Speaker Dr. Bill Davis
Hello and welcome to this webinar, The Roadmap to a Thriving Upper Cervical Practice. I'm Dr. Bill Davis, founder and CEO of UCM Practice Growth Systems.
Very excited to be with you for this webinar. It's a special presentation that we're very excited to present to you, and we're gonna get right into it.
In this webinar today, we're gonna be talking about the seven growth stages of upper cervical practice and learning what your practice needs now, depending on where you are in practice, which stage of practice you are in requires very s- specific steps.
And so we're gonna get very granular and very focused and very applicable to your practice and your situation throughout this webinar.
And so let's start with a big question that we hear a lot is, you know, why do some practices thrive while others stay stuck?
And I'll tell you, the difference is rarely the talent of the doctors themselves.
We can have two incredible, uh, adjusters, clinicians, whatnot, that, that take great care of patients, but so often the difference is the systems.
So d- so often is the, the right systems for the right stage of growth.
So you can have the same clinical skills, you can even have the same work ethic, you can be a hard worker, but have different outcomes because of the systems that you are running in your practice with the particular growth stage that you're in and whether or not they're applicable for that stage.
So the problem isn't always a lack of effort. Sometimes it is. Sometimes doctors, you know, do need to work harder.
They, they, they struggle with that, but it's more often unpredictable new patient flow or inconsistent collections or team frustration and turnover or systems that are too dependent on the doctor.
All of these types of things are more commonly issues than just, "You know what? I just gotta work harder." Working harder can solve, cannot solve a lot of different problems.
The answer is usually working smarter or working in the right order when it comes to focusing on the right things at the right times. Because the wrong strategy at the wrong time is a big issue.
Sometimes you don't have the foundations in place to be able to apply more advanced strategies, and that's why they're not working. Or sometimes you've outgrown an approach.
For instance, old strategies that kinda got you to where you are won't get you to where you wanna go. And other times you're missing the pre- prerequisites.
You know, sometimes you don't have the right things in place in order to make something work for you.
But the most common thing is it's distractions from the real bottleneck, not being able to identify what is the biggest issue and instead kind of chasing shiny objects, chasing the wrong priorities.
That's the one that we see most commonly with upper cervical practices because a good strategy implemented at the wrong stage, the wrong practice growth stage, can still produce poor results.
And so let's talk about the seven growth stages. The seven growth stages of upper cervical practice is a proven framework that gives you a clear roadmap, not just, you know, motivation.
It tells you exactly where you are, what's limiting you, and what to do next so you can stop guessing and start advancing with confidence.
So as you identify where you are in the seven growth stages framework, it's going to help you see that every stage really has a unique roadmap, has something that is specific to that stage to get you from that stage to the next one.
It helps you identify where your practice is today, what's limiting its growth, which systems deserve your attention now in that stage, and what needs to wait until later, along with, you know, what has to change to reach the next stage.
Because inevitably, to go from one practice growth stage to another one, some things will have to change. You can't continue to do the same things and expect different results.
And so let's get more into this. The thing with understanding the seven growth stages is that growth is a progression. It's not a leap. A thriving upper cervical practice is not built overnight.
It's built through a series of intentional, sequential transitions. And so, you know, when you-- We're looking at the first two stages of upper cervical practice.
It's all about establishing foundational things and creating consistency.
If you build the foundation right and you create, like, create reliable, repeatable systems that can consistently take care of patients and team members, then the other stages, stages become much easier to move into if your foundation is solid and your systems are solid during stage one and stage two.
And then as you move into stage three and four, then you can build the team and then develop the leadership that's needed to shift from an owner-driven one doctor practice to a team-supported practice to deliver results- And then when you can move into stage five and six where you actually expand beyond a single location into two locations, three, four, whatever you want because you have those solid systems in place that can then be re- replicated into additional locations.
And then stage seven is that continuing the mission, having a legacy, building a practice that endures beyond you.
So often, doctors unfortunately don't have a good solid plan in place for transition out of practice, and this stage seven is not a great stage for them.
And so understanding that there are seven stages and understanding how to move from one stage to the next is what we're gonna be talking about today.
So let's talk about the early stages, stage one and two. This is the solo doctor stages, right?
So when you first start in practice, typically you are a solo doctor unless you're a, a, uh, a, a couple, right?
If you're a married couple, for instance, starts a practice together, you're right off, right off the bat, you are a two doctor practice.
But even in that circumstance, oftentimes one of the doctors will function more like a CA office manager initially, um, and have one primary doctor who sees majority of the patients is, is typically what we see.
Not always. Sometimes we- they hire a CA right away and go with a two doctor practice.
But regardless, most of the time, stage one, stage two is gonna be a solo doctor practice, and it's all about getting the foundational things in place that are gonna allow you to move beyond that stage.
Because so frequently we see doctors who are in practice growth stage one, which is a solo doctor collecting less than $20,000 per month consistently, and sometimes they don't even have a CA, um, and so they're doing everything and they get stuck there.
They get stuck there for years, sometimes even decades.
And so the, the key thing with stage one and two is to build a solid foundation, which means having a compelling vision, having clear, um, clear mission and values that drive you and your team, having or developing consistent patient attraction systems, having a strong consultation and conversion process, so when p- new patients come into the practice, they stay there.
Having a remarkable patient experience so you can actually generate referrals. Having appropriate pricing.
This is a, a huge one, and one that we frequently see holding doctors back in stage one and two, is you're just not charging enough for the, the prov- for the value of care that you're providing.
Upper cervical chiropractic is a unique specialty within the chiropractic world, and it should be treated with that type of understanding when it comes to the pricing of it.
And then having repeatable daily and weekly rhythms.
A lot of times doctors in, in practice growth stage one or two struggle to focus on the right things at the right times and tend to chase shiny objects.
And so making sure that you're doing the right things at the right times in the right order is key.
So the primary question becomes, can a practice consistently attract and ser- serve enough patients to become healthy, predictable, and financially stable?
Until the answer is a confident yes, all other growth initiatives must wait. The foundation has to come first always.
And so getting you to that place, you know, practice growth stage one and two, as I said, stage one is collecting less than $20,000 in a solo doc- solo practice.
Stage two is collecting more than $20,000.
There's some other things that go into those as well, but it's, it's a solo practice that is either kind of in a survival mode or it's in a unfort- a lot of times it's, it's in a place of complacency where you get to that place where it's like, "Yep, we're making enough money to make it, but if we go on vacation, if anybody gets sick, if anybody gets hurt," anything like that, there's no stability to the practice, no consistency when it, when it comes to any kind of thing that happens in life.
And so those two stages are a very vulnerable time in upper cervical practice, and it's the majority of upper cervical practices are in stage one or two. And so how do we move out of that?
We're gonna talk about that. Middle stages. This is when you get into practice growth stage three or four.
So this is when you, you move out of, you know, ju- surviving and, or any kinda complacency type of issues.
Usually you're into more of a, a established practice where you have multiple doctors in the practice.
Practice growth stage three is when you have, you know, a, an, a, a clinic director with one associate, and then practice growth stage four is when you have multiple associates.
And so this is all about building team and leadership, getting the practice to deliver consistent results instead of just one doctor delivering results and kinda pushing everything along.
And so this is when having defined team roles, having effective hiring and onboarding processes, having solid accountability frameworks, having that, uh, you know, consistency of leadership development for yourself and also for your team are all really important because the primary question at this point is, can the practice produce enough results through a capable team?
And not just through the owner's personal effort, right? So if the answer to that is yes, then you can thrive in these stages.
And then the last kind of, uh, stages is as you move into expansion and scale. This is when you go from one location to two locations, or two locations to three or four or whatever.
This is when you start to raise up clinic directors, people who can run an entire clinic, and you don't have to be there in order that clinic to run well.
This is when you have multiple associates that are at variety of locations.
This is when you have multiple location growth, where you can centralize your systems and you have one culture that expands into multiple locations.
So the primary question here becomes, can the practice reproduce its results without diluting its culture of quality or mission? Right?
So these are the, the, you know, the big, uh, these are the stages, the practice growth stage one through six.
Seven is that legacy stage as you're transitioning out of practice that every, every practice will eventually get to.
And so the thing to understand about every stage is it has different bottlenecks. The single greatest mistake a practice can, owner can make is applying the wrong solution to the wrong constraint.
Identifying the true primary bottleneck is the first and most important step toward meaningful growth.
And so even as we look at the different stages, every practice is gonna be a little bit different as well.
But in the early stages, a lot of times a, uh, a constraint or a, you know, bottleneck is just not enough new patients, right? So that can be an issue. It's not the only issue.
Sometimes doctors think that that's the only issue with practice growth, is new patients, and it's not. There's a lot of other things that can make it difficult for a practice to grow.
But also a, a common one is weak conversion or retention, right? So if you, so you balance those two things.
If you're getting lots of new patients, but you can't convert them or you can't retain them, then the practice isn't gonna grow, right? So understanding tho- both those things really matter.
And then in the mid stages, you're just having inadequate systems or just not solid enough systems to get reproducible results.
And so when you get to, you know, practice growth stage three or four, where you have multiple associates, it's keeping all those associates busy, making sure that their schedules are full, that they're taking care of as many patients as the clinic director and so forth, that that can be a major issue.
And sometimes we just have the wrong team structur- structure.
We have the wrong people in the wrong seats, or we have, uh, you know, we just have some team members that just aren't great at their jobs, and they either need to be trained or they need to be moved on.
And sometimes we just have insufficient leadership in those mid to late stages, where the, the clinic owner needs to grow in leadership or needs to develop more ownership or leadership with, with the office manager or with the, uh, clinic directors and all those types of thin- things.
Because a balancing of that is owner dependency. Owner dependency can be an issue throughout the entire practice growth stage, uh, process, right?
At every level you can be too dependent on the owner, and that can be a problem.
And then in the advanced stages where you, you get to multiple locations, inconsistent multiple multi-location performance is common.
Sometimes we get, you know, we have one main location that produces, say, seventy, eighty percent of the total collections for the entire practice, and the other one is, you know, barely doing anything.
That can be an issue. And then sometimes just a lack of financial understanding or visibility, clarity. It can be pricing. It can be just not understanding what's going on with finances.
It can be not understanding overhead effect- effectively. That can be an issue throughout the whole thing.
So your practice will not reach its next stage until its current primary bottleneck is honestly identified and directly addressed, right?
So that's the key, is finding out what's the i- the main issue that your practice is having, and then being able to address that and then address the next one and address the next one and so forth, so you can continue to move forward.
So this framework matters because growth can become predictable if you're asking the right questions.
But when you don't know your stage, you, you ti- you, you can just chase tactics that might not apply to you, and that can lead to wasted effort, it can lead to inconsistent results, it can r- lead to unnecessary frustrations.
And so the seven growth stages framework is, is really important so that you can ask the right questions.
So instead of asking questions like, you know, "What marketing should I do?" A better question is, "What does a practice at my stage need to do next?" Right?
And that's, that will give you clear priorities, so you can know exactly what to focus on, what to ignore, 'cause that's really important too. You gotta know what to say no to at your current stage.
And that will help you make better decisions. So you can stop second guessing.
You can make confident investments in the right help, the right tools, and the right strategies, because you'll know that this is what you need, and that will make it give you much faster progress.
Match support means fewer detours and a shorter path to your next stage. So the question becomes: What should you focus on right now?
With so many possible initiatives competing for your attention, the most powerful skill a practice owner can develop Is the ability to identify and act on the right priority, not just the loudest one, right?
'Cause this is gonna be common. You're gonna be like, "Oh, you know, oh, this is a problem. That's a problem. This..." Right?
So sometimes you hear it from your, your team or your patients or whatever. You might hear it from a colleague or whatever, but that may not be the thing that is most important for your practice.
So the questions you really wanna make sure you, you address is does it address the bottleneck? What's the major bottleneck in my practice right now?
Will this initiative directly resolve the greatest constraint at your current stage of growth? Are the prerequisites in place?
Do you have the team, the systems, the infrastructure needed to support the initiative that you need to do right now?
So for instance, if you have a, a, a desire to grow your practice, but you're in a, a solo practice, you're a solo doctor in practice growth stage two, and let's say, you know, you're, you're collecting, say, $50,000 a month in a, in a solo doctor practice and you have a four-week waiting list.
If you went and said, "You know what?
I, I think I need more new patients," and you started to address that and you, you got more new patients, you got more people coming in, your waiting list got longer, are you addressing the bottleneck?
No, of course not. The bottleneck is you need another doctor in the practice, right? Because you have a capacity issue. A waiting list is always a sign of a problem within a practice.
It's not a good thing. This is something that is, is misunderstood within chiropractic all the time, is a waiting list is not a good thing.
A waiting list is a sign that the practice is lacking the capacity to serve the community. And so what needs to happen?
Another doctor needs to be there with another schedule so that the overflow can be taken, and then you can invest in bringing and attracting more new patients into the practice. So that's the key.
In that case, the prerequisite is two doctors. If you don't have two doctors, then you can't address the bottleneck.
And so the other question to, to think about when you're looking at what should I focus on, is it, is it actually gonna advance our practice, or is it just gonna make us more busy, right?
'Cause we can get busy doing a lot of things that don't help us in life. So figuring out will this move the practice genuinely forward, or is it simply gonna add more activity without more progress?
So the only way to really identify priorities is to have a specific roadmap, so then you can be clear on what is the best next step for you and your practice.
'Cause what you want is the right systems at the right time. A healthy practice growth roadmap is not a checklist of everything.
It's a sequenced plan that ensures each system is installed at the moment it will create the greatest impact and return.
So, you know, early stage systems, maybe you may, if you, if you would go through a roadmap and you are able to identify, hey, you know what?
Maybe the biggest issue is we just don't have a clear mission, vision, values that's in front of us consistently. Let's start with that. Or maybe it's, you know, maybe it is patient attraction.
We just, we, we don't just, we just don't have enough n- new patients coming into the practice.
Or maybe it is consultation and conversion where you're, you know, where you're doing consultation exam report and people just aren't converting into care.
Or maybe it's the patient experience and retention. You're, you're getting patients in, but they're not staying long enough to really get the results that they need.
Or maybe it is appropriate pricing, meaning that you're just not charging enough, or you're not charging for everything that you're doing, or you're not doing consistent progress exams, or whatever it is.
There's lots of things as it related to that. You're not doing care plans. Uh, whatever it is, there's all kinds of early stage systems that could be identified with a good roadmap.
Or advanced state systems also can be identified w- through a good roadmap, meaning like what about team development and accountability? That may be a major issue.
It may be leadership infrastructure that, you know, it's you have a practice with, with a genius and a thousand helpers where it's just you, everybody is looking to you, and you don't have anybody else that, uh, has really ha- have been delegated authority to do anything.
Or maybe it's associate recruitment, right? Where you just can't consistently get associates into the practice to, to allow it to continue to grow.
Or maybe it is that you have, you know, you have a desire, a goal, or vision to, to open multiple locations, but you're, you know, you, you haven't either had two successful locations happen, or you don't have a good plan in place for that.
Or maybe it is just, you know, getting more things automated and scalable and, and streamlined is the major issue. The goal is not to implement everything.
The goal is to implement what your practice needs next. So let's talk about some real examples of applying a roadmap to a practice and what it's done to some practices.
So these are some of our clients who we've worked with with the Seven Growth Stages framework and how it's guided real practices to real measurable results.
Each of these doctors found their breakthrough by implementing what their stage required, not what everyone else was doing. So Dr.Gregory Jean-Pierre out of Florida, fantastic doctor, came to us about over 10 years into practice, was collecting about $10,000 a month.
That's practice growth stage one, solo doctor collecting less than $20,000 per month. We worked with him on his practice.
We worked with strengthening his foundation, installing the right growth systems, identifying what was needed for him through a clear roadmap analysis that we do, that we would, we would be able to continue to help him to understand what's his next best step all along the way.
And as we've been working together and consistently helping him, we've, we've go- he's gone from $10,000 a month to $50,000 per month, from practice growth stage one to practice growth stage two, and now he's ready to move into practice growth stage three, and we'll be helping him with associate recruitment here later in the year.
And so that is an example of going from practice growth stage one to two.
After 10 years of not figuring out exactly what is the best next steps to get out of that stage, he's been able to move through that stage and into the next one and, and stay there consistently now for several years.
Dr. Lin is another example. Dr. Pat Lin from Texas scaled from 500,000 to two million, moving from practice growth stage three into four, now has multiple associates. He's developed his team.
He's developed his leadership. He's developed the infrastructure to scale.
Another amazing example of moving through the stages with clear roadmap, clear guidance, and clear fuel to get him to where he wants to go.
And now we're working with him on opening his second location. He'll be doing that here near the end of the year be- or the beginning of 2027, and so he'll be moving into practice growth stage five.
Speaking of practice growth stage five, Dr. Miguel Flores expanded from when we first started working with him, got a clear roadmap in place. He was by himself in a single location.
Now he has two thriving locations with four doctors, and he's been able to reproduce leadership and systems beyond the original office.
He's gone from practice growth stage two all the way to practice growth stage five with a clear roadmap in place.
So the, the key to understand these, all of these situations is these practices do not, they didn't all use the same strategy.
They implemented what their stage required, and they took the right steps in the right order to move through a clear roadmap. So let's talk about how we do this.
What we use to help doctors move through these seven growth stages of upper cervical practice is our UCM Practice Growth memberships.
These are unified memberships that give you a simpler, more powerful way and path to practice growth.
Instead of piecing together separate tools, each membership tier bundles everything you need for your specific practice growth stage. So we have three tiers of membership depending on growth stage.
We have our Start membership, which is building that strong foundational toolkit, and then we have our Align membership, which accelerates growth with integrated tools, and then our Elite membership, which scales the practice with premium support.
And so these are all focused on different stages, different things that are needed, and they're custom-designed for your specific practice, even within the stages as well through our roadmaps.
So let's start with UCM Start. This is built for practice growth stage one.
It's designed f- specifically for practices in that, you know, collecting less than $20,000 per month, either with a doctor and a CA or just a doctor.
We can work with you to help you hire that first CA when the time is right. The key is building the right foundation so that everything else can follow from there. As I mentioned with Dr.
Gregory Jean-Pierre, that's where he started, and now he is, his practice is in a s- much healthier place, and he's ready to move into that practice growth stage three.
So UCM Start gives you the tools, the systems, and the support to build momentum and move to the next stage faster.
So what you'll focus on in this, with this membership tier is you're gonna get a clear path and a guide to help you create repeatable, predictable growth to practice growth stage two, 'cause that's the key.
We wanna get you out of stage one and into stage two. When you're collecting more than $20,000 per month with a, with a CA in the practice, in a solo practice, you can breathe a bit, right?
You can, you can start to feel like, "All right, I got this.
I'm moving in the right direction." When, when you're collecting, you know, $7,000 a month, 10,000, 12,000, whatever, it's very difficult to even breathe a lot of times.
You're in a really, uh, difficult situation to just get up and go to every morning, and it's, it's hard to stay motivated, and it's definitely hard to get out of it without a clear path and a guide, especially if you've been in it a long time.
The other thing with practice growth stage one is we've got to build momentum.
And so our Start membership is about establishing that right mindset, the daily rhythms, the habits, the systems that compound over time into a thriving practice.
And it's about building those foundational systems, right? Putting the right infrastructure in place so that growth doesn't collapse under its own weight.
So this, we get really clear with, with th- this through our roadmaps, so you, we, we know exactly how to guide you, and you know exactly what the path is to, to take to go from where you are to where you wanna go.
UCM Align. UCM Align is our next tier, uh, in our memberships. This is built for practice growth stages two and three.
It's designed for practices that have es- have established a baseline, and they're ready to accelerate, right?
So this is all about building that attraction engine, that team structure, that operational alignment that drives the fastest growth that most pa- practices will ever experience.
This is all about having the right patient acquisition systems, not just random marketing efforts, but the right types of patients, upper cervical specific patients, people looking for your kind of help.
Getting them to flow into the practice reliably and repeatably is a huge part of UCM Align.
Also working with the team, making sure that the team is growing, that they're building and developing and supporting the doctor, and doctors if you're in stage three with an associate, so that you can get consistent results and consistent and repeatable results in every aspect of the practice.
This is also about working on operational alignment, aligning your internal process so that growth is supported, not sabotaged, by how the practice runs day by day.
So again, the roadmap helps to identify what is missing and what needs to be done first, second, and so forth. Then you can scale collections.
When you increase revenue per patient and overall practice collections, you can do this without burning out the doctors if you have good solid systems in place.
So UCM Align is where many practices experience their fastest, most transformative growth, and that's for you if you're in practice growth stage two or three. And then UCM Elite.
UCM Elite is for the practice owner who has proven the model, and now they're ready to build something bigger. This is pr- for practice, practices in practice growth stage four, five, or six.
This is all about scaling and expanding, adding volume, locations, hiring associates, building leadership, and removing yourself as the bottleneck.
This is, uh, where you go from, you know, you, we can help you grow from one location to two locations, so forth. Like I was talking about with Dr.Len earlier, we're moving him from Align into Elite as he moves into two locations. And so to understand, these, these memberships are 20 years in the making.
20 years of studying and learning and being a practitioner within upper cervical practice to determine what works, what is needed at each one of these stages.
The UCM memberships provide a clear path, a guide, and the fuel to grow. So a clear path, meaning no more guessing your next move.
Our memberships give you a proven roadmap through every stage of practice growth, so you always know what to do next. We also provide you with knowledgeable guides.
More than just tools, our client success team helps you navigate the challenges with real-world wisdom and strategic clarity. And then the fuel to grow.
Patient attraction strategies that bring upper cervical specific new patients consistently into your practice, so you can keep the momentum alive, so your practice can achieve lasting results.
And so the first thing you may be asking is, "What stage am I in? I'm not quite sure." And we've got a tool for that. It's your, it's our practice growth score.
And so you can take this by going to ucmgrow.com/score, and that's gonna give you at least a, a snapshot of where you are with your practice.
It's designed for doctors that really want some clarity f- f- first of all, and so it's gonna help you identify your current stage, exactly which one of the seven growth stages your practice is in right now.
It's gonna help you evaluate some essential systems and help to start exposing some common bottlenecks.
It m- it's not gonna be as specific, obviously, as our roadmaps, but it's gonna give you some common bottlenecks, and so you can get some personalized results.
And so if you wanna do that, do that first, feel free. Go to ucmgrow.com/score. You can immediately get that score and get some insight into the practice. No cost. But if you say, "You know what? This is exactly what I need.
This is what I've been looking for.I've been looking for specific guidance and a specific clear path and the right fuel to get me to where I need to go, to go from the stage I'm in to the next stage," then the future starts today.
Every upper cervical practice grows through stages. The challenges you face today are real, doc, and they will change as you grow.
But the beautiful thing about our memberships is they will meet you right where you are. The question isn't whether you're gonna face new obstacles.
The question is whether you'll have the right roadmap and the right support when you do. And so if you wanna jump right in and say, "You know what?
I, I think one of these memberships is exactly what I need," then just go over to the website.
Go to ucmgrow.com/membership, and you can learn more about the memberships right there, ucmgrow.com/membership, and you'll, you'll be able to take immediate action, schedule a call with us, and start talking more about your specific practice and your needs.
The UCM memberships provide a clear path, a guide, and the fuel to grow. So don't wait. Go over there right now, ucmgrow.com/membership, and get started with a UCM membership today.
Thank you guys so much for being on this webinar today, and as we always say, go team upper cervical.
