In this Upper Cervical Marketing Podcast, Dr. Bill Davis interviews Dr. Giancarlo Licata of Pasadena California about how he has taken his practice to a whole new level by building an integrative community of health professionals in his area and the steps you can take to do the same.
Dr. Davis: Hello everybody! It’s Dr. Bill Davis here with Dr. Giancarlo Licata. Giancarlo, how are you doing?
Dr. Licata: Hello there! Hey Bill! I'm doing well. This is fun.
Dr. Davis: So, Dr. Giancarlo Licata, I'm excited to have you on the call today or on the podcast, and I'd love to hear you introduce yourself to our audience. A lot of people out there might not know you personally, and so just give us a little bit of background, a little bit of information about you.
Dr. Licata: Great! Yeah! I'm a NUCCA chiropractor here in Pasadena, California. We have a practice called Vital Head and Spinal Care, and we just completed our rebranding with our new name. So, let's see. I began… I graduated in 2007 and opened up my office in 2008 about nine months later, and you and I have a lot of experience. We both opened up at similar times and went through our blood, sweat and tears together. So, that was really rough and but I went through a process of building my practice. I decided to be 100% NUCCA from the get go and even though I was only introduced to NUCCA about a few months before I graduated.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: So, it was drinking from the fire hose on every level. Also, I had not a lot of experience in business. So, that was also fun, and so you and I also began together with AMC, which was a consulting company and a coaching company, and they had a right start program, and so yeah, it was a wild and crazy beginning, but I never looked back, and I loved every second of it, and so fast forwarding now.
Gosh! Seven to eight years later, we'll be hitting our eight year anniversary this September, and I hardly recognize it. We're in a different place, but I'm just loving being in practice. We have an associateship practice. We have another associate here in the office. We're looking to getting ready to hire our third doctor, second associate coming at the beginning of next year, and we've been just building and growing. So, it's really fun.
Dr. Davis: Awesome, and so I know one of the things that you have been able to develop in your area is a real community of alternative health care practitioners, and I want to talk a little bit about that, and find out more about how that started, and how that's grown, and how that's been a blessing to your practice?
Dr. Licata: Yeah, and just for context, my first probably four or five years, I didn't have an integrative community or a professional community. We pretty much built our practice on internal referrals. I think I went to two or three spinal screenings. I did a few ads but I just developed our initial group of patients, and then just really worked on giving great care, and giving great communication, and so, up until a few years ago, I was 90% internal referrals consistently every year. That was our bread and butter, and really continues to be because it's our community. It's what we do. It's who we are, but a few years ago, I also decided that I was finally starting to kind of get a bit of a handle on the technique on what I'm doing. Getting a handle on some of my own business skill, and we were developing systems in place, and so, I thought okay, I really have a deep curiosity for what other people are doing, and also, I just realized that if I'm going to give the best upper cervical care I can, I am NOT going to give other types of care in my office. So, but I do want to be able to be a trusted resource for my patients, and be able to refer them to other great practitioners, whether it's acupuncturists, whether they needed podiatrists, you name it. We really value our patients trust as they value us, and I really wanted to have a good place to go to.
So, it started from there. It was really kind of reversed from what I think a lot of people start integrated for our interdisciplinary practices.
Dr. Davis: Yes, it wasn't necessarily the focus on generating more referrals or anything like that at first. The main focus in the beginning was just that you wanted to connect with other practitioners who could provide help to your patient base as well. Is that…?
Dr. Licata: It was. I mean I tend to see things from the top down. So, I tend to see things like, okay look, if I reach out, if my patient has a need, and I reach out to find for instance we don't do soft issue work in our office. I don't do massage. I don't give ART. I don't do myofascial release, but I think all those things are great. I just don't want to do it, and I don't want to dedicate our resources here to have someone else do it, and so, when identify that patient either had a desire or a need for some of that work, which they're going to have, I usually say, okay well, do you know of somebody who you like, that would be able to do this and they wouldn't, and so, I ended up going out and trying to ask around, and ask my colleagues, until I found somebody who I thought was really, really good, but then I understood that by doing that, there would be this kind of healthy ecosystem, right? I'd refer to that practitioner and so they went.
My patients are going to be incredibly happy because I gave a great resource for them, and I'm happy because first of all I continue to give great care and that's an extension of my care is my referral, but also I knew that person is going to eventually respect what I do. Hopefully, if I do things well when we get along, and I just knew that there's just going to be a healthy reciprocity that's going to occur, and so, little by little that would happen, and so, the massage therapists would start referring, and then the dentist will start referring because I was looking for someone for dentist for my patients, and so, it really began from a place of wanting to find resources for my patients.
I also understood that there would be a benefit to myself but I think that's the heart of it really is finding not looking to just what am I going to get. Am I going to create all these relationships that I can get something from them? I think it's what allowed it to grow and what allows it to continue to grow and it actually allows these relationships to sustain because I mean a lot of these practitioners now are actually really close friends, and we can totally go off into how many new projects, how many new things have come from just our friendships. So, yeah.
Dr. Davis: Outstanding! So, that focus on giving rather than getting…
Dr. Licata: That’s huge.
Dr. Davis: …a real key for you and I've heard that a lot from other people I've talked to who had great success with professional referrals in general, not necessarily as what you're doing and to the extent of it, but it's not… if you're always thinking, every time I refer somebody, they're going to refer somebody back, that's the wrong mindset, correct?
Dr. Licata: Oh, absolutely. I mean it's kind of like just a friendship. I mean, there's no sustainability in that. I mean think of a friend who's always wanted to take every time you see them. You just don't want to hang out with them anymore.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: So, yeah. So, there's just common-sense aspects to it, but also, I mean, I think it also is interesting that for me and this will be just my perspective, but for me I was already established as, I was no longer in a fight-or-flight mode, and for me that really shaped my ability to develop a lot of relationships, and I think and do so in a way that was very sustainable. So, because I didn't depend upon that a person to refer back to me, I was able to give freely, and not really feel too much horrible pain in that.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, I think that a lot of times people are talking about that they want to build a referral-based practice. I want to have an interdisciplinary practice. I think that it's very good to do. I think it is easier to do when you've reached a certain level of stability where you're not wondering how you're going to pay the bills that much, right? …and for two ways, I mean for one, you're playing a long game.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: I mean, it's like any relationship, and so you have to understand that this is not going to be something that's going to come back to you right away, and so if you need something that to come back to you right away, then you're going to start calling a little bit too much when you shouldn't. You're going to start nagging somebody a little bit more than they should.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and also, people are going to feel that, and so, actually when I reach out and I'm communicating with other practitioners, I get to see it from the other end, and I see ahhh! This person, they're just so needy and I mean, maybe they're good but maybe they're not, but I can't see through their neediness.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: ...and so, I think that if somebody, if you're a new practitioner, I often say, build your practice and build this dream as a leg of support for your practice, but I'd say like, if it will be very hard to build your whole practice right off the bat try to just rely hardly on this.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: So, I don't know if that'd be useful for some listeners.
Dr. Davis: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean it's the diversification of different streams coming into your practices, that's a crucial part of business in general but definitely in practice, right? I mean, going back even into the AMC days, we talked about the Town Square, right? ...of having all the different roads that lead into your practice and…
Dr. Licata: Right.
We're 90 Percent in Referrals. That’s How We've Grown.
Dr. Davis: …from what you're saying, it sounds like, this is one road that you can focus on, but this shouldn’t be your only focus.
Dr. Licata: Yeah, I think it shouldn't be your only (focus), and so, again a few years ago, it's probably three years now, but I realized, gosh! We're 90 percent in referrals. That’s how we've grown. We've been that way for months and month out, year and year outs, and I decided that I really want to develop this. I really have, it fulfills me. It's just like, I really enjoy meeting these people. I enjoy going out to lunch with them and talking about what they're doing. I enjoy being able to be that resource for my patients. So, when they come back and my patients see me, they come and they get checked maybe four times a year, maybe six times a year. They're getting checked and they tell me about other things and needs and seasons of life that they're going through, and I can be able to say, wow! Gosh! You're going through menopause. You're going through a big transition. Let's make sure we keep you in alignment, so your body is able to self-heal and self-regulate as well as possible, but it looks like your MD wants to put you on these medications. Have you considered acupuncture? Have you considered naturopathy? I've got some great colleagues and friends and I think they could handle that with you, and so to be able to pass that on, it's just again it becomes a great resource for them, and I enjoy it, and the practitioners appreciate it.
So, going back, it was very intentional. I realized that I wanted to continue to grow through internal referrals. So, that’s who we are. It's our community and we do it by giving great care, communicating really well and being able to give something to our patients, even when they don't need to see us on a regular basis, but I wanted to increase the pie. I wanted to add more slices to my pie, and so, I also decided that I was going to specifically grow by developing this part that I really enjoyed, which was the integrative practitioners and our interdisciplinary practitioners, and then eventually go into some type of marketing as we have more and more associates, and as we had a higher capacity, and so that's where right now is where we have this kind three-pronged approach. We’re not dependent on anyone, but what's great is that our internal referrals have only continued to increase, but now we're only about 50% internal referrals. We're now over 40% professional referrals, which is great because that just when you're talking about volume. I mean it's just a much higher volume, it's a very good organic way to grow, but you say there's the multiple streams going in.
Dr. Davis: Yeah, and so talk more about how these relationships have developed and really become more of intentional community that you've developed and that you guys now meet regularly and I understand and talk about that kind of metamorphosis.
Dr. Licata: Yeah, and so one thing that started happening was I started meeting some local chiropractors. A few who were professors of mine who I just thought the world of. They don't practice NUCCA or upper cervical but they just do phenomenal work in their own fields. I also knew a few physical therapists who are doing great things, neuromuscular dentists and some amazing other practitioners, a couple acupuncturists I worked with Children's Hospital, and what I was amazed by was that, nobody knew each other, and so I would have these conversations and I realized, Dr. Jensen should meet Dr. Nolan, and because they would really get along, and also they have a lot of complementary visions, and we're all trying to kind of solve our own issues locally, and we're observing all these resources, and it's just really inefficient
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: And so, I don't know how it started or how it came about, but I decided to just say, ‘Hey let's create a group, and let's just start meeting on a regular basis, and all putting out the effort to kind of try to find ways to have us get along, but let's just start with picking a different topic, almost like a Grand Rounds.’
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: ‘…but in a very informal way, and let's just get together once a month,’ and so, and there are other models that are out there. There are study groups, I think that are really great. I think those are great seed forums to do it, and so, we just started meeting every month, and we started bouncing out ideas, and we started doing projects together, and what was great is that also well, I have the NUCCA community. I have the upper cervical community. I have the chiropractic community at large, which I strongly identify with all of them, but locally, who do I see every day? Well, who am I communicating with every day? It's the acupuncturists. It's another general chiropractor. It's the dentists. These are people that, we have the same… there's just that physical connection is I think very important.
So, that's how it began and I decided that maybe we should, get some kind of official structure to this, and so the first step that we did was we tried to kind of attach ourselves to something else that was already out there, and so, there was something called the Holistic Chamber of Commerce, and it seemed like they had enough resources, and they had a model that we can use, and so we attached ourselves to them, and we kind of tried that out for about a year, and we discovered that they had a very different vision than we had. There was a lot of experimentation. There was a lot of growth, and so at the end of that year or so, we realized, okay we need to kind of break away and just start our own thing, and so, now we have something called the Pasadena Integrative Community. We use the word ‘integrative’ as like a meta integrative.
So, if I'm an integrative practitioner, usually what that assumes is that, I'm going to try to do some mind-body heal health work. I'm going to do some structural work. I'm going to talk to somebody about their nutrition and their lifestyles. I'm going to do all that myself or within my own doors.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: There's an interdisciplinary model were you and I, I'll talk with another doctor, and we'll just going to have some kind of collaboration. There's multidisciplinary which has no definition, but there's no sense of real community. There's not a word for that, and so, we're playing with that word, and it may be another word, but we have this idea almost like a meta integrative community where, what if as community we have people that are addressing mind-body issues, people that are addressing structural, people that are addressing biochemical changes in somebody's lifestyle things and can we just start to all look at health and healing at least from our own lens, not leave our own lens, but understand enough so that we can begin to refer out when other cases require other issues.
So, I can elaborate more on that but that was kind of how things began. So, now we have a monthly meeting. We have a closed Facebook group. We have resources that we give out to our practitioners, and so, I kind of took it as a social entrepreneur to say, okay well, let me just create enough infrastructures, so that kind of magic can occur, right? …so that, like new things can happen, so that, relationships can build, so that people can know how to work with each other, because for the most part I realized, people want to work with each other. We just don't know how.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so we're just all learning it together and then trying to share the resources, and it's been a real fun experience.
Dr. Davis: Yeah, it sounds fantastic. It's really just an awesome community that you've been able to build, and so when you first started having monthly meetings about how many practitioners were involved?
Dr. Licata: Well, we started with, they were probably nine to ten.
Dr. Davis: Okay.
Dr. Licata: …and then as it would happen, LA is a busy place, and so, we would have nine to ten and then those nine, then it became fifteen to twenty, and then there would be a core of about fifteen that would stay every time, that would come and repeatedly come every time, and then there would always be five or ten extra that would just kind of come through.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and what was interesting was that we realized that the community wasn't about the meetings. The meetings would happen but the community was the relationships that continue to develop throughout.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so now, we just have a better understanding now. We’ve been doing this for about two and a half years. I'm texting back and forth with a cardiologist. We become very close friends. She's opened all kinds of doors for me, and for the things that we're doing. We've been able to support her office and her practice. We have a neuromuscular dentist that were always bouncing back ideas with, and we have now, what's happening is that now there's just more relationship happening.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, still at any given meeting, we have about 20 to 25 people that will come through, and depending on the theme, it's going to usually be people that tend to focus on that theme.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: It's been very helpful because, really I don't want to go to every single meeting if there's a lot of topics and things that I just don't care about, but if like this Monday we're going to have our theme this Monday is looking at migraines through different perspectives.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, for me that's a third of my practice are all migraines and chronic headaches, and so that's really important to me. So, I'll be there.
Dr. Davis: Sure.
Dr. Licata: …and then we structure every meeting so that the conversation is always going to be looking at for instance migraines, looking at it through three lenses through kind of a mental, psychological, spiritual aspect of it, looking at it through a structural / neurological perspective or looking at it through a by a biochemical perspective, right?
So, an example would be if somebody is going through a lot of emotional trauma, PTSD, a lot of things oftentimes that can trigger migraines from a structural, neurological perspective. We know that upper cervical care has a huge role with migraines. Also, we know that our neuromuscular dentist colleagues have also amazing results, and we also know that sometimes we're not going to clear things out until they do their job as well…
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and vice versa, and so we have some PTs that do phenomenal soft tissue work when there's so much damage in the muscle tissue that they need to get some deeper work, and then there's the biochemical where we're going to have acupuncturist talking about their work. We're going to have an MD who does biochemical hormones replacement. She’s going to talk about that perspective, and so, that way we're all just starting to collaborate and begin to share, and so, they're really fun, and a lot of referrals come out of that because they're very concentrated. We really try to apply that presence principle to really focusing on how can everybody get the most value out of this one interaction, and how can we get the most fruitfulness out of this as well. So…
Dr. Davis: Yeah. So, I want to get a little bit more into some of the nuts and bolts of this, and so learning more about how you would actually could get this going if you were in your own community, for doctors that are listening. So, you said you have 20 to 25 people there, where do you have these meetings about how long do they last and you said once a month, do you have a particular day that you found to be the most successful for these meetings? What’s some of those nuts and bolts things?
Dr. Licata: Yeah. So, again we started small and we had a really long trajectory. So, I would recommend doing that. I think unless you've got everything figured out and it’s tried and tested. So, we started small. We didn't want more than 10-15 people in the beginning, and I would say, do the same.
We have our meetings like now they've grown into something, but always they were the second Monday of the month. It was just a way that was just easy for everybody to remember. They could be Tuesdays.
They could be Wednesdays. We have other meetings from other groups that are in the area that we are friends with and we wanted to kind of keep it all cordial.
So, we do it the second Monday of every month. They’re at my office. I designed my waiting room to be larger than most, and we have a pretty flexible seating arrangement to where we can seat. If we have ten people there, everybody feels really cozy and great. If we have thirty there, everybody feels fine and there's not a problem, and also it's all at my office, and we spent a lot of time and energy and money when we moved here to Pasadena from Arcadia, really focusing again 80/20. We put a lot of energy on that waiting area and on the front desk, so that, people that come through a bit, they're like, ‘Oh wow! This is interesting. What is this? Is this not a general chiropractor's office that I'm used to,’ and so, again it gives us exposure as well, and we've had somebody at Lacey who works in our office. She's a phenomenal Cook. She will always come and prepare some food for us, and just light things we have.
Now we just have no cheese and crackers. We have about healthy drinks. We've had local health food stores or health food cafes catered for us, for their own exposure. They've done that. It's been great. We do that now and repeat every quarter, and then it's usually two hours long. It's from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Dr. Davis: Okay.
Dr. Licata: We start the first half hour just informally connecting, then we'll spend the next 45 minutes to an hour going over our main topic and it's pretty loose. Usually it requires somebody to moderate it. I've been able to moderate it. People don't complain too much, so you can kind of keep things moving, keep things going, and I've really made sure to wear the community builder hats, and really leave from NUCCA or upper cervical promoter hats back in my office. I really tried to take on the role of my job here is to facilitate interaction, facilitate relationship, facilitate growth and information, and down the road when people start asking, I'll answer their questions, but I really didn't want to, because those are kind of conflicting hats in the beginning.
Dr. Davis: Sure.
Dr. Licata: ...and so we'll monitor it for about an hour with that. They're usually great informative things. A lot of insight comes about and then the last half hour we just continued. So then, I just allowed there to be an organic process, and usually some people are going to like it. We're all been gravitating towards some people more than others.
Dr. Davis: Sure.
Dr. Licata: …and so, I allow them that to occur, and then it's really great. You'll just see these kinds of groups begin to form, and their exchanging business cards, but more importantly, they're like all wanting to get together later on or get together next week, and then new projects are coming from that. So, they start referring to each other. They start interviewing each other for their own podcasts. We have booked things that have come out of that. Again, we have multiple podcasts that have come through that. There's a lot of collaboration that's occurring and so, it's really fun.
Dr. Davis: Wow! That's outstanding and that's wonderful, and so, with the community as it’s developed as you said. I mean, it's not just about the meetings. It's about the relationships that you've developed and that's really sounds like that. I mean if anyone is getting some takeaways from this, I imagine that's one of them, but what are some other takeaways really to focus down on if someone wanted to start developing this type of community in their area, what would be some action steps for them?
Dr. Licata: I think the action steps would be, write a list of ten people that you want to meet, and then you just go out and start meeting them. You introduce yourself, and then you start to get a feel for them, do these people really want to interact with you? Is there something there because it does have to start with a relationship?
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: ...and then you can bend half plan. Be able to host, and I would probably recommend calling it a study group to begin with, and then you just invite them to come on a monthly basis at the same time on the same day, and you need to create enough structure to where… it's not just so open ended. You can't determine, based on what you get you guys have all talked about, what are the things that are interesting to you? …and so I've decided to limit it to more clinical health issues and topics, and so, you can do whatever you want to do, and then you just start inviting them through, and then once you get the first meeting, then you have to kind of go out and go reach out to ten more, and because then you want to fresh new faces for month number two, right?
And then you want to get feedback and you see how that goes, but you should already then have an idea of what you want for month three, four, five and six, but I wouldn't plan through six. I would start with one and then you can go from there, right?
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, those are very clear action steps, and again really understand that you're playing the long game. You're really not about trying to get and don't be upset when you don't get that referral off of that first meeting, and just like we do with patients, I'll just say this, just like we need to prepare the expectations of our patients when they come in, we also want to prepare the expectations for that relationship, and so the way that you would introduce it is, ‘Hey! We're doing a study group.’ It's a way for us to build relationships, and I'm very specific, I say, it's not networking.
Dr. Davis: Got you.
Dr. Licata: …because networking has a bad name.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and I'll define. I'll say networking is like, stepping into a pool of piranhas. Everybody wants to eat each other like nobody wants to give. Everybody wants to take.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so I say, this is going to be designed on collaboration. It's going to be designed on relationship building that's longer-term. There's no short-term thing, and it's going to be built upon creativity and seeing where is this going to go, and there's going to be certain people that are going to resonate with that. There are some others that just don't have the time or energy for it, and then you just you just begin with your first 10, and then like I say ideally, what I did and what I recommend is, you should be always looking for maybe 10 more for that next month, right? …because what it's going to do is it's going to create enough diversity, enough of a pool of people that are going to kind of come in and out through the seasons, but are all going to stay connected, and so, now after years. I mean, we have a database of well, over 100 practitioners that we have amazing relationships with, and I know that when we have our July event, we're going to draw upon a huge group of those practitioners that maybe won't be at the event this month.
Dr. Davis: Got you.
Dr. Licata: …but then, usually once that's occurring then usually I’m making a point to go visit their office. I invite them to my office. I try to understand what they're doing. I try to refer right away. I'm going to keep them at top of mind during that month so that if there is a genuine opportunity for a referral and there's a need from a patient. So, that way that person is also getting some… they're like, okay, there's something to this, and they're willing to keep investing their time and energy.
Dr. Davis: Awesome. One last question about that, is there any exclusivity when it comes to the practitioners that you invite or that come? I mean, do you have multiple people that do the same thing or multiple physical therapists or multiple… what about that?
Dr. Licata: Right. So, and again going along those lines of… So, the short answer is no. We don't.
Dr. Davis: Okay.
Dr. Licata: …because again, like I think you're referencing to like, is BNI.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: ...where everybody's going to have one plumber, one architect, one real-estate agent, and what's… think about that like, who… It just doesn't work.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …just like, no, I don't want to refer to you because you're not good, and so I tell people again, what's going to happen here, and this is again part of my own perspective. We collectively, whether we're integrative practitioners, chiropractors, acupuncturists, whatever you want to call it, collectively we're still serving less than 15-20 percent of the population. So, in the City of Pasadena, they're 150,000 people.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, my point is that, we need many practitioners. We need many physical therapists. We need many chiropractors, and what we need to do is get them and think out of their box of, I am the chiropractor.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: ...and start to think about, I'm the upper cervical chiropractor or I'm the NUCCA chiropractor. I'm the SOT chiro or I’m the sports chiro or I'm the PI guy.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: Right, because like, I don't do PI. I don't care about PI. I don't want to deal with PI, but I do want a really good PI chiropractor would be in our group, because when there are accidents and there are things that occur and people need that, I want to send them there, right?
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so on, and so, the other thing that I think is really important is that, that diversity is very valuable because people are going to be attracted to different types of people, right? So, I'm going to get along. I know right now, I think we are probably seven different acupuncturists. No, more. We are close to 10 acupuncturists in our group.
Dr. Davis: Wow!
Dr. Licata: I naturally gravitate towards two of them. I just really get along with them. We see things the same way, and it doesn't mean they don't refer to others, but I'm going to refer more to them just based on personality, and trust, and a level of excellence that we both have, that I feel like if I'm going to send a patient there like, my patients are going to be well taken cared.
Dr. Davis: Got you. Yup.
Dr. Licata: …but I also know that there are other ways to differentiate. You can differentiate by just kind of income, like some practitioners are going to be more… They're going to serve a certain group of people better, and they may not be the best practitioner out there, but they're going to serve a group, who’s somebody. If they don't see anybody or they see this person for acupuncture, I want them to go see that person for acupuncture because I know they're going to be affordable. It's not going to be a long plan and they're going to be able to kind of connect with the mindset of the person I’m referring.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: Others, they need to have a really nice place. My patients are used to coming into a nice office. There's a certain standard of customer service, and I have to be careful to who I'm going to refer to, and if I'm going to refer to the best person but they work out of a hole in the wall, I might need to be able to qualify that.
So, there are all kinds of diversity that's necessary just like a good ecosystem. I mean, limiting it is actually very poor. The only way that I personally limit it, is I limit really dominant personalities I want to kind of like hijack the group, and usually people that are only there to take kind of just get limited because we've created the culture.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and there is no culture for that or there is no place for that person to exist, and so they usually come and go.
Dr. Davis: Got you. That's awesome, and it makes so much sense, right? Because like you said, the BNI structure of the one of each of those professions out there it's very limited, right? It's very limited in its thinking because like you said, just because someone is in your group doesn't mean you're going to connect with them, and you're going to trust them enough to refer people to you or to them, and so, it's yes. I think it's fantastic what you're doing.
So, just a last point, last take-home points and just for our audience, any encouragement you can give. There are a lot of doctors out there and students and so forth that listen to this, any encouragement that you want to bring before we close off for today?
Dr. Licata: Yeah, I really would encourage everybody to develop one major stream in their practice to work with other practitioners. I just think it's good all around, especially for us upper cervical chiropractor who we help with so many things but we're intentionally not trying to be the jack-of-all-trades.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, I think we fit this model even better than many other chiropractors can. Though, I think that now, I even take that back because anybody really can fit it, but especially for us. It's very important. I think it is an amazing way to grow in practice. It is again, when you think of marketing, you think of building your practice, you do one big spinal screening, you may have a huge amount of people that come in, and you may have pay for it all weekend, but once that's over, it's done, and when you have relationships that are healthy, and fruitful, and recurring. I mean you have patients that come in every month because of these relationships.
Dr. Davis: Right.
Dr. Licata: …and so, it's on autopilot. It's just being a good person giving great care, learning how to communicate with other people, and to have dozens of patients coming in every month just because other people trust you. I think it's great. It builds you as an outstanding member of the health community, and I think ultimately it raises the perspective of chiropractic, because people really get to know who you are and we stopped being just like some image that they see from Facebook, and they realize how deep, how valuable, how amazing upper cervical care is, and so it's a win-win for everybody.
Dr. Davis: Awesome. Well, thank you so much Giancarlo for your time today. I really appreciate it. I think we brought a lot of value to the audience and thank you again.
Dr. Licata: Absolutely, this is fun.
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