At the numbers not well, I wasn't looking at the actual physical numbers But I remember just like looking, at The numbers like on my paper that I, was writing down going It doesn't make sense.

There's no way. Doesn't pencil, yeah. there's No way that you could ever make an insurance practice work. Right. And did they get out? Are they out. So, okay, so that was my introduction.

I literally am brand new in functional medicine, right? And the reason I even apply- You don't even know what functional- Because of COVID, and I think because of our mindset, even before COVID we were already going in that natural medicine route, having three kids at the time, now four.

When I saw FMI, come on Indeed, I'm like, you know what? I want to learn more about this space. So what better way than do marketing for it or write blogs, right?

And so that was my introduction to it. I think the same month I got hired is when this audited, they were in the middle of it, so I didn't know that as a newbie, and not in this place.

Just a few months later, hearing about what's happening on the insurance side. That was only introduction into insurance is that it sucks. Like that's all I knew, and we need to build a cash-pay practice.

So that is where you came in the picture. And so I think what made my story unique with FMI, it has grown and it's been amazing ever since, like the practices have grown definitely.

But I think what made the transition smoother was I didn't come in with a functional medicine marketing mindset. Yes. That was the thing that when I would audit their websites and seeing what they had on social media, beautiful.

What were some of the mistakes you saw or you see in general? Okay. Needles. Never thought about that. White coats. What the hell are you fucking showing a needle for?

Whitecoats. Wow. Things that bring people anxiety. You know, like, especially in functional medicine, usually that's someone's last resort. Hopefully now it's becoming more of people's first resort?

Yeah, but they've got to go through a lot of failure cycles before they get there. Nobody, rarely do you hear somebody go, I've gotta gut issue. I was just hanging out in Austin with a bunch of guys, this guy's like I have a gut issues.

And I'm like why aren't you recovering heroin addict? And he's yeah. I'm like, yeah, you gotta, he's like yeah I can't eat and I get the shits and i'm, like have you seen a functional medicine doctor?

He's, no, my doctor's been giving me antibiotics and like making it worse. He said I've been taking probiotics off the counter you know off-the-shelf at Whole Foods.

I, m like oh my god you're feeding it. Yeah, it's making it worse. Go see Anoop Kanodia. They're in Columbus. I'm like, go see Dr. Kanadia. Tell him I sent you.

He trained under Mike Hyman. Just time and go. Yeah. It's going to cost you 20 grand or whatever it is going cost him. Where is it? He'll get you fixed in like freaking- It was going save you years of frustration and money.

Exactly, right? Yeah and his wife were like what? Everything you're doing is wrong. So that was one of the first things I did when I landed in that practice was like hey, let's go from a different angle.

And once again, I am coming from wedding photography background. My first book was called Storytelling. What kind of resistance did you get? Not at all.

Really? Yeah. So the doctors weren't like, you need to show me in a way. No, I think they, as I explained kind of what I'll do right now, it was like explain the mindset behind it.

Like the mind set is you're telling a story. And instead of seeing needles and lab coats, which doesn't tell me a pleasant story, I want to see transformation, I wanna see healing, life, someone flourishing, see someone that speaks to me as an avatar.

So I was explaining that on a wedding day I'm seeing things from different perspectives that no one else gets to, but when you see the full picture, like the wedding album or the gallery, you can see all the perspectives And that does.

The album is supposed to tell the story. Tell the stories. Never thought about it. That no one else gets to see. So that was why I love, like I loved being behind the scenes because I get to things that no-one else get's to.

You see the finished product, but you don't see that whole picture, right? Then I got to do something like, hey, let's go in this angle where we're showing families flourishing.

Can we put that on the website? Let's show grandparents thriving. But let's make sure the family thriving isn't like 30 years old. Yeah, relevant. They're older, they're mature, but they are aging well.

There's longevity. And so no, especially the owner, which I'm so grateful for, was like, do it. He was a really nice guy. Very open, he was in crisis.

A lot of stress. Well, most owners are. So that was my introduction to insurance. It sucks. It doesn't pay well. We got to build a cash pay practice. So, at the time, we flew out, me and Dr.

H, remember Dr H? Yeah, Dr, H is good. Yeah. I remember that. Remember that we had done the mastermind and you guys went out. Wasn't Tracey's place amazing?

Amazing. And that's all I needed to see, because up until that point, it was like theory. You were teaching us everything, and I was designing, right?

I would show you web pages I building, you're like, this is great, looks great. The feedback I always got was good job. And I think it's because, well, I mean, you tell me because I called it sterile marketing versus like real authentic storytelling marketing.

So what I've learned in marketing for 25 years, and really I have been marketing since I was six years old, meaning I would walk around the neighborhood and knock on doors and get cookies, right?

That's door-to-door sales, so I always understood the human experience, But the thing that, here's what I've learned in coaching people for 20 years, especially when you have something where they have zero understanding, not you, but like they've done zero webinar marketing, any of that stuff.

that doesn't have to be textbook great. If you force them to make it textbook, great, like if I were to submit copy to my friend Paris Lampropolis, who's a world-class copywriter, Paris would be like, he wouldn't even look at it.

He'd go, this fucking blows, do it over again, right? I know Paris, yeah. If I did that to you in the beginning, it would crush your soul. So my whole thing is, let's just get it in this system.

Let's see what it gets. Right. This is, it's got to perform better. Right. That gives you confidence. And that's one of my jobs as a coach is when I'm working with someone when they're in crisis is my whole job is to give them a little bit of confidence if I can get them some wins.

Yeah. They don't have to be big wins, like I've got a friend of mine and he's not in the medical space, but he is you know, he has a retreat center and it has been a bit rough and I am like, all excited because they did like 11 grand last week.

from some recommendations. He's like, yeah, but I need to do 25. I'm like he used to two. Let's count that as a win. And I think that's a really, for people that are listening, when you're doing your marketing, it's not about making it perfect.

It's about advancing it three yards in a cloud of dust. Well, you inspired me and a few other coaches since, because I have since transitioned out of FMI to become a business coach for functional medicine practitioners.

And I want to talk about that. So that's one of the things, but that the first thing I ask is, so what are some wins we can celebrate? And you, and I write about it in my book too.

It always throws them off. Really? Why does it throw them? Because I believe as entrepreneurs, we're not programmed to look backwards a lot. We're programmed to keep looking at the next goal, and the Next thing that we have yet to accomplish.

And so before I start any coaching call, I say, Hey, so what are some wins we can celebrate since last time that We talked and usually they're just like, Oh, yeah, it's the hardest thing.

Yeah, let me think about it. I'm like no, think About it, like your three wins. What are your wins? Yeah. If somebody doesn't put in for a couple of weeks, Fucking call on there.

Yes. I'm like like well, I don't think I really have any wins ago So that's the thing we need to work on. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's your mindset. Let's see how far you've come.

Like that to me is You know, what I am fascinated by this I was curious what you think. Mm-hmm. You're you know when you get two clients to start at the exact same time And they're both really similar.

Let's say they both do functional medicine practices, doing $50,000 a year, or $15,00 a month, $25, 000 a week. And let's they they are in a mid-city size, like a Boise or a Wichita Falls or something like that.

Why is it, and they do the exact same stops and process, why is that this one goes here and this goes there? Why do you think that is? Uh, I think there's a lot of, uh, mindset has a long to do with it.

And I also think a of these practitioners, which is what I don't explain about what do modern day now, but I have learned from coaching and seeing a big gap is they don' have like an integrator.

They don't have someone to bring their vision to life. Yeah. You know, so they're getting all this coaching. Or they are the integrator and they do it all.

They're doing it, yeah. Oh yeah! Or the founder, the creative operator. Nothing worse than the Creative Operating as the Integrator. So there's the visionary and then there is the integrated.

Typically, that's what makes a business thrive. And so, they the visionaries, right? They are creating the visions for the business, where they going, what they want to accomplish.

But they don' have that missing, I believe, from what I've seen, a puzzle piece to that equation to make it happen. And so essentially, being at FMI, that's what I became.

So doing the marketing, Sam had the visionary, and he's like, can you do this? I'm like yeah. And it's so funny, you're probably the same way, is I always say yes before I actually know how to do it.

I've gone through a lot of therapy in the last two years. Same, same. Yes, no, I learned as well. But I'll figure it out. Can we build this cash fee practice?

Yeah. just give me the right guidance. Yeah, I'll do it, right? Can we build an online store? Where are they today? Do you know where they're… I mean, are fully out of insurance today.

No, they still have the hybrid model, so it's two separate entities. I knew they were going in that direction, but essentially they have a cash-based group.

So they had the whole cash base side, and that was just… I'll never forget what Sam said during this time. He said, for the first time, yeah, and having the cash pay side is like, it feels like we have a business because now, like it is about revenue and it's about like how can we scale because you couldn't do that on the insurance side.

And Sam, if you do wind up listening to this, this is not critical of you, dude. It's a really difficult time like really. Oh yeah. Yeah, 100%. And then come on down to LA and get your ass on a podcast.

Bring your wife with you. That'd be great. Let's talk about it because I think people need to hear it. Because those are hard journeys. 100%, yeah So yeah, so that's when I came in right in the middle of it, saw the light that you presented, which was, all right, let's build a cash paid practice, went to Gap Institute.

Shortly after we started with you, I saw that firsthand and it just clicked. I'm like, alright, this is how we're going to build the cash pay practices, how are we going design it?

Use it as inspiration. And I would say the two biggest takeaways I got from that What would you call like a mastermind weekend? Yeah, it was yeah Yeah The two biggest takeaways that we got that really scaled the cash pay side of things number one I asked.

Okay. What did you do marketing wise? Gap in what did your marketing? Why is that just that helped your business grow the most and he said Visibility.

Yeah right getting on podcasts doing events. Absolutely the power of visibility He's crushing it Yeah, he's absolutely crushing it. Yeah I mean, it's these numbers aren't saying yeah, so that was the first thing is is Visibility can't think the second thing.

Oh, well, we'll get back to it But that wasn't the big thing his experience like so we started podcast right after that I think we actually started before that but we got it out everywhere.

We're like, okay, let's kind of like what you know meeting with you today Just inviting people cast having the right people. Yep having a book doing a podcast Yes.

People are like, I don't want to be a social media medium. I'm like I, don' give a shit. Like, you look at my personal account, there's hardly anything.

It's like an occasional picture of Christina and I like Italy or some shit, or not Italy, but you know. Well, funny you say that because the one post I saw from you is about you living in California.

Yeah. And the rest is history. And you're like, hey, man, I'm… I was like what? I am right behind you. I think I, you moved like… I was putting the house together, so it just had closed.

But I came earlier to kind of get it all nice and beautified before the rest of the family came down. It's beautiful here. Oh, it's amazing. Driving in, coming up, driving up the hill to sunset, looking at the Santa Monica Mountains, the Hollywood Hills right-behind you…

Oh it is beautiful. And living here my whole life, being away for six years, and coming back, there is this appreciation that I thing is so weird to other people.

But every morning I'm like, oh my gosh, thank you God. Like this weather is perfect. All day it's perfect, so anyway. It's super thankful. Every fricking day.

Yeah. We were just in Austin and it was like 94, which was, like oh, it' cool. You know, there's only 100 this time of year. I know. And I like Austin, and we were in the hills, we're at Lake Way and its beautiful and I could totally see myself living there.

I'm just kind of over the 100 degrees in here. I am like, you know what? We landed here and I was like oh yeah, it's great. Going to my office in the back, I have a separate house in my back.

Nice. It's my own office. Got all the doors open. Yes, same here too. There's no mosquitoes. This is awesome. So I m curious about mindset. Yeah. You said that that's one of it.

What is mindset to you? Tell me. Man, I think it's your ceiling or your floor. Oh, okay. And that just came. I don't know if that's the right definition of it, but my mind's…

I believe so many… Matt, you know, i'm in my 40s now. Not that I'm… You know I still consider myself young and I am still excited to… Wait, are you young or old 40? What number are…

41. You're 41? 41, 41 next month. 47 it gets really good. 43 stop being a like total fucking knucklehead looking forward to it Yeah, but what I've seen man, and I'm still getting started like I know the best days are still ahead But I seen so many acquaintances and friends Not achieve their dreams not because they didn't try or not Because they don't start it's because I didn' finish So why do you think they dont finish?

they allow life things to get in the way, to Get distracted, To get discouraged. And the reason I say that, cause I've seen it firsthand as an integrator type, as a marketer type kind of I can wear multiple hats because I'd been an entrepreneur since I was 15. Um, and so I come alongside, I get invited to come along side and support them on their dreams.

and I'm all in, like I'll do my part. I am a hundred percent. Right. But as the visionary, right, you got to do your part and as support, i'm like, dude, bought in.

i believe in what you're doing. Let's do this thing. All right. And then after a few months or years or whatever the timeframe is, they get tired, or they gets distracted, whatever.

And I'm like, man, if you just stick it through. Isn't that the entrepreneurial experience though, is that you see all the possibilities? To me, I think that's one of the things that I've accepted for myself.

as an entrepreneur. I've been doing a lot of deep work the last couple of years. Yeah, which is great. You know who Rich is? No, but… Rich's a brilliant internet marketer.

He basically is the freaking… the guru behind billion-dollar companies like Mentor, Ryan Dice, Russell Brunson. Like, he's the real mentor of those guys.

So cool. Help build a gora to a billion dollar business. Personal friends of Mark Ford, all of that. Okay, so Rich is brilliant. So like everybody I've been paying attention to the AI stuff, I am not an early adopter.

I'm not the pioneer. All my friends go take the arrows and break all the shit. Like I not gonna go do that, right? So I like, okay, it's time and Rich has got this program and what he, the Zenith mind is fantastic.

Highly recommend it. It takes a lot of work, but it like you go through like these profiles and you get AI wired to exactly, like it knows you. Wow. Its got like a 94% confidence of me right now.

Yeah, and you go into all these things and what happens, the reason why I'm saying this is, what happened? And this happened to me. So I've been an entrepreneur basically since I was 15, 16 years old.

Very similar, yep. Really started my first business when I like 31, 32, like pure, providing for the family. I'm 58 today. I've been bankrupt, I been insolvent a couple of times, been married and divorced twice, right?

And the thing is that all of those scar tissues, what they do is they make us less and less bold. Okay. Now my wiring is to be very bold, right? Like, fuck it, let's try it.

Right? But what happens is that society gives you a little Nick and a Little Nick, and then like all the wiring of your growing up, like what my mom would say, you know, usually entrepreneurs have conservative parents.

is what I find, and so they get that voice going. And what happens is that we think it's wrong for us to have multiple different things going on. It's fine as long as you have an orchestrator or an implementer.

Right. I'm lucky I've got Heather, I have two amazing women in my life. Christine my partner, my wife partner and then I had Heather who's my business partner.

She is literally like we joke like, you sure we weren't married like in another life? Super important. Yeah, you when you have that orchestrator where you're like, I got this idea like we're creating and we''re creating a new company New division new Company called Mavericks marketing because we have massive.

It's awesome, right? Yes I have no idea what it's gonna look like right. I just know like I've been chewing on this for a year, all right And the, but she's great.

You have to, here's the thing, every entrepreneur is to hear her. you need to have that orchestrator. I think an orchestrater is better than an implementer.

Cause I'm at 40,000 feet. She's at about 20 and she knows who to hire at five and 10,00 to go get stuff done. Let's, you know what I mean? She orchestrates the whole team.

Because I, think when you, the other thing with entrepreneurs is I'll just speak for myself. It's. You feel incredibly guilty for not working hard. My brother's a union plumber.

You're it today. Now granted, it's a holiday, but after this I go get an IB. I get a HBOT. We're very fortunate. But that's worked for me because in that session, in the time, I'm contemplating.

When you work with entrepreneurs, I'm curious hearing all of that What is there something that is or anything that sticks out to you? Or like is you think about your journey as an entrepreneur like the the conflict between what the world says and what?

The entrepreneur really is wired to do and be Yeah, so the thing about my book is it's kind of a memoir. Oh, really? Yeah. It's like real life experience.

So this is like volume one of Sammy. We'll see. You know what I mean? I hope it is more. One of the chapters is called The Most Overlooked Business Strategy.

Okay, tell me about that. And in my opinion, the most overlooked business strategy is rest. Yes, absolutely. It's taking care of yourself. Okay, so let's talk about that.

What does that mean? One of my favorite topics, man. We're not talking about a three-day vacation to Santa Clara or something. As an entrepreneur, you know this very well.

Also, there are seasons where it can lead to burnout. Heavy amounts of stress, bankruptcy. Fucking been there. Team members that are just driving you crazy, whatever that looks like.

But more so needing rest for longevity. Like if you can't show up for your family well, if can show for you team members well. If you cant show it for yourself well then.

Which is more important. What's the point? If have to pick one. Self, teammates, family, which is the most important to show-up for. I would say self.

Because it starts there. Right. And I'm so glad you said that because then we would have had to like. Yeah, yeah, no. Listen, everyone has an opinion, which I am so grateful for.

Like, I learn from, you know, whoever I need to learn. But yes, taking care of yourself, right? And so, working with practitioners now for the last…

Well, CEO, like, at the first practice I was at, seeing firsthand that level of stress, and then directly working practitioners that own their own businesses.

Imagine the extra layer of the stress. So, we're working directly in that coaching role. I saw the stressed firsthand, every single time I met with the practitioners.

What are some of the big stressors you see? It's always revenue. Yeah. It always cash, isn't it? Yeah, are we going to hit our numbers? Why do you think we put such an emphasis on hitting the numbers, why do we get so stressed out about it.

I think because as a practitioner, solely in the functional medicine space, you're all in. Your house is riding on it, whatever, your retirement is relying on, so I see a lot of stress working directly with practitioners.

And so I mentioned this in the first chapter of the book, but the books was inspired by my practitioners. This book was written for them. So this was my onboarding book.

After working with them for over a year, I'm like, i'm just going to write a foundational book super basic. Like this is what you need to know as an entrepreneur because just because you're a practitioner that owns a business does not You're not 100% a CEO or an entrepreneur.

You didn't go to business school. And so my hope was to help them get into that mindset of rest is a business strategy. Don't feel guilty for taking time off.

We need that time for clarity, for health. It just boggled my mind that they were carrying the weight of the world, helping these patients heal, but always putting themselves last.

Always. Always, always. And so I was that constant reminder. Yeah. I'm like, take care of yourself. So I remember one of my practitioners, a little bit older than me, like very, you know, in his forties, relatively healthy looking.

He's like man, I don't drink water all day. Haven't been in the gym in years. Dude, before we go into any business coaching or anything like that, Like, take your wife out on a date and go to the gym and start drinking enough water.

Let's just start there." And I'm like, and I am going to send you my book, read the last chapter because it's all about pretty much that mindset, you know?

And dude, he was so thankful. He's like thank you for like not putting more work on me to do. Like the most, the hardest work is working on yourself. And so I was like start, there.

Yeah. like let's get you healthy before I just give you all these things that, to-do lists. That's not what I want to. No, the to-do list. And I think a lot of people think that's what coaching is, is I'm going to have to work harder.

No. People are like, well, how many hours a week do I need to, you know, commit? I don't know. How free do you want to get? Right. Like, what do mean?

Well, here's when I know If you come to work with us, and you're expecting me to fix your problems, not gonna happen. It's not going to happen, right?

If your expecting, me, to have like, better Facebook ads, or some tactics, it ain't gonna happened. Right. What is going happen is, I tell them, my first job is to make you an extra, well, our average client adds an, extra 50,000 in 90 days.

Awesome. If I make an you extra 10 grand, In the next, if I help you make an extra 10 grand in 30 days, are you going to be happy? Well, how are going do that?

And I go, If you told your patient, I'm going help, you lose 10 pounds in the 30. Would you care how you did it? No, Mike, we're not going, to do anything illegal.

So that's my first job is once you, make, an, extra, 10, grand, your body in a little bit more, then I, am going show you how to start taking time. And they're like, they can't understand it.

Because they are so busy. Insurance policy is just awful. Oh yeah, oh yeah. It's just awesome. Yeah, so I would agree. The most overlooked business strategy, I think it's the most important one.

Starting there, rest. Just like you're saying, getting an IV. Getting massage, like that's my self-care, is I get massages. You know, just taking care of myself.

Walks, you know. Going for walks daily, multiple times. Like just resting is so essential. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, um, and I would, you know, I tend to agree mindset.

I think there's a layer below that. And I know that there is a lot of hidden trauma underneath the layer, like in the basement of your soul, that is driving a lots of…

Yes….your ability to have mindset, what your mother said, your father said. What your grandmother told you, the environment you grew up in. We have a client right now.

He's in Florida ER doc. Um, he's the first family member, mom, single mom worked three jobs, first generation, right? First, his mom immigrated here. Uh, doesn't know his dad kind of thing.

Yeah. You know, working 23 days a month in two different ERs. Right? Yeah, just cortisol spikes left. Oh, always. And, uh, And first we'd go to college, let him become a doctor and he's an ER doc, right?

So, you know, the whole fricking, we can see the hole cascade. And I told him, and I said, now let's do the real work. Let's dive into that trauma. I don't have any trauma in my life.

We all do yes, we all everybody's got trauma by the way, it's it always You know, and it doesn't have to be that you were in world war, you know You're in Vietnam or Nam or whatever or like you grew up in an abusive household.

Everybody's Got some level of trauma We even though you see that do you that getting people? How do your how do? You see they're getting? A hundred percent.

Yes. Um, even for those that have made the transition from insurance to cash pay, one of the first thing I'll ask them is, okay, what's your hourly rate?

What are the costs of your, uh, your packages or your memberships? And then sometimes they're extremely low. And it's usually the answer is well, I want to make it affordable for everyone.

Yeah, we'll dive into that one. You're speaking to everyone, you're not talking to anybody. But it's their imposter syndrome. Sometimes feeling like, I'm not worth it.

And it is so cool. Where does that come from? So there's a particular client that I flew out to North Dakota for an onboarding, getting to see the clinic.

I always like to the see clinic physically, in person, because I get to touch it, and I know how to market it or how represent it well. Um, and I can just see it on this certain practitioner who's amazing, amazing friend of mine now.

Um. But that was one of the questions I asked him. Like, do you believe you could be successful? Like he said, well, I've never seen it before. So I'm like, Do you have a scare?

And I just, he's simple, you know, coaching is fun. Sometimes it's asking a lot of questions and letting, that's all it is. Have you, have you struggled your whole life financially?

Where does the scarcity mindset come from? Yeah. He's sure that there were a. You know that he has never really seen the abundance. And I'm like, man, well, let's get there.

Like, I believe it. How do you get them there? What kind of work do? Um, what I like to do personally is share my story. And the reason I do that is not to elevate me, but to encourage them that if I can do it, Okay, so what's the story?

You want to hear it? Of course, I got an hour and a half to kill. I mean, Thomas says he's not gonna go for a little while and he didn't invite us, so.

Okay, well. You know, his wife's vegan, there's gonna be some leftovers. That's right. Well, one thing I was taught my whole life is no one is beneath me, no is better than me.

If someone else can achieve something, then I can too. And I don't need to be intimidated by anyone, Anything is possible, essentially, right? And so, Matt, you're sitting down with someone, and I say this very humbly, but every single dream I've ever had has come true.

Really? Every single one. Wow. Yeah. And it wasn't easy, it was handed to me, I went after it. You know what I mean? God placed the right people at the the time, nothing I attribute to myself, When you have vision, when you go through open doors and you don't go to the closed doors, I have achieved every single thing I've sought out to achieve.

I'm not just saying that career-wise, but just in my life as a whole. Even being back in Orange County, man, what a dream come true. But the reason I say that is to encourage others, don't live your life in the fear zone.

And I think that's what I had to learn is stop listening to the lies of fear. So do you meditate every day? Do you pray every? I do, yeah. What's that process look like?

Because it's so easy to go into fear zones. Even me sitting here going, I've accomplished every dream I have ever had. Yeah, it sounds kind of bullshit.

I know. Right? I sure as hell haven't accomplished it. to BS anyone or anything like that, but more so to inspire them. Like, hey, listen, here's what I did though, I failed.

You know what mean? Like I learned and I don't see failure as like failure anymore. I see it as a door closed that opens another one. So what kind of environment did you grow up in?

What are your parents like? Super encouraging for sure. Once again, a lot of upbringing, it wasn't perfect by any means, But definitely positive, definitely encouraging.

Yes, they do pray every day, do journal. Trust me, so easy to sway off of. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It's so easy to be like, you know, a couple days of not, and you're just like man, I need to get centered for sure.

So yeah, with this particular practitioner, just as an example, listen, if I can do it, who can you do? I'm not any more different. The things I just didn't let fear stop me.

Yes, it confused me at times, but it didn' t stop from what know I was called to do. Honestly, every practitioner I've ever worked with, they feel like it's a calling to heal people.

They call themselves healers and I truly believe that they are. You ever ask them, we call it healing the healers, right? Yeah, 100%. You've ever asked them when they knew they were going to be a doctor?

I have, sometimes. You should make that part of your intake. Okay, I will. It's amazing to me. The average age is 13, 14. Wow. Now, have a couple of doctors like Dr.

Riley McKee, he's like 21. He's the outlier. I just had a new client in, and I said, when did you know? And he goes, my dad's a pathologist. My mom's an orthodontist.

Basically, his dad was like a coroner. He was cutting open a dead body in front of him when he was 11 years old. And, he's like, this is really cool. Like, I would have been vomiting.

The smell alone. Oh man. Yeah, it's fascinating. They all knew at an early age. It's really interesting. Because it is really a calling. 100%. It is a total calling Well, and that's what I try to convey is like, you've been called to this.

Like, imagine the impact you're having. And I know there's a lot, right? Now it's business and now you are the CEO and there is all that stuff, but don't be in bondage of fear.

How does that calling impact their ability to be business people, do you think? Well, because that's the thing, right? I think when someone signs up to be a practitioner, they're not signing up be an Instagram star also.

No. Let alone a CFO, a CEO. You know what I mean? So there's these things that you don't realize if you're going to own your own practice, you just have to do.

So I think there's like that maybe that might say like I didn't sign up for this. Like I don't signed up this part of owning a practice. And I get that.

I love being behind the scenes. You know, pulling the strings, making things happen and then what's presented is beautiful and a reflection of the brand of clinic and all that stuff.

So, I do get it but that's my hope is to inspire them like, hey, you can do this Anytime I say like hey, please record yourself. Let's create a real just an introduction that we can put online Let us just start there and they're like, uh, I always know the answer is gonna be like I'm just not comfortable doing that like i've never done that before i'm like.

I know you and Everyone else are not. Comfortable. Okay, so you want to know how many doctors get through this how okay? So I haven't me all right And if you're gonna, be offended then like fast forward this 20 minutes or 10 seconds or whatever I have a doctor, he's actually in Australia, a client of ours, and we're on a group call.

And he was like, you know, hey, mate, I can't do the Aussie accent. I'm getting ready to do my first webinar. What do you think, what advice would you give me?

And I said, Ben, I want you to think about the first time you had sex, and I wanted you think how bad you were. There was silence and everybody just started laughing.

And then you'd remember the next four to five, seven times and you're equally just as bad. Now today, you are a little bit better. You're probably pretty good.

I go, think of it like that. He's like, perfect. And he's, like… I got you, mate. Noted. It was just… He still says, I couldn't believe you said that.

Yeah? You know, you can actually relate a lot of things back to sex and life. Like, remember the first time you ever had sex, it was really… You thought you were great, right?

And she's just like yeah, all right. Good job. But you know like it, was it just awful. That's so funny. Exactly that, man. When you're just kinda like okay, surrender to the process, then you kinda get better.

Yeah, so I think I say something similar that is a little different. Yeah probably a bit cleaner since you're a lot closer to the faith than I am. I'm a more renegade believer.

Let's do it, just get it done, doesn't have to be perfect, and let's learn from it. Perfect is bad thing. That's what I was going to say. Going back to what you said about the older I've gotten, I have seen people start but not finish, that's the other key, it's not perfect.

And I always say, done is better than perfect. Let's just get it done. We're not gonna screw with it. Yep. So yeah, I mean you're your pole on your numbers on you landing pages, which I do remember them and they were they're basic.

They weren't remedial They were good, but enough to bring in new clients and remember your number like you were converting like 35% of the people on the landing page if I remember correctly I was like in your show break was really great.

I'm like we're leaving this shit alone. Yeah, not going to screw it right exactly and so Yeah, just does not be perfect. Just and so going back to like, why someone doesn't finish or why they don't accomplish, I think is you maybe have a different vision of how it's supposed to look.

As an entrepreneur, it just got to be flexible with going with the flow. Yeah. And when you do something new, you don' t know how its supposed t look, right?

You think you know, how is supposed And the other analogy I use is I will say, do you remember the first time you did surgery? Because all of them have done some form of surgery or delivered a baby.

How bad was it? It was pretty bad. Oh, wow. They're like, yeah, okay, so this is just look at it like that, right? Yeah, better and better with each. Yeah.

You just it's about the reps. It really is. Um, you know, You said something that about affordability and I want to talk about this. Mm hmm. What's your view as to why doctor's providers have such a hard time charging more?

I think it was you that taught me this, Matt. Your bleeding heart will bleed to death. Do you still say that? Sounds like something I've said. Okay, you have said that.

I have used that hundreds of times now. It comes from a good place. Well, I think that there's two answers to that, one is the I'm not worth it, and then the other aspect is I want to help as many people as I can.

If I keep prices as affordable as possible, then I could help more people. So it's that bleeding heart syndrome. Which is worse, do you think? Oh, man, I think what's worse is the one that you don't believe that You're worth it.

Yeah, because I the the keeping the prices Of more affordable to help people like that's noble, but it's not gonna it doesn't bring in more clients Yeah doesn' know it does it and it brings in the wrong clients, right?

Yeah cuz you're not speaking to your ideal dream client your your avatar But that place of just not believing, you know and thinking that they You know I learned this firsthand because I had a similar mindset in the world of photography, where I kept my prices expensive because i wanted young couples to be able to afford us.

I wanted just, you know, young, vibrant couples, because that was young at the time, but as I got older and older, I'm like, man, this is, i got to shoot 60 weddings a year.

It's a lot. Yeah. And I'm like, man, what if I just double my prices or triple my price? Let's like each time I book at that new rate, keep increasing maybe every two or three clients that I get, and see where it goes.

And that's exactly right. to reflect that mindset on them, too. Like, hey, let's just bump it a little bit where you're still comfortable, but getting a bit uncomfortable.

And let see if that changes. I'm telling you, just last month there was a clinic that they upped their prices by 35%. And they hadn't uped their price in five years or so.

And that was one of our rocks, one our quarterly rocks. Like, hey, let's reevaluate our pricing and let it increase by 35%. I really believe this is where the clinic needs to be.

They were nervous and they did it. And through that whole process, obviously it was a process of communication, education, getting the front desk on board with scripts and all that stuff.

So as we'd meet up, as the rollout happened on June 1st, I'm like, so how'd it go? Any pushback? No pushback. Yeah. Everyone said, you guys deserve it.

Like, I can't believe you didn't do this sooner. I'm like, whoa, and you just waited five years now and just seeing the revenue for June. And I was like this is amazing.

Let's celebrate that, that's incredible. So yeah, um, I think there's what I've seen from my vantage point and I would love to hear what your vantage is, but I want to help more people, which usually doesn't happen.

Uh, And then also just not blaming the worth it, Yeah, there's I have a lot of thoughts on it because it's our number It's probably our biggest teaching point.

A lot people think that at Mavericks. The only thing we teach is just raise prices That's not it. It is the starting point because when I can again if I make you more money and more profitability You're gonna listen to me then me our team.

Yeah when it comes to Staffing buying a building like You moving yourself out of the day to day of business like you we need I need confidence, right?

I learned that from being a golf instructor of, like, if you can get somebody to hit a couple of shots better, it doesn't matter if it's the right thing that you…

Like, you have to get them hitting the ball better before you get the hitting them all worse. Because the early victories are gonna get him through that period where they hit like shit.

Yeah. Okay, because everybody's got it. It's always gonna happen. Totally. So, to me, Price is… And I have an entire… I've done trainings on it and teaching on, um…

have entire, I should probably turn it into a mini book, but… Do it! The there are a couple of key things. So here's the great thing about working with doctors It has forced me to become a scientist.

Mmm. It is forced. Me to prove all of my theories scientifically How do you do that? Well, one, we're marketers. So like we don't normally do that because we in medicine, they have an idea, They go test it.

They look and see if there's studies. If there are not studies, try and find something that is similar. And if they're something similar, then they'll use that as a basis for which them to run their tests.

Okay? So every decision that they make in their life is based on Scientific research. Mm-hmm. So what I found is when you and I come in and we start saying just raise your prices They can't do it because I'm not giving them a framework with with which to make the decision I've not given them any proof and if I give them proof of our clients in the past who have had success Everybody has the voice in their head and doc providers are very skeptical.

Mmm, especially because i work with a lot of pain management orthopedic writing like yeah, and a, lot, of like OBGYN, you know, internal medicine, like that's kind of a big chunk of who we have.

They're all very skeptical. So what I had to do was I was sitting in my office one day and in classic fashion, I'm like, what am I gonna teach on tonight?

It was on a Wednesday night. It's like one o'clock. I've been on the road. And I like well, let me dive into the science of price. Mm. That's why I dove into science price and I spent the next like literally I am doing this up until 3.59 calls it for Pacific time.

And again, I'm like, all right, we're gonna talk about the science of price. So here's a couple of things scientifically about price is that I say all the time, what you charge tells your prospect everything they need to know about your skill set.

Yes. Okay. Well, how do I prove that? Well there are studies that started in 1899 and there's no less than 15 of them. main studies, not counting the hundreds that have been redone in college campuses, like as a thesis test or whatever, that show that to be the case.

So when I show this, when talk about price with people, we always provide the scientific data. I love it. And I give them the research and I gave them notes and say, you can go read it right here because that's how their brain works.

Right? It's great. Like with packages, biggest challenges we have is packages versus a la carte, you're going to sell more pack. You're gonna have an increase of sales of like 30 plus percent.

I forget what statistically what the number is. It's like 33% increase. A sales number of, sales, I haven't packages over. Uh, no, it's a combination.

One, It like, uh, like a 13% increased just with packages. The second thing is if you have three prices and you start with the highest price, that's 33, 33 percent left versus all the cart.

And you know, you have to have the highest price first. If you show the high price price, and we have a whole model and a formula that we give to our clients about how you set the pricing and everything, like the different gaps, 60% of the people will take the middle price every single time.

Right. if you start with the lowest price. So there's all these things that you and I take for granted in the world of marketing that, we learned from split testing shit.

Yes. Seeing the data, yeah. But split-testing to them isn't real. Because I don't have a, in 1978, this study was done and it was redone 14 times. Like they don' buy our form of marketing and sales because it's not a control, a real control.

So you have to, price is a funny, funny thing. Oh yeah. When I sit with a doctor or a client or my team does, and we find out what they're charging, I know exactly, exactly where they are.

I don't need to go very far. It's usually a one of like three or four things. And then we, without them knowing about it, we'll actually start to work on that trauma.

Okay. So I was going to ask, how do you help them? So we don' confront the trauma, we t-bone the trauma. Okay. So, and I'll give you an example. Let's say, so I had a client and he's a very well-known trainer.

I have a couple of those, nobody will ever figure out what it is. And his prices were Solo like 650 700 for PRP. Mm-hmm today. It's 5,500 Wow, okay, it's good and So trauma that trauma is either one There's some type of family financial struggle Generational mm-hm.

Okay. Yeah, so that code is passed down epigenet. Totally okay depression slavery starvation something like that so you have that one the second one you is they usually have some kind of financial personal trauma themselves that makes them feel like they're not good enough.

And then the third thing is the voices in their head. Mmm, and the voices in your head are your parents your uncle your grandparents. Yeah, yeah in the medical field the Voices in their head Are their professors in med school?

Mmm and Those professors and med. School tell them you're a doctor, you shouldn't worry about money. If you talk money with your patients, it's evil. You're not a good doctor if you do it.

Do you don't want to charge too much and be greedy? That third one is probably 80% of our client base. So we will then approach my coaches, because I don' do one-on-one coaching anymore.

The coaches approach it and they start talking about it, and the processes that we take people through, And then you have to you know, it's a whole anytime you're dealing with the belief system It's really hard to change somebody's belief sister because the more you try to Change somebody belief systems the More entrenched they become it doesn't matter.

You can show them a raft of data, right? If you show him all this data It actually gonna cement their belief System even more so you Have to like go at it in a very Socratic method.

Mm-hmm change it and that was okay. That was the second biggest takeaway and now you reminded me, is at the Mastermind in Florida was power of visibility.

And the second one was hire a sales team. Yes, hire sales teams. That revolutionized the clinic. Yeah, once we hired the right salesperson, because of that belief that a lot of practitioners have, like, I don't want to talk about finances.

I want introduce the membership pricing. Okay, then let's bring a care coordinator in or a Sales Lead to do that for you. But the doctors that do it themselves and they hold their providers, they're better than the salesperson.

Of course, 100%. But if you're dealing with the trauma, then you hire a sales person. 100%, and that's most practitioners, like you said. Well, we had it to about 90% of our practitioners now do the sale.

Wow, awesome. Yeah, because we saw the numbers where they were better, significantly better. Right, a hundred percent. And then I supported it with data.

Whether the trust or the authority, and yeah, what you say is, yeah it's going to close that sale because of the Trust. I'm curious about, and I am looking at your book, but you talked about this earlier, it's in chapter five, is storyteller.

Oh yeah. Why is story so important? Oh, I love this topic, man. People remember stories. People remembers stories over facts. And once again, this was what I learned in the wedding industry, starting my journey there was just the feedback I'd get from clients or family and friends.

They would just talk about how this photo spoke to them, right? A picture can speak a thousand words. You know, we've heard that before, but it's really true.

Like what happened here really tells a story. So I came with that mindset when I started in functional medicine marketing space. of let's tell the story of transformation, let' s tell a story healing, instead of, Let's remove the needles, you know, the white lab coats off of landing pages and let s put real people that are thriving in whatever arena that you're speaking on, whether it's weight loss or energy and vitality or whatever it might be, right?

And also people love, and I'm just using myself as an example, I know I am drawn in when I watch a video if it starts off with a story. Like I want to hear what was the outcome of that story, you know what I mean?

Right. As opposed to like 33% of people are this or this. You know, it's just like, that's cool, but I'll forget that number. And it won't stick with me as much as storytelling will, so.

Yeah, that's in a nutshell where the storytelling aspect comes and that speaks to people. Like the way I define brand is it needs to be clear identity that has something compelling, a compelling message that speak to your dream client.

So what are you conveying to a client that really speaks them? And for me over facts, I want to see. Can you give me an example of something that you've helped somebody construct?

Yeah. Yeah, so I've done, well, let's use functional medicine Institute, right? Where it was more of that sterile marketing. So it's still beautiful, but it really boring.

I would call it more steril. And just the hero section, putting it with videos instead of real life people that are, their slogan was helping people flourish in every stage of life.

So, we started from a newborn to that newborn growing up, becoming a teenager, then an adult, and then the thriving grandparent. So it was like following one person's journey from like the very beginning to thriving in their later years as well.

And the feedback we got was, every time people visited that website, it Wow, this is beautiful. Like this really speaks to me over just, like I said, needles or lab coats.

And it grabs you in because that's what we all desire, right? We all, if you're that avatar, which I know I am having a family, it's like, I want to have a healthy family.

I wanna have, um, know what I'm here for. And then something that coincides with that is something I like, that's called the Grunt Test. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the grunt test.

No, what is it? It was coined by, I think, Donald Miller. He wrote- I love Don. Yeah. His stuff on StoryBrand is great. So- Yeah, yeah. Remember when I've known of Don, we were in a mastermind I am sure, 25 years ago.

Cool. But, you know, like a lot of people struggle and it's really cool to see Don have some unbelievable amazing success. Storybrand is so good. And that's the thing.

So, as I have been learning, you know, and learning from amazing people such as yourself, he said, any marketing you do needs to pass the grunt test. And essentially the mindset is if a caveman living under a rock were to land on your social media, were it to end on a website, where to find on the funnel, can they know what you're offering, why it matters and how to get it.

It needs be so simple within seconds. what you're offering, why it matters to me, and how to get it. I need to know that within seconds. So visually, having either video clips or photos of showing what I'm here for and then how do I get that is how I've seen marketing really flip the switch on getting the ideal clients in the doors.

What is your, is there a favorite story that you have used in marketing that your like, you wish you could replicate it? a favorite story in terms of like a marketing story, a personal story?

A story that you use in marketing to generate leads. You talk about how to be a storyteller. So I'm like you, I like to use story. Every chapter of my latest book out of the system starts with a story and it ends with that story wrapping it back up.

I want people to read the book, but I don't want them to be able to pick up a chapter and read it without it having to tie into something else, right?

Yeah. So, because I agree with you, I think story is the most underutilized, misunderstood process in marketing today. I think people are, they try a million different ways to get somebody to buy versus the one thing that always works.

Tell a story. So do you have like a favorite story that you've used over the years to sell? And what was kind of the structure of it? If you were to look back on that story, what made it work?

And was there, is there a structure that she used? Oh man, I think what- And I'm really putting you on the spot here. Yeah, yeah, no, and there's someone that does come to mind.

And she is, was, but I believe still is a pretty well-known podcaster in the Boise area. She actually reached out to me when I was the director of marketing there.

And said, Hey, I love what you guys are doing. Is there some way I can be a part of this? I have a health journey, you know, and got together over coffee.

And I got to hear her story. I was like, we would love to help you, I won't go into the details for HIPAA reasons. But creating that JV or that joint venture with her, that partnership really helped the clinic scale.

Being a podcaster, her seeing the root cause medicine working directly for her. Same thing, it was the last resort. She had done surgeries, she had gone through this whole painful journey to try to fix what had been broken or needed healing along the way.

And within that year's timeframe of getting on a membership, being seen, I mean, she couldn't, you didn't have to, we didn' have pay her a dime. Like I would say the number one form of marketing is always going to be word of mouth, like a referral.

You know what I means? And so just seeing that hope come alive, same thing. A lot of the things that functional medicine doctors do hit home on is emotions and trauma, things you got to heal from, and all that stuff.

She had never been asked those kinds of questions. So her then getting on her podcast and then speaking it out to her listeners really scaled the practice.

Up to that point, no other marketing campaign, and that was her just telling herself. And her being really authentic and real and other women that were related with her were like, I always say one person's testimony can lead to someone else's hope.

That's why I'm huge on getting testimonials for clients. Like, you got to get testimonial because them hearing that or reading it or seeing it is really going to speak to a similar person.

Yeah. First story, I mean, somebody once said it's really simple. It's struggle, victory, struggle victory. I think it more than struggle-victory. Little bit of hope crushed by struggle, struggle struggle.

Hope, hope, victory, right? Like the more- You know, before you said that, I was gonna say struggle process, which is that whole thing of the victory.

There's a whole, this is the amazing part right here, the journey in between. When we had the clinics, we realized after about, probably nine or 12 months, and I remember I was sitting there and we were talking about marketing.

Our marketing was great. We hit it perfect. It was freaking great from day one the phones rang off the hook. My partner was in my office and he's like, what are we going to do?

We got to get more leads. I'm like what do you talk about? Fucking 150 appointments a week. What do mean more? And I go, well, here's the thing, Kevin.

He came up with a bunch of ideas. I said, we don't want the 30-year-olds in here. And he said we want people that have struggled using pills, potions, pumps, and porn.

Mm-hmm. Then he's like, that's it. Run that on the ad. Well, they're not going to let me say that in the video. OK? But what we came with, has the little blue pill failed you dot, dot dot again?

Not the Little Blue Pill Failed You. has a little blue pill failed you again. Because we wanted somebody that had two years of struggle and they've tried everything, the pills, potions, pumps, and porn, to try and get an erection that didn't work.

And so that was like, because that epitomized the story of the struggle. Because if you think about a guy, he's struggling. First, well, OK, I'm tired.

Second, might be stressed out. And their buddy throws them a Viagra. They order some back in the day from Canada, now you buy it from hims. That doesn't work.

Then you're like, maybe I'll get this potion at the sex store. I get a pump, that doesn' work, a cock ring, sorry if I can't say that. Oh, you can, sure.

And then you know, they try watching porn and we started asking guys I'm like, this is the journey that they all did mmm Your customer will tell you their journey and the Journey is The Same for all of them.

Mmm. Yeah, I think about what do you think that comment? I agree and I Think even taking it to the next level is when the practitioner shares our story and that's right try to get out of him, too Okay, so tell me about that I'll say that.

If I'm doing fractional marketing for a clinic and I have a series of videos I want to record, either to put on the website or social media or both or YouTube, what's your personal story that led to functional medicine?

Do you have personal health story you're willing to share? And that for me, instantly, once they they share it, I can relate to them at a whole other level, right?

Because I don't have perfect health. You know, and I'm like, man, there's just that relatability aspect of like thank you for sharing that you're not perfect.

Because as a doctor, you think you are doing all the right things, You should have a perfect tell. But is there a reason why you went down this direction?

And so I love hearing those stories as well. It's like hey, where were you? Or what are you, whatever you willing to share, comfortable wise, that your struggling with, but you believe in this type of healthcare.

So yeah, it's powerful. I think it there's emotion attached to it. There's connection Relatability and that's what draws people in. Yeah. It's really story is such an underrated tool and Most people suck at storytelling.

Mm-hmm, right like they you know every I joke that, you know, growing up, youngest of six kids in an Irish Catholic family. You're the youngest too? Me too, of nine.

Really? Yeah. Are you Irish-Catholic? No, Romanian. I was going to say Romanian Christian. Yeah, yeah, that's probably even more fun. Oh, this all makes sense.

Doesn't it? It does make sense, like, oh, let's deal with oppressive regimes. So, yeah, I mean, like, the only way that I could get noticed is I had to be funny.

Right? Now, my brothers will tell you, you're not very funny, and I'm like I am funnier than you. It was a low bar, people. I just had be funner than than.

So yeah like you and you had too, uh, also remember as a kid like… I literally had distract people when I wanted to get food, so I would tell stories, trying to distract them.

Yeah, Like I remember this, anyway. Were you the one in your family that was artistic? Or are there others? My brother Dan's a professional musician. He's very artistic And that's about it we We did not grow up in an environment where for Dan and I that our entrepreneurship and creativity was celebrated.

Mm-hmm. My father Celebrated it a little bit, but you know, he was always working and then he died when I was young. Yeah And my mom was like, no, go work on a bank.

Go get your union card. I think my mother's two happiest moments in her life is when my brother Tim got his union as a plumber and when Kate got tenure at the college as professor.

The rest of us are fucking posers. I'm still working through it, it's okay. I'll be working though it for the rest of my life. Yes. She's been dead eight years and I still work through.

Oh, man. You know, but look, that's, you know… I joke about it and it is real, like that trauma. Totally. The trauma of what we deal with and what grew up like.

That trauma, of your parents and your grandparents and whether you like it or not is encoded in you. Right. What's so funny is my parents, my parent's first generation immigrants, 1980, I was born in 1985, and they encouraged us…

So they left Communist Romania. Yeah. How the fuck… How did they get out? Oh, my dad wrote a book about it. I mean, he was part of the underground church movement.

That was illegal. You'd get shot if you had any form of faith. Like, it was crazy. He went on hunger strikes to get his family from Romania to Austria.

Is your dad still alive? He's still live. Both our parents are. Oh I got to meet him. Seriously, would he come out. Phenomenal stories. But I think so.

Yeah, I would love to interview him Yeah he's got a lot to share about his journey. So, he came here and started $3 to $4 an hour in construction. That's how he started.

And he didn't want any of us to work nearly as hard as he did. So he encouraged all of to go in the medical field. I don't think I ever shared this, but I started out as an ultrasound technician.

I think I remember you telling me that. But I hated it. Yeah, I could see you totally. I mean, it hated me. You're such a creative. That was it, man. And I did it because I took photos.

Like I'm like, what's the closest thing to photography that I can do that's like least invasive? But it was just hard working with radiologists. So the dream was to be a photographer instead worldwide, traveling the world with my wife, taking photos, But it's so funny because all my siblings are still in the medical field and they're amazing.

I mean, some have ventured out into like, you know, the business side of marketing things, but it so cool how like full circle I'm still on the medial field but on business-side of it.

So your parents came from Romania. From Romania, yeah. With nine kids. At the time it was… Oh, that's right. Six. And the other three were born here in Orange County.

Wow. What a great story. Yeah. So my fascination of art or marketing was, I grew up in the nineties. so cassettes and CDs, just like evaluating and, you know, asking, why do they choose that?

Or why does, how does this correlate with the song? And so that's when I started falling in love with marketing and just, like, the symbolism of all or the storytelling and super weird, you know, like in terms of my other siblings were just having fun playing outside and I was evaluating books and covers and artwork.

Wow. That's fascinating. Fascinating. You know what? I think, my art was, I wound up in art by accident, right? Like a lot of things I remember as a sophomore.

I was taking a bunch of pictures. I remember, so when I in seventh or eighth grade, I really got into photography, because I wasn't very much of an athlete.

It was a short, fat, dumpy kid, and I'm not very smart, right? My grades weren't really good. But I got in photography in 7th or 8th grade and then a friend of ours, Peter Talinas, had a darkroom and he gave it to me.

And I had a darkroom down in the basement, which I hate basements. So I'm sure there's some kind of trauma there. Darkrooms, chemicals. Yeah, like smelling chemicals, but yeah, I would go take pictures and I'd develop them and did all that.

And then my art department in high school was purportedly the best art apartment of all the high schools when I was in it. We'd always sweep all of the national awards.

I won four out of five national award for photography as a junior. Yeah, amazing. Like, and I got into that program when I was in sophomore, but it was like, for me, the thing about art was A big part of it was, it a place that I could excel when my friends were excelling in football or basketball.

It was a way for me to get awards. Hmm. Being captain. Yeah. And was individualistic. I never was really all that great in team sports because of a variety of other reasons.

Probably why I played golf too. It was a way for me to be able to excel and get recognition. And because it was such a big art department, I got a lot of city-wide recognition and stuff like that.

So it's like the equivalent of being all city or all state. Art's a fascinating thing to me. I love it. And I try to explain this to people, like, the interesting thing about an artist, in living here in LA, there's an art community, you know, Christine's in the entertainment industry, she's and actress, we hang out with her friends, and I tell them, Art doesn't have a timeline and art doesn' have rules.

The reason why you're an artist is for you. That's where it starts first. And if people love it, like it or love, that's great. You'll make money, right?

But the reality is that art is something that you do to express yourself. 100%. You don't do it to satisfy others. If you want that, go be a chiropractor.

Right? Right. Or something. Yeah. Thoughts? Yeah, I agree. And I think it's the way you see the world, you know what I mean? And so bringing it full circle to, man, we can, two people, can literally wake up, look out at the same sky and see something different.

You know what I mean? And so for me, once again, coming from my background of wedding industry, like I saw beauty, I see love, you know, possibility, all that stuff.

And coming back to the marketing, that's how my eyes see the world. I can see it with possibility. With renewal, with hope. I have a tattoo that says newness right here.

I believe in being new every single day. There's a new beginning, there's new chance. And so infusing that, I think, speaks to me. You know what I mean?

Where someone else can go on the whole other fear factor side. Like, if you don't do this, you're not going to live long. fear marketing that I'm not a huge fan of at all, actually.

I hate fear-marketing. Yeah, the fear mongering and all that stuff. And there's a few practitioners that do that. It works. But I kind of have to be like, hey guys, let's infuse life into this.

Let's not talk about death. Lets talk like the opposite because, I don't know, there are already so many negative things in this world. Like, lets infus the possibility aspect.

Hope, exactly. Healing, possibility. So when it comes to art, you know what I mean? Exactly what you're saying, it's like what satisfies you, what fulfills you?

How you see the world. Coming from that vantage point of marketing is like, how do you the see world? Same thing with a practitioner, like I'd love to, How do see do the the you want to convey this?

Having that conversation. Every practitioner is unique. Very similar. They're all very similar, but also obviously unique DNA and all that stuff. So when you're working with folks, are you handling their marketing like an agency or are showing them how to do their own marketing or as a little bit of both?

How does that work? Yeah, it's evolving and growing pretty rapidly. So my vision has always been to be a fractional role, to come in as an actual embedded team member.

Not necessarily as agency where it is just like, You know, here's all this work and then report to us once a month or whatever that might look like. But I'm actually embedded in the team.

So as an actual team member, so I am, you know doing all the things, coming up with the strategies, the campaigns. How many clients can you handle? I might capacity right now, but I do have support.

I have a partner, also my daughter, who's 15 and she helps with editing and content. Amazing how much those little kids. Oh, it's amazing. Yeah. They grew up technology.

We had to learn it through the years. Yeah, exactly. Pogs. I don't know if you remember Pogg's, but that was my day. It was born in 67, bro. Just a little round cardboard.

Yeah. Trying to explain to my kids, like, how'd you have fun with that? I'm like you just had a blast. You had great time. So, I do have a team for sure, But I am in every single strategy.

And it's a lot for, sure. That's what I was going to say. A lot. Exciting. If it fits my personality. Like I have the energy that I want to Place it, you know, in the right places, for sure.

So yeah, an embedded team member is the best way I can explain it. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I think the… How do you… Because I see this all the time. It's the, there's so much fear of the unknown with marketing.

Mm. it's, so foreign. I liken it to if you and I all of a sudden were like, hey, are you going to deliver a baby today? You'd be like what? Really? How do you do is your goal to wean them off of you or like is Your goal that you work in them for the next five years or that You never leave what's your because there I believe that there comes a point that they have to step into the marketing in some way.

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. Well, I think every clinic is unique. So there's certain clinics where I do fractional marketing. There's others where more of like an integrator, chief operating officer.

Mm-hmm. Um, so it just depends I guess for the outcome and the goal for each clinic. Okay. there are certain of clinics I want to have longevity with them.

Right. I'm like I believe in this vision, and I wanna grow with you. Like I don't wanna see this until, you know, as long as we can go. like, like wanna help and be a part of the vision.

So I think it depends. So going from FMI to business coaching, because I learned so much, and after learning from you and other business coaches after, I'm like, man, this seems so fun.

I'd love to do it. But then the gap I saw was the implementation part. You know what I mean? So to answer your question, like them stepping into doing their own marketing, Most practitioners just don't have the ability to do the marketing on top of everything else they're doing.

So that's why I love to come in as the support piece. I'm not sure if that answers the question, but every clinic looks different. There are certain clinics where I want to ride this with you until you retire, until I retire.

Do you take an equity position at all? Those are conversations I've had, for sure. That's a little challenging because of the whole medical corporate practice of medicine.

I mean, shit, if the venture capitalists can figure it out, we can figured it. Right, right. Yeah, I love opportunity, yeah, being a part of things, you know?

So, it's pretty, every clinic, there's a different approach. You know, It's not like a tailored fit. It is unique. What do you see happening? Put your vision goggles on.

Mm. what do see this industry in the functional medicine space? What are you seeing evolving into over the next five years? Man, I'm already seeing, uh, clients, patients, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, what you're seeing.

Be kind of stressed and overwhelmed by all the biohacking in the sense of that even causing stress on their lives because now they know so much numbers and their wearables and all that stuff.

And I think what I'm noticing and seeing is, you know, going from extremes, right? Like I've always looked like, try to be in the middle, you know, and not extremes.

And so how can we balance the tech and the biohacking, which is phenomenal with the natural and with, the earth, with grounding and like meeting right in middle.

So it's not all heavy this. Yep. Then you miss the humanity aspect. I think I'm seeing, even in this, in marketing that I am seeing is like going back to like natural, going to back just the way God made us or whatever that messaging looks like.

So yes, I think the biohacking spaces, the longevity spaces I'm excited by it. I love it, but I there needs to be this balance of like, hey, there's this, of course the lifestyle, right?

So going back to things that don't always cost money, what's the free medicine that we can keep doing? You know what I mean? How do you think that's going to impact the clinics in five years?

What's your concern? What your hope? Oh, my hope is for more people to still pursue the functionalness space, because it is that. It is lifestyle. So not losing that holistic, natural approach.

just marrying the tech side of things really balanced. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Because I am, I mean, personally don't wear any wearables anymore, because it did stress me out.

Yeah. I used to have an aura ring. Oh, you used it, oh yeah? I keep thinking I'm gonna get a whoop. And it's just, my personality's like I wanna keep crushing it and then it causes unnecessary stress.

So I was like, let me just be human. You know what I means? Like human again. There's a point with me with the wearable that I reached, so I like okay, I went through my season.

I had the wearables. Yeah. Even though I wear rings, I don't like to have multiple rings on it. Like one ring each hand is good for me. And like having another one.

Anyway, but here's what I found is once I figured out a bunch of things about my body, like, oh, wow, my sleep score is cut in half when I drink one drink of alcohol.

So I dont drink anymore. Right. Occasionally. Fourth of July weekend, right? Like I just know I'm gonna my numbers on the road are never as good as they are when I home like right You know, I know what they yeah I mean I have an in-body scale at home which I use once a week like and I had my regimen of stuff that I take I Mean I've got it kind of zeroed in so after a while To me that be that data becomes a little redundant.

Mm-hmm. But yeah, you know and Yeah, not to take away from it, but the big concern I hear from practitioners is, are we going to be replaced by AI? I personally don't think so.

Part of you will be. Yes. But I don' think fully. And the reason why is because of the inundation of information, that's not the solution. I think the guidance is the And so for me personally, I still want to be guided by a human, you know what I mean, that I connect with and that can relate to me and vice versa.

And this is speaking on myself, but I feel like I represent a statistic of people. They want that human experience still as opposed to just tech. That's my personal thoughts.

I think AI in the functional medicine space is a massive threat because If you look at disruptions that have happened. So let's talk about the internet.

Now, so I'm 58. When the Internet came out, I was 28, 30 years ago. My mom was a travel agent. That changed things. Do you know anybody who's a travel agent today?

I've heard, but never met one. Yeah, they used to be everywhere. Travel agents used be in every town, right? Totally. You'd have a place in a corner every time you'd walk in, hey, I want to go to Botswana, all right, okay, yeah, great, alright, here's your ticket, big celebration.

It completely changed the industry. And everybody said, oh, people are always going to want to go to the office and sit down and talk. No, they don't.

Virtual is a lot more convenient. Because you can fantasize on your own and not have to have somebody call you back and say, do you want a book that trip to Botswana?

I think what's going happen in the functional medicine space So there's a couple of things that I see happening. So I was at A4M last year. They had 10,000 practitioners, providers there.

When I was there three years ago, they hit 5,000. So there's more, okay? Definitely. And those practitioners don't know shit about business, which means that they're going to make bad business decisions.

Mm-hmm. What they are going do is they going compete on price. They're gonna do buy ones and get ones. they gonna to do BOGOs. There gonna all these things that have happened in the Metz-Bos space.

Okay? So you gonna have a segment of the industry that's going eat itself. Happens every single time. You're going to have a segment of the industry that tries to play the middle ground.

They'll constantly struggle. And you have very small sliver of industry. That will dominate their markets because they will have experience, price, and they'll leverage AI.

So here's what's already happening. This weekend, I will build an app. I don't know how to code fucking shit. You don' need to. Okay. this weekend in the span of about 30 to 45 minutes.

I will build my own app for my blood work. I'm going to actually go back to doing a wearable because I want to sync it up and my in-body. Okay? I am going take all my Blood Panels, I take everything that Dr.

Will Haas has me taking and I plug it in and see what it says and build it into 30 minutes. Because I wanna see. Now, what's gonna happen is The barrier to entry is, one of the barriers to entering is blood work.

Well, Waste to Well out of Austin's already democratized it. They're doing really full blood panels, very inexpensively. And Jelly Roll's been there, and he's on Rogan, okay?

Brigham Bueller's smartest shit, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Yeah. So what's gonna happen is people are going, there's going to be a segment of people that are gonna be able to get their bloodwork, And they're gonna run it through AI.

Now, Right now there is a rash of doctors going But AI is not going to give them a right answer. It doesn't matter. The speed with which they can get the interpretation and get an answer to their problems, it doesn�t matter if the answer is right or not.

So what doctors have to do is they better embrace AI today. Because I tell my orthopedic surgeons all this. I said, �You all think that your job is secure.� They can open an egg and take the shell off the egg, and leave the membrane of an uncooked egg using AI.

It's crazy. They could rebuild a pool table. You want to tell me they're not figuring out how to do joint replacement surgeries? Because you're their biggest cost point.

AI is going to massively change medicine. Yeah. Wow. And it's going to massively change medicine in ways that we can't even comprehend over the next five years.

And if you were sitting there with the belief system that, well, it is never going touch medicine, It's gonna touch it. Well, there already is. Yeah, for sure.

It is going radically change. So when I look, when i squint out into the future of five-years, You're going to have way more people doing anti-aging, longevity, functional medicine.

The prices of things are going come down. There's going be more competition and there's gonna be confusion. the job is, not then, today, to be the educator.

You have to start that positioning today. you have do the books, you've got to do podcasts, You've gotta be truth teller in your market. If you're in North Dakota, don't worry about what anybody thinks in South Dakota.

Okay, maybe you're getting clients from South. Maybe you don't have to worry about what people are thinking in Nebraska. Your market is a 25-mile radius.

If you are in North Dakota, it's 50, right? But like, you know what I mean, like you boys, your market for IFM was what, 20 miles? 20 mile radius? Yeah, 100%. 85, 90%. Yeah.

Dominate that market with being the educator, with be the truth seller. Don't worry about and then then you people will come to you You have to be positioned as the person that you have the answers, right?

Because that your way to go to eight. This is this AI stuff is rapidly Rapidly changing the world. It's rapidly changing my company, Right. I mean we have completely shifted in the last two months My gal in the Philippines, Marie, she's taking AI classes.

She built an entire CRM for us that does exactly what we want to do. It's going to save me $1,200 a month. Amazing. Now, if Marie, a mom of four kids in the Philippines, can do this, what do you think is possible?

Anything is possibly. And so, like this is, it's a fascinating time. Totally. Right? Yes. Oh, I mean, that's why I get to do what I do today. Like I said, five years ago, four years, ago I had to take books home and then correlate it with articles Now I have AI give me a summary of the book, and then I go read the chapters I want to read, see if I wanna get a basic understanding of something.

If I wanted to dive deep, then, I'd go back into it. It's crazy. Yeah. it's gonna change our businesses dramatically. yeah. We're gonna massively change your business.

Okay, what do you think about, because this is what I'm seeing now in the marketing world, is a lot of this ship at home blood draws. Oh, fuck yeah! Dude, that's going to kill us.

That's already happening. I've seen it on every single… And then people are gonna come up with their own blood panel. Yeah. It's wild. This is what I want you to do.

They're walking in, it's already happening. Oh, this ship at home blood stuff? Okay, so what's your advice then for practitioners that are listening right now, thinking three to five years out, what should their focus be?

What should the priority be, is it adopting AI sooner and not being like… Yeah, we're going to teach under our mastermind. We're gonna have a segment every quarter on our Mastermind on AI.

I'm already bringing in people. So the first thing I would tell you is, Don't be scared of it. It's not that complicated. That's a phenomenal tool. Somebody said, well, how do I learn about AI?

I said what you do is you go to Claude and you type in Claud, How do i best utilize it? It'll tell you. They're like, wait, what? Yeah. Okay. There's some really good programs, Rich Shaffrin's program is out there.

We'll probably build something in the next six months. I would like for doctors, because it's such a big topic. In fact, it is on the list. It's something that we will probably.

Build, I'll get one of my friends to help build it with me. Who's good? I have two friends that are freaking brilliant on it. But it will massively change your customer experience.

And so. Then. Like. So this is just off the cuff. What I would probably do is if you have an at home blood test from such and such, bring it over our clinic and we'll give you 50% off our blood panel.

Something like that to like get them to come in. Like you're not going to beat them. So join them. Right. How do you leverage it? We ran into the same thing with HIMSS.

So HIMS came out when we owned the ED clinics, and my partner was like, oh my God, we're going to lose all our business. I said, no, I'm not going lose shit.

What it's going do is it going open more people up. And then we marketed as the little booth. Matt, not sure if you remember this, but when I was at the Mastermind in Sarasota, this was three, four years ago.

peptides were the hot topic. And I remember, it was like so new. Yeah. The whole mindset was ride this way because it's only going to last a year. I think what has since transpired is exactly what you're saying.

No, I don't remember when I said this. We've got two to three years. Now it is everywhere. Seeing all these ads, what was so knew and thinking, It was just so cool to be at the beginning of that.

like revolution at peptide therapy. Yeah, I was just like, wow, and seeing how it's so widespread now. It's exactly what you're saying. Well, history always repeats itself.

A hundred percent, yeah. So I remember, as I remembered that mastermind, he was like what do we do about it? I said, it'll tell you exactly about what to do with it.

I say, you got a two to three year window where you can charge the shit out of it and then what's gonna happen is the price is gonna drop, the government's going to get involved or whatever it is.

You nailed it! The price it gonna go from $700 to $70, right? And then it going be ubiquitous everywhere. But you know what? There's always another thing.

Mm-hmm history always repeats itself and there's never anything that lasts forever, right? Okay. I mean, what do you think is next? What's on the horizon?

So the whole peptide craze right now is silly like I was just at a mastermind and people like oh you're in longevity Yeah, yeah, I use peptides too. Like what are you on?

I'm like, I don't know I get it from like my friend who gets it shipped in from Bermuda. No. No, like go talk to this guy. So the whole peptide conversation is kind of silly to me.

I'm like, everyone's on peptides, especially here in LA. Oh, I got a great guy for peptids. That's hilarious to be. What do I think is the next big thing?

Yeah, what are you saying? So I am not much of a I'm the one that looks at things and then sees what gets traction and kind of understands. I think in the longevity space, I would tell you that.

There, I think we're in the silliness stage. Oh, really? Yeah, i think, we are in, the tools sillness stage, now part of it's because my algorithm and instagram is to get Dave Asprey's feed and all that shit, okay?

I, think were definitely in this sillinness, stage of what's truth and what not. Mm-hmm. Okay. I think a lot of that's also pushed by the fact that Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s heart of HHS, and he's, you know, a lotta these things.

And I love Bobby. You think Bobby's… I thing he is a frickin' animal. Mm. Love him to death. Can't wait to meet him. Bring him on. Yeah. If anybody knows him…

Actually, Kat knows him, so we're working on it. Awesome. Yeah, I just think that there were a season of just the diviseness. Nobody knows what's real.

There's a lot of bullshit devices out there. A lot fake fucking studies that people are selling that this tool works and it doesn't. Like, there's just a lotta stupid shit out right now.

And that's dangerous to the industry. Totally. It's very dangerous. Right. In the regen space, what we've made it through is we made through the third party stem cells IV and it's going to signal in your body where it is supposed to grow, go and grow.

There's no real studies that haven't been funded by the company that's selling the thing that show that to be the case. So, like, ultrasound guided for the PRP or your own stem cells injected into the tear far outperforms the signaling.

Like, there's plenty of studies that show that. So yeah, I just, but here's what I do know. The industry is not going to stop growing. It's going become more and more mainstream.

Your generation is much more entombed with it. Yeah. And they want solutions. Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. I am seeing the direction of it becoming more and more mainstream is what i'm saying.

Like gyms adapting more to functional, more holistic, I think it's still hype. i still see a lot of hype marketing out there, but i think at least going in the, hey, drinking is not as cool as it was.

It's actually getting healthy. Getting healthy is cool. Have you seen the numbers in the alcohol industry? For the first time in history, I think. Oh, it's horrible.

A college buddy of mine is like, hey, want to buy this distillery in Bourbon. I'm like why? Probably not the right time. He's like oh yeah, you know, its going to come back.

It's not going back, if you look at the studies in drinking. Well, I mean, my generation, the way we're raising our kids, which is a lot of my peers, right, are raising on…

You don't drink, do you? No, very rarely, yeah. Yeah, rarely. You'll have like a big celebration. I'm mean we are educating our kid on organic and why don' we eat these foods and we don''t eat out all the time.

And if I drink I'd drink Italian wine or French wine because it doesn't have all of the chemicals in it. The best. So I just think that this new wave of generation is teaching more on that mindset of health.

And so I think, yeah, it's going to keep growing and expanding because that's what we want. We want a healthy future. Cool. Well, I'm getting the high sign.

He's got to go. Okay. So tell everybody, if they want to get in touch with you, how do they get a copy of your book? Again, the unforgettable brand. Check it out.

I've known Sammy for a long time. He's brilliant. So really brilliant, brilliant marketer, everybody. And you're a brilliant business guy. Um, I wouldn't have had you on here if I didn't think it.

But like I haven't read the book, but I'm sure it's great. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it, But tell them, how do they get in touch with you if they want to get a copy of the books?

I know you said you were full with clients, if somebody weighs a big check in front of you, no, kidding. Well, first and foremost, thank you. You were my first introduction to functional medicine.

As a guide, I'm like, all right, what are we doing? What does a longevity clinic look like? It's a full circle moment in the best kind of way of like wow, this is so cool to reconnect with you, based off of our virtual calls and meeting you in person in Florida.

I learned a lot from you and I still am learning a whole lot. So thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. And when I saw you coach, I'm like, man, i want to do that.

That's what I mean. It's been one of my dreams and i get to it and still in the beginning, so I am growing. Just really cool to be able to look to people like you.

CosaCollective.us. COSA is my last name, C-O-S-A, but also created as an acronym, c is for clarity, o is optimization, s is strategy, a is Action. So that's what I believe creates a really successful business and marketing plan.

Clarity, optimization, strategy, and action. And yeah, just thankful to be here. The book can be on Amazon. Simple read, the goal is to able to read it in 45 minutes because who has time?

So something super simple, easy to digest, and hopefully take a few principles and apply it to your life and move forward in success. Cool. Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt.

It's been amazing. Hey, man. Thanks for fighting LA traffic. And thank God it was Friday. I know, it's perfect. There was no traffic! Like, wow, there was traffic this morning.

Time that really well. So thank you for taking the time out of your holiday weekend. Wherever down on OC or you guys are up here, what's your wife's name?

Natalia Natalya. Yeah, and we should get together for yes. What's her girlfriend's name? Christine Christine awesome. So everybody knows her there at the events.

She's so she's been working with me for two years So so yeah, awesome, man. We'll look something wonderful 4th of July weekend by the time this goes out It's gonna be post 4 of july, but happy 250th.

Yes. Happy 20 and look, let's uh, sir. Let's get your dad on here Okay, all right. All right, do it. He would do. It. Alright, cool Yeah. Thank you so much.

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Sammy Cosa

Stop Marketing Your Practice Like a Hospital