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Welcome to Look to the Children for September hard to believe, uh, September already, uh, of 2021. Uh, my name is Dr. Eric Kowalke. I own a private practice in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Our office offices, Higher Health Chiropractic. Uh, this show is, is put on by ChiroSecuree, Dr. Stu Hoffman. Uh, they give so much back to this profession. Uh, also have amazing insurance options for chiropractors. We use them, uh, for our clinic and all of our docs, uh, that are associated with it. So thanks to Dr. Stu Hoffman for, for putting these on. And, um, I love doing this show because I love pediatric chiropractic care. I love seeing kids and families get adjusted. And, um, my, uh, mission with this is hopefully I can give you guys some stuff in the next 20 minutes that you can take back to your practice. If you’re a practicing chiropractor or a CA or a spouse of a, of a chiropractor to implement, to see more kids that impact more families lives.
Um, so who am I speaking about this? We just celebrated 10 years in practice. So I graduated from life university in 2011, uh, and opened our office in grand rapids, Michigan. And we started with 1300 square feet. We saw a thousand a week out of that office, uh, 40% kids in, in that practice, probably 90% families. Uh, and then we grew to 2,600 square feet, and now we’re in 44, 4500 square feet, 16 adjusting tables, five associate docs, uh, 13 team members and operations manager, a couple more locations, we’re opening another one, uh, adjusting only clinic on September 13th. We’re super excited for. Um, and so we’re just constantly expanding, getting better learning new ways to impact more people and, uh, do it efficiently and have a ton of fun with it. So, uh, that’s who I am. And so I want to share a few things with you today.
Um, if you saw, if you follow me on Facebook, uh, you’ll saw you saw some videos we’ve recently, uh, decorated out of minivan with 260,000 miles. We’ve raced in the local county fair, uh, to advertise our office. Of course. And I got to do the racing and off-road Derby in, uh, in, uh, 2001 Pontiac silhouette, which was amazing. So, uh, check it out. Eric Cole, he DC, or Dr. Eric walkie Facebook page. I’ve got a helmet cam video in there. You gotta, you gotta see, it’s amazing. Uh, if you have questions during this, please ask questions. I can see them on the screen. Probably if you ask some questions and I’ll be able to answer, uh, I’d love to answer your questions. If you don’t have any questions, just say hi, so I can see that you’re there and somebody is listening. Uh, I can’t see anybody on this.
I’m just talking to myself. So, um, for all I know, I’m the only one that’s gonna see this. So if you’re watching, uh, say hi, just post something in the comments, I know you’re there. Um, but three steps, really what I want to give you today of creating, to create clarity around lifetime family care, lifetime family, chiropractic care for kids and families. Clarity is the big word there because every mom that brings their child in, uh, is thinking something different. You know, they’re either thinking, I don’t know about this. Somebody told me I’ve tried everything else, and this is the last resort, but I’m really skeptical or they’re thinking, uh, you know, I don’t want to be part of the crazy palette pal pathic system. And I want to try a different approach and maybe they’re really warm. Uh, maybe they only see chiropractic as something for kids and they don’t see it for adults, or they see them selves see a chiropractor.
And they learned about you and you specialize in kids. So they’re actually bringing their kid to you instead of the, whoever else is that they see there’s all these different scenarios. And so number one in all of your interactions to market and to, to generate referrals and, um, is just to give value, value, value, wherever you can. And so I think it’s a misconception, or maybe just like a business fault of chiropractors that, uh, we tie everything to a dollar amount. And so a new patient or prospective mom or kid can’t even get to us without paying something. And that’s okay. You know, most of the time that happens in our clinic, but if a mom calls her wants information, uh, provide value to them, talk to them, tell them what it is that you do. Tell them, uh, you know, answer their questions and start to change their perspective, um, around what it is that you do in your office and why it’s so important to get every kid checked.
I believe every single kid needs to get their spine checked. Uh, and I believe every single kid would be healthier if they did get their spine checked. And I believe our society as a whole would be healthier if all of our kids are getting checked. And by the time they become adults, they’re healthy adults like you and I are. And our families are, um, I was just, before this show, we have probably 21 kids at our house right now there’s three families, um, that are visiting that my wife is hosting. And so at any moment, a couple of them might run in the door and jump on this call. But out of those 21 family of 21 kids, um, none of them have ever I’ve ever had an over the counter medication. None of them had, have had prescription drugs. None of them had, have had antibiotics.
Uh, that’s just part of raising a healthy lifestyle. So if we could convert more people to live like that, um, we’re going to have a healthier universe. And so it’s a big thing, but we need all of you to be part of that to you. And so hopefully you’re on board with that, but adding value. So through marketing, uh, add actual value when you’re doing your, your, uh, Facebook lives or you’re doing your marketing, give them resources and that, that would bring value to their life. Like, what do you do if a kid has an ear infection, you know, what are your go-to things? If your kid wakes up at 2:00 AM and has a sore throat, I use a product by a it’s called a Barlow herbal VAR, low herbal, her Bal it’s called their throat spray. They have this little medium extract throat spray.
That’s amazing. It’s the only like real staple, I guess we have a lot, but, uh, if your kid wakes up at two in the morning has a sore throat. All you want to do is go back to sleep. This is like the go-to here, spray this in your throat and go to sleep. And then you can go back to sleep as a parent and figure out what to do in the morning, you know, do they need to get adjusted yet? Do you feel like it doesn’t limit you in the morning? Probably not. You’re probably not gonna give them the best care. So here’s some Barlow herbal throat spray, uh, you know, so you could do a whole educational workshop on, you know, sore throats and fevers, for example, where it’s just free for people to come, or you’re doing it online and you’re just giving value away.
So whatever you feel like you’re passionate about and your specialty is, and you could connect that to kids and, and pediatric chiropractic care. You might need to talk about, you know, nutrition or, or, you know, common three common snacks. You could give your kids that, uh, are somewhat healthy and provide actual nutrition to them that they could take to school. Like that would be an amazing, you’d probably get a ton of moms to show up. Imagine if you advertise a workshop on how to give your kids healthy snacks, that they enjoy to school, and then you tie that back around into a healthy nervousness that at the end of it, and why it’s important to get checked, um, nervous systems evaluated, you know, w if you ask the average parent, you know, how, how was the nervous, how was your child’s nervous system functioning?
They’re not going to have any answer for you because they didn’t even know that the nervous system was a thing is let it alone. That there was a way to see if it’s functioning well or that it could function better or worse. It’s not even a concept that I’ve ever even heard of before. So by adding value, you do number two, which is shift and change their belief system. So this is what we call it, our new patient orientation or our doctor’s report, or your workshop, or if it’s a group session for us, that every person that comes in our office attends within their first week of starting care. And the whole point of this is to change their belief system. And this is amazing in this class, seeing their reaction to, you know, this is back, remember Reggie gold, uh, that’s like his bread and butter, his workshop. That’s what he did. Like, I bet you if he was here today and we interviewed him and said, Hey, what, what were the, you know, if you could only do one thing in your practice, what would it be? The guarantee you, he say the workshop because you could literally transform people’s belief systems. Um, do they attend live or, oh, we do it live, but depending on where
You live right now, maybe you have to do it. Virtual.
A virtual shop would be cool, too. Uh, you just kind of engage. The key is engagement. The why workshops are so great, because you can engage. You can ask questions, you can wait and pause and let them respond. Like something like this. If it’s one way I can’t see your reaction, I can’t see if you’re asking questions. I can’t see if you’re raising your eyebrows or not. So you’ve got to engage people if you can do that through a virtual format. Awesome. Fantastic. Go for it. Um, but you’re, you’re changing their beliefs that some of what they’ve always thought was one way, most people don’t think that treating symptoms is not the right way to go. They don’t know that if your kid has a fever, you shouldn’t give them Tylenol. They’re like, well, they’re sick. I’m making them better by giving them Tylenol. They have a headache.
I’m making them better by giving them aspirin or ibuprofen or their nose is congested. So I’m making them better by giving them cleric, Claritin, or all of these other medications, or, um, you know, my baby spitting up. I’m making them better because a parent naturally wants to make their child. They want to do what they, you know, innately know to make their child better and healthy. They just been tricked that making them healthy is an absence of symptoms. When we all know that’s not really the case, uh, their body’s expressing health, which is really good. And there’s a reason for a fever. And there’s a reason for a stuffy nose and sneezing and coughing and diarrhea. And there’s a reason for all of those symptoms. Uh, and kids will get better faster if you don’t suppress the symptoms and you enhance their body to heal itself from the inside out.
But most parents just talking about that, it’s like, hold on a second. You don’t do this. You don’t give your kids this. You don’t do that well, aren’t they just miserable and what do you do for them? And then, then it opens the door. But now, you know, they’re thinking differently. You’re changing their belief system around I’m. Most parents never even thought that way. And the friends around them and the people around them have never even challenged them to think differently, or they just thought you were crazy because nobody’s ever explained it in a way that made sense. And maybe the people that talk like that were crazy. And now they’re looking at you as a professional doctor saying the same thing that the crazy people were saying before. They thought we’re crazy. Like maybe this isn’t so crazy anymore, you know? Uh, and so this is so fun because you, you transform their belief system, you transform how they raised their kids, how they treat themselves, uh, you know, you get them thinking totally differently.
And you’re literally going to transform their life. So shift and change. Their belief system is probably the biggest thing you could do as a chiropractor, uh, when you’re seeing new families and especially to get them to like, even have the concept of lifetime family chiropractic here is like, why would you even do that? You’ll never even get to that point if they don’t change their belief system and, and believe in a natural way of healing and that the body is powerful and the body has the ability to heal itself is the first step. And so, however your system works. If you’re not doing a workshop or a group, you’ve got, gotta do some other way, got to transmit that information and get them to really understand what it is that you do outside of symptom relief. And so you want us, you really want to stay out of just treating the symptoms like, you know, they’d come in for an earache.
And so you’re adjusting them to get rid of the earache. Well, you’re adjusting them to improve the function of the body. That’s going to, you know, resolve earache, the adjustment itself, isn’t resolving the earache. So if you take credit for you are fixing the earache, then you’ve got to take credit for when you don’t fix your URI, but it just ties you into this symptom, you know, fix this with, you know, chiropractic care is just fixing the symptom instead of talent or fixing the symptom. And, and they’ll never really understand, and they’ll never come forever and they’ll never bring it your kids to get checked for just wellness adjustments. They’ll only bring them for sick care and it’s the same thing for adults. And so you just got to always be in that mindset, because the easy thing you is to just treat the symptom with an adjustment, you know, your back hurts.
I’m going to adjust it and you can feel better. You’re you have an earache, I’m gonna adjust it in your ear. It’s gonna feel better. Uh, that’s easy. Cause it doesn’t take very much education. Cause they came in for that. It takes a lot of effort and education to change their belief system. So there’s not as many chiropractors that really want to take on the task of changing their belief system. But I can tell you, uh, a practice that does that is so fun to be a part of the first family that ever started in our office in 2011, it’s still under care in our office today. The one of the guys I signed up at a screen event I did in 2011, the very first one I did. I signed up 13 people, him and his family still come into the office to this date, the screening I ever did because I just shared the principal chiropractic the principle of the body heals itself.
You know, I gave him all of the information that I know that makes me passionate about what it is that I do. I delivered it at a workshop when they first started care back then we called it the doctor’s report. Right? Most of the time they’re going, couldn’t remember what the heck I said, they’re just going to remember how I made them feel well, as I communicated that information across to them, they’re like, man, that guy was so passionate about it. He cared so much. I, it makes sense to me, I’m going to trust him and do what he tells me to do. And in turn, obviously it works cause they’re still here 10 years later. Um, and so there’s just so much value in that, but I don’t need to create it. I’m not constantly re-educating them anymore. You know, they’re not coming in because, uh, they have symptoms anymore.
They’re coming in because they know they want to stay healthy. They want them nervous system to function as best that it can. And they know chiropractic care, locates and finds vertebral subluxations that causes interference to the nervous system and decreases the ability their brain to communicate to their body and heal itself from the inside out. And you know, they’re on a lifetime wellness plan. Like so many of the people we are and it makes it fun to show up and just care for these people. It’s a very light, fun atmosphere, which is why we can see 1500 people in a week now, very efficiently. It doesn’t even feel stressful, uh, because most people are coming in just like that. So that’s number two. Number one was add value, value, value, uh, on the front end, as much as you can. Uh, even if it’s on marketing through Facebook or social media, Instagram number two is you have to shift and change their belief systems.
Now this is creating lifetime family. That’s what we’re talking about. You have to change your belief system. If you want lifetime families, number three is equip them for what’s coming in in the environment. I can’t tell you, uh, much what else you can do that would build trust so fast. And for so long is if you’re already telling them what’s going to happen outside of your office before it happens. So if they’re going to go to a PT here, they’re going to go to a pediatrician with some condition, or they’re going to go to the ER for something you already know what’s going to happen. You know, guy goes to the ER for back pain. He’s going to get, he’s probably not even gonna get x-rays. He’s going to get a muscle. Relaxer is going to get pain. Medication is going to send home and say heat.
It probably just keep eating it. And so if you tell them these things ahead of time, and then they go there and that’s exactly what it said, or you don’t be careful, your pediatrician might tell you don’t get your baby adjusted after it’s born. You know, you should never do that. You should just, you know, see an osteo. Like there’s no reason most things could happen. So if you’re prepping them ahead of time, and then that happens, they’re going to be like, oh my gosh, Dr. Eric told me that’s exactly what this guy was going to say. Or, you know, with all the craziness around the viruses that are out there right now, what can you do to keep your kid healthy? What are they going to tell you? Uh, when you’re traveling, this is what to expect. You know, you gotta prep them because nobody else is.
You’ve got to give them information on, Hey, this is what’s coming. So this is what you should expect to be explained to you. But let me just give you the other thought process on this. They’re going to tell you X, Y, Z, but you need to think about it from an ABC standpoint when they see it that way. And so just question everything, question me and what I’m telling you. Go look at it. I’m not, you know, don’t take my opinion, uh, you know, for free, do your research, look it up. Like here’s some information you could back it up. I’m just asking you to do the same thing in this scenario. You’re about to go into whether it’s in a school environment or you’re traveling or whatever, or you hear on the news or like, you know, things coming, different variants and all kinds of stuff.
Hey, just give you a heads up. This is probably what’s coming down the road, uh, that will build just so much trust in you where you’re going to be the guy that they come to. And if you’ve been doing this this whole, last year, you already know, uh, this is what happens. Is every time they hear something from a friend or news or family or whatever, you’re the person they come to. It’s like, Hey, this is what I heard. What do you think about that? You know, because they’re like, is it there’s one person I could ask our norm and it gets a straight answer. It’s my chiropractor. And they might not tell everybody that, but they’re coming to you and like, Hey, I need to know your thought on this. Um, that’s the place you want to be because you can constantly, you know, you’re, you’re changing their belief system.
So you’re taking them off road a and you’re putting them on road B when you change their belief system. But they’re constantly being pulled back to road a, because they’ve been like, you know, that’s, that’s been their road for their whole life up to this point. So you’re, you’re, you’re keeping them on road B. You know, they eventually, they, they hear stuff about rock road a and why road B’s bad and road is good. And so, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re just constantly keeping them on road a on road B and you’re, you’re educating them along the way and preparing them, Hey, this is what’s going to happen. They’re going to try to get you to go back to the road. Hey, because of this, they’re gonna try to tell you this and you just keep educating them. And then eventually they start bringing people on road B.
You know, they start pulling people over from rotate a road B, and then those people end up coming back into your practice, which is why I think 65% this year. So far, all of our new patients, uh, which we usually see a thousand a year are referrals, internal referrals from other people, because there’s so much power when somebody changes their beliefs at some, they aren’t the same person they were before. They don’t think about it the same way. And so everybody around them in their influences, like since, when do you talk like that? Since, when do you think like that? Since, when are you having these kinds of conversations or you’re crazy? What are you talking about? And then they can back it up. They’re going to say, I learned this from Dr. Eric. I learned this from Dr. Ben. Uh, you need to go talk to him and they see sick kids, and they’re going to think what they probably need to get adjusted.
Have they seen a chiropractor? You need to go take them to a chiropractor because this is what I know those are the conversations are having. Uh, and especially this time of year, everybody gets sick into the fall, you know, flu season. Isn’t just like show up every fall it’s but kids are back in school. They’re not sleeping as well. They’re not eating as well. You know, Halloween’s coming. So they’re all piling up on sugar. Everybody’s going to get sick after Halloween. It’s just the environment that we’re in. You know, sun’s down vitamin D levels drop all of these reasons why people get sicker in the fall and the winter time it’s coming. You just start educating about that stuff before it comes. And people start to think like, I’ve never, I just thought the fall flu shows up every October and you know, it goes away all summertime.
Well, it’s really there the whole time, but your body just responding, reacting differently to it because of the environment that you’ve created or are creating currently by the choices that you make. Um, and this is why nervous system is so important. And so it’s just always educating and being that rock where they know I can trust this office and this person. And so that’s what creates lifetime families. That’s what creates families that, uh, refer more and more people into your clinic and we’ll just come forever and makes your practice super fun. So if you’re a new office transitioning into something like this, it’s so awesome to build it from the start. If you’re an existing office and you’ve been doing it differently, uh, you just do one change, one thing at a time, just do one more thing, a little bit more education, one more workshop, one more online, educating people.
Um, and then you’ll just see, you’ll see the fruits from that over and over and over and over again, but it creates a super fun environment. So thanks again. Hopefully you got something out of this. Uh, I love chiropractic care. I love seeing kids. Um, oh, what is it? Our adjusting only clinic. Yeah, our, our concept we created is we have a hub, our main office that sees tons of people and has all of the, you know, the little bit of insurance that we take and all of our evaluations and digital x-ray suite and everything is in that clinic. But we see people from a huge range, a family drives from Canada to see us, which is like nine hours away. Um, but there’s people that live half hour, 40 minutes away. They come to our office. There’s a lot of people, they know that live by them, that aren’t willing to come to our office.
And so we’re building satellite clinics around our main clinic that are adjusting only clinics. So they’re going to be open 12 to 15 hours a week. People can go in there, we’re open before school, after school, they can come in and families come in and get adjusted in and out. And then they go back to the main clinic for all their evaluations and x-rays and other stuff. So, um, we do something similar right now. We call it our power hour on Saturdays. We’re only open for an hour. Now I have a power hour and a half. Is that what it turned into? But there’s no special appointments. There’s no new patients. It’s just adjusting only. It’s so fun. You can see a ton of people in a short amount of time, um, very casual atmosphere. So that’s how these offices, culture and environment is going to set up.
It’s just families and people coming in and getting adjusted, um, super easy. We don’t have to go over all the complicated stuff. We’re leaving all of that in the main clinic that we have the whole team trained to do and all the resources there. Uh, instead of trying to recreate that multiple times, um, we’re trying to do this. So, uh, you guys keep tuning in over the next year. You’ll, you’ll, I’ll keep sharing with you how it’s going. If you have any questions, reach out to me, Dr. Erik Kowalke, Higher Health chiropractic. Um, yeah. I look to the children as another show. The third Thursday of every month is Dr. Monika Buerger. She’s amazing, uh, brings tons of information practical on how you can improve your skill set around adjusting, taking care of kids. Um, we also created an app SKED app, if you know me or heard of that, uh, it allows patients and parents and families to manage their appointments and get into your office more frequently and stick to their recommendations and show up to their appointments through an app on their phone. That is basically your office custom office app. That’s a monthly fee that you pay that gives all your patients access to that increases your reviews and your SEO and drives more new patients. It’s amazing. So, uh, if you haven’t checked that out, it’s www.life. L I F E again, thanks Dr. Stu for hosting this show in Paris secure for all that you do for the chiropractic profession, uh, until next time go adjust some more kids and families. And we’ll see you guys, the first Thursday of October later,
Pediatric children was brought to you by ChiroSecure.