Maximizing Profitability with a Membership Model

Welcome to the Practice Upgrade Summit 0:00

Hello, everybody. This is doctor Bob Hoffman from the Master Circle Global, and I want to welcome you to our Practice Upgrade Summit. We get to interview 40 icons, superstars, thought leaders, leaders in our profession. And today is no different. Our guest today is someone I've known for well over 20 years. We've spoken on the same stage many times. I've recommended and endorsed this program for probably two decades. He is a real important player in our profession. He's changed so many practices for the better forever, and you're going to want to listen to him.

His topic today is patient loyalty. Creating memberships for office stability. He's the king of it. And you're going to discover that on your own in just a moment itself. So who are we going to be interviewing today and having a conversation with is Doctor Myles Boggs. And he's the founder and CEO of Cash Practice. He's a chiropractor who became known as the King of Patient Loyalty. Let me just stop there for a moment. That's the key to success, ladies and gentlemen. Everybody has this fascination, this addiction, with more new patients, more new patients, more new patients.

And yes, of course, we all need more new patients. But the key is getting them to stick to care. Choose care. Understand why care is so important. It's all about compliance and loyalty and partnership. And Doctor Myles is an expert at that. He's been on the cover of the American chiropractor, and his story is featured in a movie called The Calling. A true story. Doctor Myles speaks internationally on the topic of patient loyalty. And his company offers web based software for chiropractors, including four powerful programs that all cultivate patient loyalty.

So welcome on to the Practice Upgrade Summit. Doctor Myles Boggs, it's so good to have you with us. Thanks, doctor. Bob, I really appreciate you inviting me. And, looking forward to sharing with the audience. And I know this is going to be a fantastic program. Can't believe you included me among 40 amazing speakers. And I'm sure that the audience listening and the doctors participating are getting tremendous value out of what you're putting on. So kudos to you and your entire team for doing this.

And I'm looking forward to sharing. Thank you so much, Myles. I greatly appreciate that. I can assure the people who are watching and listening to this, if you just pay attention and listen and perhaps even take some notes and download some of the the free gifts,

Patient Loyalty and Cash Practice's Evolving Message 2:34

it will change your life and your practice forever. Take your practice to that next level. That's what the practice upgrade is all about. Some of you need to upgrade your adjusting skills. Some of your communication skills, some of your marketing skills. Today we're going to specifically talk about your loyalty and compliance skills. So Miles, your company is called cash practice. Yeah. So so most people would just assume you're all about cash practice. But I'm a big believer that we have to keep adapting.

I think the biggest problem in the chiropractic and the natural healing arts industries is that we've all failed to adapt over the years. For example, most chiropractors are still asking the same case history questions that we asked in 1960. And the world is a completely different place. Most of those questions are irrelevant right now. We have to keep adapting. So I've noticed you keep adapting, and it's one of the reasons you're so ridiculously successful and influential. So talk about how your message has changed over the years.

Could you share a little bit more about that with us? Yeah, I would love to. And I appreciate that question a lot. You know, when it comes to communication about getting your message out, whether it's you're getting your message out about your company or your practice or chiropractic, you and I both know clarity is super important, that when there is lack of clarity, it makes it really hard for people to know what you're about. It makes it difficult for them to hire you. It makes it difficult for them to make decisions.

Clarity is key, and there's been many ways that's been that's been repeated in and as I you know, thought about our company over the years and you ask the name cash practice what we're all about. You know, it's a blessing and a curse. The name cash practice. It's a blessing in that, you know, people are attracted to it. And, you know, the term cash practice is one of these terms. It's been around forever and it gets a lot of recognition. And, you know, we've kind of become pretty well known with that in that name.

But it's also a curse that people automatically assume we're all about cash. And this is one of the things I've struggled with all these years. And I and I've often said, just like chiropractic pain relief is a great side effect of chiropractic. It's not the purpose of chiropractic, but we could all agree it's a great benefit of chiropractic care. Do you feel better? Well, running a wellness type practice, running a practice that is there to deliver on the promise of chiropractic. A great side effect of that is, is you tend to collect a lot of cash.

But it's not a purpose of practice, but it is a side effect of it. So the name cash practice kind of comes from that world. But really what our message has always been about anybody thinking about the very beginnings of our company and the very beginnings of what I taught, is exactly what you just got done saying is, is that patient loyalty, that messaging, that's what we're all about is kind of what we've been saying to our clients and to our doctors and teaching all these years, but it hasn't been super clear, and we've just got real good clarity around it, that really what cash practice is, is where a program that gives you the tools you need to implement strategies and systems to ultimately build extraordinarily high patient loyalty.

That's really what it is. And that works for all practices cash, insurance. I don't care what kind of practice you're in. You know, you could be doing activator. You could be doing constant. You could be doing well. That doesn't matter if the business model of your practice is there's want to have people be loyal. That's really what we're all about is is and that's where our message has evolved for, for quite some time, our messaging, if you went to our website and again, I'll relate this to chiropractic as well.

Our messaging was all about freeing you from insurance dependance. And that's analogous to the chiropractor saying we're free you from the drug dependance. We're freeing you from other things, and not everybody wants to be free for things. Not every chiropractor wants to be freed from insurance. Some like insurance a lot. And so we realize that our messaging that although it attracts a certain clientele and just like in chiropractic, your message of freeing people from medication might attract a certain clientele.

If you if you if you focus your message on the benefits of what you provide versus avoiding what you're avoiding things, I think that's a it creates a lot of clarity for people. And that was one thing I learned in chiropractic was in practice. I didn't I didn't necessarily teach about what you avoided with chiropractic. I just taught the benefits, which was you get adjusted, stay healthy. That was my repeated message over and over in practice, the patient says, why do you get adjusted? Oh, you get it just as a stay healthy.

And it got me thinking with cash practice, we're not using cash practice to avoid insurance. What we're really is, is we're about helping you build patient loyalty. And so that's really kind of why our messaging over the last number of years is kind of evolved to become much more clear, is this is what we help you do versus what we help you avoid? Just like in practice, this is what we help you achieve in health versus what we avoid, from the medical side, for example. So a lot of analogies from the standpoint of being in practice, but that's kind of why our messaging has changed.

And it's not the why. It's actually just us getting clear, getting clear over the years as to what we ultimately do for our doctors and for our clients. Well, I think that was really clear. And you said it beautifully. Anyone paying attention could get the concept of that in a heartbeat. You know, one of the things that we've taught for for decades is that clarity is what empowers people. And it's the lack of clarity, often called confusion, is what paralyzes people. Absolutely. And and, you know, this issue of wanting something offensively versus trying to avoid something defensively at some level, miles is really what kind of distinguishes the difference between what chiropractors do and medical doctors do.

I have high regard for medical doctors, but their defensive in nature. Look at what's going on in society right now with this Covid pandemic, right? The best minds in medicine. All they have to offer is don't touch your face, wear a mask, social distance, you know, wash your hands. All very good measures to decrease the chances of infection. But not one of those things. Do 1% to improve your health. Exact chiropractors are more proactive. That's our vital ballistic philosophy that we should be exercising more, eating cleaner, and taking our supplements and getting more restorative sleep and lowering our stress levels and improving our brain and neurologic function so that we never get sick in the first place.

Absolutely. And that that's exactly how your message evolved from, you know, having cash versus being having freedom. Exactly. You know, it's interesting you say this as well as we talk about it, because we've also talked about it in our practices, the philosophy being, and then we do this with our employees as well, of rewarding

The Four Pillars of Patient Loyalty 9:19

the behaviors you want versus punishing the behaviors we don't want. And again, it's another thing I talked about from the stage doctors. Like when you're rewarding your patients, what's the behavior you want them having? Well, in my practice, the behavior I wanted was them showing up. I wanted to reward the behavior of them being there and following the plan that we outlined the treatment plan. So this is where we had the things that we're, you know, giving people rewards when they got to their 50th adjustment.

And, you know, having a wall of wellness, of photos of people as they get to the 100th, 1 or 2 hundredth, the three, their adjustment as time went on, continue to reward the behavior. And I guess that comes back to the psychology that we have, as many of us as chiropractors, as being proactive versus reactive. And again, you can look at it in many different facets of your life, of the reward versus the of the punishment. So, you know, that's, you know, and when it comes to loyalty, that being the subject matter, that is a key concept that is an absolute key concept because, you know, people short term, you know, what's the word I'm looking for?

You know, punishing the behavior you don't want will work in the short term, but it doesn't work in the long term. And if the gate if the game is long term, which is get the person to a point of wellness, get them transition to a wellness program. Let them be with you for years and years and years. No one's going to keep returning to somewhere where they're constantly getting punished, so they have to be getting rewards. When new patients show up in your office in a lot of pain, care is something that they have to do.

We've got to educate and engage them to the point that care is something they want to do. Exactly. And and to me, the way I've always seen catch practice and loyalty is that when you get patients so loyal, when they buy into developing a partnership with you, a lifelong partnership with you, one of the early indicators is they're willing to do that exercise of reaching into their pocket to actually pay you. Yeah. And I got some stats to talk about regarding that, especially with this Covid thing that just went on right now.

Can I share that with you, please? So, you know, during the Covid, when it first hit in March and April, you know, we have thousands of clients. And as you know, we processed payments in our software for them. So we have all this data that accumulates and we have literally millions and millions of transactions that go on. And we're able to see kind of the trends of what's going on among all these users. And one of the things we observed was the offices that were doing one time payments. So these are offices that are just, you know, the patient shows up.

Making a payment, shows up, makes a payment. What we saw in the month of April. So this is a month into a month and a half into it is overnight. Literally we saw the transactions go down by 50%, which is a huge drop in the amount of transactions going on for doctors. I imagine your practice 50% drop in revenue overnight, assuming you know you're still running, and most chiropractors are still open during all of this versus the offices that we're doing more of the membership. And when I say membership, I don't mean unlimited care.

I mean, there's a treatment plan, but they're basically the patients being treated as a member. They're paying a monthly fee to utilize the services that we're outlined. We saw less than a 4% drop in those and those transactions in comparison to the one time transactions. So that goes to show you that when you have patients who have bought into you, have hired you, that enrolled in the care, they're loyal to you. They stick through even when things get tough, even when there's a pandemic, they're still showing up.

Now, I'm sure there's more to it as well. They're educated, all these other things, but it goes to show you from a business perspective, you've now kind of sailed through in our practices that we're heavily doing these, you know, recurring payments versus those who are doing more. The one time payments we saw, it was like apples and oranges, the difference in how they weathered the storm, basically. And, we have the stats to show that it's it's pretty remarkable to see it. We weren't sure what to expect when this all.

I'm not surprised for a second, though. I'm thrilled to hear that. It just validates what you and I both believe and what we want. The people watching this to believe. You know, from from my perspective, I've always taught the concept that we need to position our care as a necessity, not as a luxury. Because when patients see your care as a luxury, three ugly things commonly show up time, distance and money. But when they see your care as a necessity, those three ugly things mostly disappear. So I love what you're saying and what you're doing, and you know, you shared a beautiful stat for your company and I love hearing that.

Let me share one. I'm very proud of the fact that throughout the entire pandemic, over 80% of our coaching clients consistently saw between 80 and 100% of their normal visit volume. Now, I don't have a statistic about the rest of the profession. I speak to a lot of people outside of the Master Circle Global. I get feedback from a lot of clients. My instinct is about 80% of our colleagues in North America. We're probably a 50% or lower. So I again, this is about owning it, getting the big idea, having certainty and confidence, knowing how to communicate, how to influence how other people think and behave.

And it all comes from that. That why understanding that care isn't just patching people up for a natural Band-Aid or just resolving a neck or back problem. It's about rebooting and balancing their brain and turning their life on. You know, I'm a big believer that there's one purpose, one goal, one mission to chiropractic, and one miles to me is an acronym that stands for Optimal Neurological expression. We do what we do to optimize neurological expression, and when a patient gets that, they don't come in and complain about their shoulder anymore, they come in to want to know how their brains function, how stress is affecting them.

And that's another way. There are many ways, but that's one way where they build loyalty. They are for a completely different reason, you know, and all these things we're touching on, we're touching on lots of different things. And if I was to summarize it, there's like and I would kind of just I caught the pass back, I'll, I'll, I'll take it here and say there's four categories I look at. One is, is things we just mentioned. Is education continuously educating a clear message. So that's pillar number one.

And we refer to these four pillars of patient loyalty educating consistently consistently. And it's a clear concise message. And that message is bigger than just pain relief. We can agree on that. It's just like bigger message than you're just feeling better. But it's consistent ongoing education. Number two is and this is part of what you're doing. You you talked about brain function and and people knowing it is giving people feedback that they know they're benefiting. That's a key thing that they know objectively.

Whatever measurements you're using. But there's an objective measure showing they know they're benefiting. So that key that that if Bob is my patient and if Bob has no idea how he's doing other than he's feeling better, he doesn't know that he's benefiting. Unless I'm reporting back to doctor Bob, here's your results on a regular basis. And you're seeing objectively you're improving over time and that you're you're maintaining improvement. That's another key concept. And Bob, I know you've had this.

We've all had this where patients come to us who's been to another chiropractor. And you ask them, why are you coming to me now? Why are you not going back to your prior doctor? And assuming it's not because of time, money or distance and they're just changing? Oftentimes you'll hear things like, well, I just don't know how I was doing over there, or I just felt like they wanted me to keep coming back. And that sentiment comes from the previous doctor did not do a good job of communicating that the patient was making progress.

So that's another key pillar to patient loyalty. So we have education feedback. Another one is is a clear, concise plan. And I know you're a big fan of this with your old UCF programs. The programs you do is having people on a program of care that they know what they're committing to, that they know they're on a program, whether it's four months, six months, a year, how many adjustments, what therapies. Everything's kind of bundled into a program and they know the plan. In fact, we've seen patients feel better when they know there's a plan versus not knowing there's a plan.

So, doctor, if you're listening this right now and you're a doctor who's been afraid to tell people what they need or afraid of rejection or that type of thing, you're actually you need to get out of your own way because patients actually prefer it. They prefer knowing what the plan is. When you don't tell them they feel weird, they feel uneasy. And if you have this attitude of I don't have a crystal ball, I can't predict the future, well, ask yourself what doctor you're going to go to. Who says that to you? I don't know the future. I can't predict.

Like who? No one's going to that doctor. Let's try. Let's try four weeks and we'll see how it goes. Exactly. The open ended treatment plan without a commitment is a big disaster. So that's pillar number three. And pillar number four to this is you want to make the payment processing a, frictionless experience. You want to make it easy for people so that it's not this stop at the desk and pay and all this kind of stuff. You want to make it easy. So when you combine those four things together, a continuously educating with a clear, concise message, giving people the feedback they need to know they're making progress, have a want to plan and make the payments frictionless.

Those four things in combination is what leads to a practice that has extraordinarily the potential for extraordinary retention and loyalty. Obviously, you have to be a good doctor. You have to have all the other good stuff of good customer service and be able to deliver on the promise and be a good clinician, all those other things. But when you combine those four key pillars, it's amazing what happens in a practice. I couldn't agree with you more. You said it so clearly. You know, historically for chiropractors, our assessment might have been a leg check or palpation a range of motion study posture evaluation.

Right. All very good things to do. And I'm not ever going to discourage anyone from stopping that or I want you to continue it. But the patient can't see it. They can't wrap their arms around it. They can't wrap their head around it. So they accept it because they trust you. But that trust doesn't last forever, right? And when it starts, they're feeling better. And remember, all patients were trained that when I feel better, I'm done. You know, when we're little boys and girls and we go to the doctor because we're sick and the doctor makes us not sick with done.

We don't have to go back. We've been trained that way that as soon as they start to feel better, they disappear.

Objective Feedback and Frictionless Care 19:38

So I am a big advocate as you are, Miles, that we need to have objective testing. We need to show them where they're at in the continuum of life and death, health and wellness, and that we could chart their progress. Even something as simple as pulse oximetry that takes 10s is painless. You can buy a pulse ox unit for 50 bucks, you can buy better ones, but you can get a good, unit for as little as 50 bucks. If you were to just say to the patient something like, every patient in every hospital, every single day gets a pulse ox reading, because it's really critical to know who's ready for surgery and if you're recovering or not and why.

And that what we know is pulse ox is measuring blood oxygen saturation level. And we need to be at a 96% or higher for the brain to comprehend itself and its environment, to neutralize some of the stress and to maintain the normal functioning of all the organs. But if it's lower than that, it means the brain is an oxygen deprivation and it can no longer comprehend itself. And its environment, neutralize stress, or manage the organs. Let's see where you're at today and you put it on the patient's finger.

Let them read it to you. Right? Oh my God, I'm at 92. Well that's not good. That's a problem. I'm concerned. Now proceed and adjust the patient. And 2 or 3 or ten minutes later whatever your adjustment time is, put it back on their finger and say, now read it. Oh my God, it jumped up to 95. Well, let me point out to you, there is nothing in medical literature that will make your blood oxygen saturation level rise by three points in three minutes other than a good chiropractic adjustment, but it's still not normal.

So we're going to use this to monitor and manage your care until you start showing up at 96 or above. See. And again, I'm just using one example. There are endless examples right? Yeah. I mean it goes to show you how powerful it is. Just giving feedback is right. You know, this is why Fitbits are so popular. Or if people have a sleep number bed, I have one. And you get an email once a month telling you what your average sleep score is. I mean, all this kind of feedback is very powerful, and I know you know this already, but for the audience, you know, there's this thing called Pearson's law, right?

So Pearson's law says when you measure something, performance improves. And when you measure it and reported that performance improves exponentially. So the notion is, is that if I'm measuring, as you're using, whether it's pulse ox, I can't say the word, but whatever the, you know, when you're doing the measurement, whether it's X-rays, whether it's posture pictures, whether it's, you know, surface EMG, whatever, you know, neuro whatever tests you're doing, you know, if you're able to communicate it back to a patient in a understandable format that they get, that's a powerful thing.

And I cash practice, you know, we have this tool. I know you're aware you're familiar with it. Our wellness score, which is a basically a report card system. Whatever tools you're using, you plug that data in and produce a report to give someone a letter grade. Everybody knows what an A is. Everybody knows it a, B, a C. And the key concept here is, is yes, you're doing these tests as a clinician. So you know what you're doing and you're making progress. But it's important that the patient knows what it means at the end of the day.

So they know they're making progress. That's really at the end of the day from a communication standpoint. You want to make sure the patient knows that they're benefiting from your care beyond just feeling better at 100 key. Right. And the last thing I just want to comment on you are four pillars. And I loved your four pillars. I couldn't agree more. Is it the best circle? We're always teaching our docs to make every aspect of practice frictionless, because friction is what slows us down. It makes us inefficient.

And if there are friction points in the patient interaction like payment, it causes the patient to consider, do I need to make another appointment? Do I want to? Absolutely. So we always want to move towards a frictionless practice. We teach our doctors that all the time. You're spot on, Miles. If you don't mind, let's move into another area. Sure, with all your knowledge and all your experience and all the feedback you get from the thousands of doctors that work through your program, what do you think is the number one thing that doctors of chiropractic or or naturopaths or body workers or acupuncture is anybody in the wellness world.

What do you think they need to do today to thrive and practice? Is there 1 or 2 or three bits of advice that you could recommend that would dramatically increase the odds of flourishing in practice? Yeah, I would say the first thing I always talk when I talk with a doctor who's needing to flourish, they're needing some assistance. What we often find out is when we dig deep, they're not clear on their product. They're not clear on what they deliver as their outcome. There's, I'll give an analogy.

Let me use an analogy, a story. And that is you go to a dentist. I'm sorry, not a dentist, a wrong analogy, an author or orthodontist and four different patients go to the orthodontist. We have four different people. Patient number one goes to the orthodontist because they literally have pain in their jaw from the crowding of their teeth. There's pain, and the pain is what motivates them to go. Number two is the second patient. I should say it doesn't go because they have pain. They have no pain at all, but they have tooth decay degeneration because they can't floss their teeth well.

And it's leading to tooth decay. So that's their reason for going because their crowding of their teeth is preventing them from flossing. Third person goes to the orthodontist simply because not because they have pain, not because of degeneration, but because they're embarrassed of their smile. They're so embarrassed because their teeth are crooked and because they're embarrassed. They never smile. And because they never smile. Every time they interview for a job, they never get hired. So they're struggling with a career because of their teeth.

So they say, finally, I'm going to go get my teeth straight. The fourth person goes to the audience for a very different reason. There are very beautiful person. In fact, they're a model. They're very good looking. But because they have a couple teeth that are a little crooked when they interview for jobs, half the jobs they apply for, they don't get. So they're going to the orthodontist for job performance to improve their job performance. Now my question is this to the doctor's listening. Or different patients go to the same doctor for for different reasons.

But what do they all get? They all get the same thing. They all get straight teeth. Why? Because the orthodontist knows their product is delivering straight teeth. That's what they do. Regardless of the reason they come in. And most chiropractors I talk to are not really clear on what they deliver. They just you ask them, what do they do? Well, I do wellness. Wellness is a benefit of what you deliver, just like

Clarifying the Doctor's Product and Outcome 26:18

the pain relief or the smile or the good self-esteem. Those are all benefits of having straight teeth. But that's not the purpose of the care. The purpose of the care is to deliver something objective, which is straight teeth. So my answer, my my question, my statement to the doctors listening is if you're the acupuncturist, if you're the naturopath, when people come to you, wellness is not your product. Wellness is the benefit they get from what you deliver. What do you objectively deliver? What do they prove when people give you their money and their time?

And now I just learned from Bob their willingness to come to your distance. Those three things time, money and distance. When they're willing to do those things, what are they getting in exchange from you? That is the ultimate agreement. When they say yes to you at a report of findings, when they say yes, what they're saying is, I'm willing to give you some of my time. I'm willing to come to you, I'm willing to give you my money, but you need to give me something in exchange. And what is it? And if you're not clear, doctor, your patients won't be clear.

And they'll by default assume they're there just to feel better. So, doctors, you need to my my my hard, fast advice to doctors everybody is you need to be clear on what your product is, what your outcome, what your result, what your goal. It's all the same thing. I call it product because it's I'm thinking of it as an exchange, but that's what you need to become. So this is why, Bob, I think many chiropractors who are subluxation based tend to be very successful. Most of our million dollar plus practices are what you would call a straight, subluxation based practice.

That's not true for every we have examples. That isn't the case, but I believe it's not because they're subluxation based. I believe, I believe it's because they're very clear on what their outcome is. So even the doctors are not subluxation based. They tend to be very clear on what they deliver. And that's I think that's the most important piece of advice I can share with the doctors is get clarity around it. Because once you get clarity around that, that helps you become clear on what your treatment plans are.

And if you're clearing your treatment plans, that helps you get clarity on your financial plans and that helps you when you have clarity on your financial plans, it makes it easy for people to say yes to you. All of these things, the root cause, the view, the underlying cause of the challenges. Doctors, you're just not clear. You're wishy washy. You're all over the place on what you deliver. Get clarity around that. You're right. I can't emphasize enough how important that is. Nine times out of ten when I consult with a doctor, that is the issue.

There is all over the place. Yeah. And they struggle to even be able to answer that question. You know, they throw out generics like I'm in the wellness business. I'm in the removal the subluxation business. Yes, yes. But that is not really the business you're in. Yeah. And they it's very hard to succeed in business when you don't know what business you're really in. So, you know, I, I've been teaching for years that we're in the relationship business, that those of us who are best at initiating, maintaining and improving relationships are always going to do better in anything in life.

True that the amount of time we take being a doctor during a case history consultation exam, we should take at least an equal amount of time building the relationship, earning their trust. See, that becomes part of the product that you speak about. It's I want to develop more relationships. I want to have better relationships. I want to earn people's trust. Now we can go off in a million directions. You started that. You know, for me, it's about neutralizing their stress. It's about normalizing and maximizing brain function.

It's about optimal neurological expression. It's about living their best life. It's it's optimizing peak performance. Again, there's a million descriptors, right. Doesn't matter what the descriptor is, right. It matters that you're all in for that no matter what exactly. And all of your education, all of your communication, the words, your staff uses, it's all in alignment. It's they're not hearing different messages like, we'll do this at our company where we like. We just got done talking about the beginning of this interview regarding the change of our message at practice over the years, to being more about focusing on the fact that we do patient loyalty versus freeing from insurance dependance.

Imagine you hearing that from me. But you call my office and the staff are still talking about, well, you use this to free yourself from insurance dependance and you get mixed messages that would not work. So you have to train your team. Not just you doctor, but your staff, your messaging, your emails, your marketing material, your posters, your fliers, your everything you do has to be a this. It has to be a branded message. It has to be a campaign package. Exactly. You have to just have clarity around that and whatever it is, once you're solid on it, like you said, it does it it there's lots of ways you can frame it.

But that's the key thing. I think in the practice. And you said it perfectly also before 50% of your time is on relationship, 50% on the being the doctor. And I've said this as well, something similar where I would say to a doctor, like when you're doing in a concert, I may break it down. And Steph is like, at this point in time, you have your doctor hat and then you have your business hat, and you got both of these things going at the same time. This is what you're doing clinically and this is what you're doing in a business sample or communication standpoint.

But you're you have to focus. You have to have a balance of those, both of those along all along the same way. Yeah. Another piece of this puzzle for me, completely congruent with what you're saying, Miles, is every one of the people watching this, they have some people in their life that they have a long term, mutually beneficial relationship with. Could be a family member, a childhood friend, a classmate. They have some people they've been friends with for ten, 20, 30, 50, 60 years, depending on your age.

What are the common denominators of all of those long term, mutually beneficial relationships? Because once you get distilled that down and intentionally develop those with every new patient, you're going to develop more and more long term relationships with these people. Yeah. And and again, it's just beginning with that end in mind is the key to this whole process I agree. You know, it's interesting you bring this up and it's one of my favorite topics of, you know, talking about building these relationships I really do like it.

I think of it more of I'm an analytical person myself. So you and I, I don't I don't know if you're an analytical person. I don't think you are. I'm more of an analytical, you know, engineer mind. And I tend to break things down very analytically. You know, when I think of this whole concept and this was a hard thing for me to learn coming from a, an analytical world, to learn about relationships a little bit better. So I had to do it this way, but it really kind of came down to me in practice. I realized what drove people's behavior to be with me for years was, is they always felt like they were in the right place.

That was really the gut reaction they had is that they knew I had their back. They knew they were in the right place. And it's the same true with the doctors I work with today that that's the that's it's not that they're educated, but we know we've had patients who been with us for years, and I still don't know what a subluxation is. And then we have other people who know what a subluxation is. And for whatever reason, they still drop out of care. So it dawned on me that there's more to this than than just understanding chiropractic.

And really what I came to realize was, is they knew they were in the right place. And being the an analytical mind I have, I was asking, well, what makes someone feel like they're in the right place? What gives someone that gut reaction? And to me, what I learned was those three things. And you mentioned one of them already. One is connection, you know, relationships, connecting with people. Number two is trust. And number three is a feeling of hope. And when you connect those three feelings, those three emotions together for people, when they always feel connected to you and they know they can trust you, and when they feel hope, those three emotions will cause people to know they're in the right place.

And that's what's really worked well for me and our clients. Is that teaching them and applying that that your job doctor is not to say to educate someone, although that's part of it. Your job is to make sure you're connecting with people. Your job is to make sure you're building trust, and your job is to create hope. When hope is appropriate. And when you do those three things, they just naturally on their own, know they're in the right place and you can't kick them out the door. They don't want to leave. That feeling is what drives in the leader.

It's beautifully said and simple and clear and not not confusing to anyone. And there's a piece of that to me that's very important. Most of us have been trained by society to communicate with people head to head. But the people who connect, who develop trust, they speak heart to heart. Yeah. And in our chiropractic philosophy that we would refer to that as an innate to it in a relationship. Yeah. And and when we train our doctors and communication skills, this is one of the things we talk about a lot.

How to speak with your heart, not with your head, you know. Yes, there are moments and times and circumstances that we have to come from a place of authority and speak with our knowledge and our skill and our experience. But how you connect to people is through your heart. Yep. So. Absolutely. Absolutely. Miles, before we run out of time, this has just been an awesome interview. You're you're amazing. Thank you. I'd love you to spend just a few minutes telling us about your story. You know, The calling a true story.

I believe that we all have been called into into healing. It isn't an accident if every one of us remove our emotions and look at all the crazy things that had to happen that landed us in chiropractic school or into dental school, or into naturopathy school, if we look at all those hurdles that we had to overcome, we didn't choose to choose chiropractic as an example. It chose us. Absolutely.

Connection, Trust, and Hope in Practice 35:48

I mean, the truth is, I never even applied to chiropractic school. Someone applied for me and told me about it. I often tell people my claim to fame is I've gone down the river of life and I just haven't fallen out. No. No, I believe we've all been called to serve, and I believe in an addendum to that is we've been called to serve in a big way because we don't really do that much good by serving small. Correct. So tell us a little bit about your story and about the movie The Call. Sure. So my story and my, my story is like a lot of chiropractors.

I had injured myself as a young kid. I, dove into a pool and injured my next thing with some family in upstate New York at one point and long, many, many years ago. And after weeks of suffering, laying on a sofa with Bengay on my neck and all these things that nobody, you know, nothing was helping, someone finally suggested I see a chiropractor and I did. My parents took me and that was my first exposure to chiropractic, and that led to me utilizing chiropractic on an intermittent basis throughout my teen years, and never really thought about become a chiropractor.

Until one day when I realized I was in my senior year of college and I was ready to graduate in a year as an electrical engineer, which for any of you who know any engineers, it's a very challenging field to study. It's not an easy subject matter. And I woke up at the beginning of my senior year going, I don't think this is what I'm called to do. I don't I don't really think this is what I want to be doing. And, and the idea of facing that grueling year ahead of me just it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

I was ready to drop out and, getting some clarity. I, or in order to get some clarity, I went to the beach and did some surfing and cleared my head. I lived in Southern California and San Diego and, I ended up sitting on the beach and pulling out a pad of paper and writing and writing and writing and just kind of get clarity about who I'd be when I grew up. One day, just being lost, a lost kid. And it was through that that I kind of came to clarity not about chiropractic, but clarity about what I wanted out of life.

And it was a short time after having that clarity again, we talked about getting clear about things, having that clarity that I was visiting my chiropractor, and it was in the observation of going and what that, what was going on in the chiropractic office, just observing what was going on through that new set of eyes. I had a clear vision in my head of what I wanted in life, at least what I thought I did at the time. You know, I, I knew I was looking for something, and suddenly it dawned on me that this doctor was living my life.

He was happy. He was helping people. He was working with you. He was in business for himself. He was making a good living. All these things that were kind of things I had written out and my my thing and my on my pad of paper dawned on me like, whoa, this chiropractor seems to be like, really, really happy and enjoying things in life and people. It was just, you know, the atmosphere. I'm talking about. So I said I should check this chiropractor again and again. I hadn't known anything about chiropractic other than it was for pain relief.

And I went to my school library and got a book on health care, and it had a section that chiropractic in the chiropractic section had talked about the that there's this thing in the body called a subluxation, that the nerve interference interfered with the function of the body, the electrical system, the body in that removing the nerve interference, the electrical interferences allowed the body to function better. And here I was studying electrical engineering, and it was like a lightning bolt struck me and said, this is what you gotta do.

And, you know, so that story, and there's more to the story, but that's ultimately what the message of chiropractic is, really what lit me up about the idea of becoming a chiropractor was the story of what we do as a profession. And, you know, the movie you bring up, we I've told this story in many ways. In fact, I first told this story publicly to chiropractors probably about 12 years ago. And a similar type interview is being interviewed by another doctor. And in that interview, I shared the story and I went a lot more depth.

Myles Boggs' Chiropractic Calling and The Calling Movie 39:28

But in that story, I got a lot of emails and a lot of comments afterwards from people saying how much they enjoyed it and how they inspired they were. And and I guess it was a good story. And it dawned on me like, I guess we gotta get the story out for other chiropractors at some point. And about five years ago, I decided I would write a book about my story and tell the real details of, you know, really good. More of a almost in a novel format, you know, not in a fictional character standpoint. And I just never got around to it.

And, about 3 or 4 years ago, I hired a person to do video for us, for our company to do videos, you know, promotional stuff and I've known this person for over 25 years. You happened to be a patient of mine many years ago, and he's a talented musician. And he contacted me out of the blue going, hey, Miles, you know, I'm getting in the film business and you didn't know I wasn't practicing anymore. Contact me. Say, how are you as a chiropractor? Are you looking for any kind of business films? I said, well, I'm not in practice anymore, but I'd be interested in doing some kind of, you know, productions for my company.

And we hired him to do a bunch of case study and other types of promotional videos. And when I presented to him this idea of telling my story, initially we were going to do maybe a 20 minute documentary, you know, just kind of tell a story, you know, kind of we're doing now, but more on a document, you know, kind of like a behind the music type of thing. And, and after working with him for some time, he said, you know, Miles, we should write a script. We should we should do a movie. Like, we should literally like a, like a, you know, they do on TV, you know, these, heartfelt movies, you know, stories of inspiration is that was an inspiring story.

So I said, all right, I don't know how to do that, but if you know how, let's do that. And so I hired him to do that, and we ended up hiring, casting a, you know, writing a script and casting it out. And it's been it's been seen by a lot of chiropractors and kids. And we continuously get feedback that people are really inspired. I have multiple doctors who told me they've watched it numerous times. They've cried, they've laughed. So if anybody wants to watch it, go to the calling movie.com. The calling movie.com is the URL.

It'll take you to a page that's on our site, that has the movie out. You can just watch it online. We just have it on Amazon. We just put it on launch. We just stream it for you for free. Now, just watch it on the website and it's about a third. It's not a big comedy. It's about 40 minutes, 45 minutes, but it tells the story of being called to serve as a chiropractor. If that's interesting to you, then go watch it. I think I think a lot of people have told me, a lot of people give me feedback saying they really like it.

It's also not just my story. It's the story of, my right hand person, which is Holly. You know, Holly, who's been with me for 18 years now, working together with me. It's her story as well, of becoming called to serve the profession of chiropractic as a as a in a as a in a professional capacity as a CA and then eventually, as, you know, the operations officer of our company, it tells a story of a patient getting the results and benefiting and going from skeptical, skeptical patient to a lifetime wellness patient.

So we we've been there. Patient story. My story. You know, the story. And it's it was a fun project. So I encourage doctors to watch if you haven't watched it go watch the calling movie. I'm sure doctors or CCAs or even laypeople who would watch it would connect to it on a heart level. They do. They do that. Aren't you expressing yourself? Well, thank you for sharing that, doctor. Box it again. You're a dear friend. You're an icon. You're you're a thought leader in your profession. Thank you. You've made a huge impact.

I, I cannot thank you enough for giving up some of your precious time and sharing some of your knowledge and wisdom and experience with the people watching this. I again, this this entire conversation was just jam packed with practical, implementable things that can help any healthcare practitioner do better, serve better, make a bigger difference. And I am just so grateful and appreciative of you and what you bring to the table. Thank you so very much for today. I just I have such love and respect for you.

Thanks, Bob. I really do appreciate that a lot. It means a lot coming from you and I know you've been at this a long time, and I know you've you have a lot of, connections in the industry and of people that you could have asked to invite to, to be part of this. So again, I appreciate you reaching out to me and, and including me in the in, in helping the doctors out there. And, and I shared with you from my heart real practical things that I really hope you doctors take to heart and utilize. If it's okay, I'd like to share with them the URL to go to to to get something for free from us.

I'd like to give you guys an example. Sample care plan. We talked about these four pillars. One of the pillars we have is what care plans doctors can go to just cast practice.com/plans. Plans. So cash back is like, forward slash plans. They'll be a place where you can download a sample plan for you guys to think. Thank you for offering that. Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate it. Yeah. For sure I know you're busy. I'll let you get back to work. But again, thank you so much. And thank you for all you contribute to our beautiful and beloved profession.

Bob. Thank you in the mass circle as well. Thank you so much. Thank you.