Drs. Viscarelli & Hess can be contacted at: www.AMPEDNOW.com
Complete transcript (Click here to download this transcript):
Dr. Viscarelli: Hey guys, I’m Dr. Michael Viscarelli coming from beautiful golden Colorado. I’m just so grateful with my partner and co-founder, Dr. Jeremy Hess to be on this ChiroSecure video with you guys. We’re honored and privileged to be associated with such an amazing company, which I know that both of us utilize in our own personal practices for malpractice insurance.
As I said, we are co-founders of an organization called AMPED. Dr. Jeremy and myself along with our leaders, Dr. Eric Kowalke, Erik Brower and Jacob Sims created AMPED out of a necessity to serve the chiropractic profession, to help create critical mass by mentoring and masterminding with other chiropractors, helping them create the practices of their dreams wrapped around the principle of chiropractic so that we could cause a shift in the way and in the excellence in which chiropractic is viewed in the marketplace.
Dr. Hess: Yeah, you know Michael, it takes us back a couple years, AMPED is about five-years-old now, but I remember five, six years ago when Michael actually was opening up his practice and you had spent some time at our practice and at that time we were seeing 12, 13, 1,400 a week. People were starting to ask questions.
Then you opened and you blew up to 1,300 visits a week in a year, and then Brower and Kowalke and Sims, all these prodigies started blowing up. It was kind of like where did it all come from? We started getting so many questions. Now, five years ago it was text, Facebook messages, emails and it was kind of like we spent our evenings, remember we spent our evenings sometimes me and you were one-on-one with people. Like I want to do a dinner with Doc. How do you guys getting 30, 40 new ones a week?
How are you getting 30 people at your Doctor’s Report? So for a while we did it. We just did the calls. Finally our wives and, well, finally our adrenal glands and our wives were kind of like, I’m not sure what’s more taxing …
Dr. Viscarelli: [crosstalk 00:02:42].
Dr. Hess: … my adrenal gland or my wife. I think my adrenal glands. I don’t know if we have one or two adrenals glands. Adrenal gland is plural or singular. Either way …
Dr. Viscarelli: Be careful. Be careful.
Dr. Hess: But the truth is is that we finally said, “Hey, there’s got to be a better way.” That’s when we really sat down and said, “Let’s create a Mastermind. Let’s create …” That’s really when a lot of Facebook technology started coming up with Facebook Groups and secret groups and other technologies, which actually technology allowed for it. Google Hangouts, and then we started bringing, utilizing technology and bringing it all under one umbrella where we could speak to not just one or two people at once, we could speak to dozens and hundreds of chiropractors at once.
We said let’s form this Mastermind. Let’s start to like you said, really bring people into critical mass of chiropractic. I should get them moving in the right direction instead of a lot of the worn out chiropractic stuff that had been kind of kept being recirculated from the ’80s. Now the healthcare culture was so different, practice is different, the culture was different, people looking for different things, insurance had totally shifted in chiropractic, so we needed new methods and methodologies. That’s really where AMPED was birthed.
Dr. Viscarelli: Yeah, and I think where the revelation came from if you recall, was that we just I guess we didn’t realize how thirsty and hungry people were for what we had and what we were doing and to walk with people alongside them so that they could do the same. I think that we, I remember when we mastermind the creation and the curation of all the content and how it evolved from there so quickly and how excited people were to learn a new, young, relevant way wraparound the same principle of chiropractic that is timeless, that is unchanging and unwavering.
They were so hungry to find out how can they take that, utilize that great principle, make it relevant in the marketplace and bring total respect and excellence to the profession of chiropractic? We’re doing it. I mean we’re doing it. I think the recent statistics were over 55 practices this past year were opened that broke 100 visits in their first week all around the country. High profitability, high collections, not insurance-dependent, not bastardizing chiropractic with the improper codes so that those offices could collect more.
Those chiropractors getting out of their four walls that are practice, just serving their community on multiple fronts, not just in terms of sitting back and hoping people walk in their front door and that they get those couple new ones periodically so that they can sustain the volume. They’re out in their marketplace being involved in their community, creating a reputation so that they can leave a proper legacy for their personal name and for our profession, which is so awesome.
Dr. Hess: Yeah. That’s where the Jumpstart Program comes in. We sat down and we developed the Jumpstart Program because we knew there was such a need for that in chiropractic because it’s joyous to me and you and it’s exciting. We go hear the chiropractic greats, 30, 35, 40 years that have been practicing, we go to hear them speak at different whether philosophy night or this group or that group, and poured of chiropractic wisdom, right?
Get filled up in boldness and confidence and walking authority in chiropractic, but when it came to hey, how do I open a practice? How do I get my doors open? It was like from that, from someone who’s 35. 40 years out it’s like, “Well, just do it. They provide, just go hustle.” Those kind of answers.
Because I remember asking myself. It was like pat on the back. “Just go do it, Jeremy. Just go do it.” That’s where the Jumpstart Program, because we had a lot of young bucks like ourselves all around us asking questions because they gain that proverbial chiropractic wisdom, but they didn’t get the answers to how do I open in today’s marketplace? How do I do it in relevant style without pamphlets from 1981 and without posters from ’79 with not having a box in the wall. All these different strategies or just blowing through people’s co-pays and deductibles and those kind of things that a lot of people I hear from the ’80s and whatnot.
So practices differ and that’s where we birthed the Jumpstart Program. Also, how to develop lots of the mentorship model that we do because people need mentorship. Every time I see students graduate, we just went through this slew of graduation in December, right? I’m really close to Like University. I know you’re close to some of the schools out west, Palmer Davenport and Logan. I see them graduate and then I’ll see some of them that have been to some of our events and we’ve shook their hands and we’ve spent time with them.
Then they step out without any mentorship. Obviously we want them to be part of AMPED, but be part of something because you and I, we were just talking last week about a Mastermind that we want to join, right?
Dr. Viscarelli: Yeah, for us too. Yeah. [inaudible 00:07:51], sure.
Dr. Hess: They embark out and they go out and they think that they can do without mentorship. Man, you know? They’re just sorely mistaken when that happens.
Dr. Viscarelli: I’ll tell you it’s dangerous because even what I’ve learned young in practice, and I think that’s what made us so relevant, was that there’s so many different camps and tribes and coaching programs and such out there in chiropractic that have harmed a lot of people in a lot of ways. I think that chiropractic at large is very skeptical, they’re very cautious and I get that. That’s why we want to do it in a new and relevant way where we said it’s not about just your success. It’s not about just my success. It’s about the cumulative group and sharing ideas and saying this is wrapped around the principle of chiropractic.
There are some tried and true ways in terms of procedures within the practice that are utilized that are reproducible, they give you the infrastructure to carry the volume, allow you to also have a very fruitful home life and freedom while having a very healthy and supportive team and it allows you to do it in such a way that it’s wrapped around your vision of practice, right? Your style, who you are, your culture, right?
But always, always infused with the principle of chiropractic. I think that when we did it we said we don’t want them locked into anything. We want them to freely come and freely go based upon whether they want to be a part of it or not. So not having contracts, not having it wrapped around one guy that did it in the Mercedes ’80s, you know what I mean? Wrapped around high insurance returns. That’s not what it is.
None of us are insurance-dependent. We’re not personal injury clinics. We’re not milking insurance companies. We’re focused on the principle of chiropractic bringing value for our community so they say, “You know what? Absent of whether I have insurance or whether I have good insurance, I’m still going to pay out of pocket because I see the value in it.” Allowing that Mastermind to answer questions, facilitate growth for everybody that’s involved and saying, you know what? You may like me but you may resonate a little more with so and so. Or you may have a technique that’s more aligned with this guy’s practice and so yes, we can answer that question because he does pure [inaudible 00:10:17] in his theater rooms.
Or this guy has resting stations because he’s pure upper cervical or that guy over there does fluoroscopy because he or she is one of the largest purest practices in the world. We have all of that within our program so that it can help answer questions and facilitate growth. It doesn’t matter what the technique is. We always say we’re not technique-specific, but we’re specific in our techniques because that’s important and that is chiropractic.
So we can support and facilitate growth for all sorts of different camps in chiropractic when it comes to technique and philosophy, but let me say this, I think the very best thing about AMPED, I think the very best thing that we’ve been able to do and create as a culture within our tribe is that our goal is not to just support, advance AMPED, our goal is to support and advance principle chiropractic.
We support those universities that stand for chiropractic. We support those companies like ChiroSecure that support chiropractic. We support those organizations and associations that advance and defend and protect the policies politically for chiropractic. Of course we advance and support research so that we can continually grow the impact of chiropractic globally. I think that that’s what makes us very, very unique.
You know what’s caused is a lot of copy cats, and I’m okay with that because it’s copy cats in a lot of good directions. There’s been a lot of copy cats said oh, we’re moving to a Mastermind because it’s trendy now that we’ve done this in chiropractic, we’ve created the largest Mastermind, the largest movement within chiropractic when it comes to such a thing, right Hessy? Of course it’s caused a lot of copy cats where we’ve heard a lot more chatter of people saying, “Oh yeah, we’re supporting this.”
I’ve seen organizations that were kind of on the downward slide start to revamp themselves and get more involved with supporting the universities that support chiropractic that other companies, the other organizations and that’s a good thing. It’s creating critical mass in that realm as well, and I think that’s a good thing.
Dr. Hess: Yeah, that’s an awesome thing. You know another aspect that AMPED that is a strong point for us and something that a lot of the groups over time really didn’t pay much attention to is the student-base. AMPED currently has 10 active chiropractic college clubs. So we’re on 10 different campuses. We’re feeding the students. The club is obviously free so we have docs coming in their whether via technology or actually physically come in and we personally visit each of the 10 campuses twice a year through our Launch Program.
So we’re feeding back to the student body because we know that we want to train up a child the way they should go, right? So they’ll never part from it and you want to get to them young so we can train them before they go out into practice. We’re all about helping chiropractors currently in practice, but our sweet spot and the spot we really love because in order to get that revolutionary change we want in chiropractic, it’s really coming back and feeding into the students, mentoring them, making sure they’re getting setup correctly, making sure they’re making proper decisions at the right times so they can execute with excellence in their communities.
Because you know still too many students graduating and some of it is for a lot of different reasons, some of them because they simply don’t want to make the right decisions or are distant. They’re not realizing what’s going on, but some, they still don’t know that there’s an option like AMPED and the Jumpstart Program to actually open up successfully, so nothing better than actually seeing students and their spouses go to a community, stake their flag, stake their territory, right? Outreach in that community, open up with 150, 200 people, that ribbon cutting and just never stop growing.
That momentum, it’s good for chiropractic. It’s obviously good for them. It’s good for the community. Man, it’s financially solid for the profession of chiropractic because that’s what we need. We need finances so we can support the organization we love so we can see chiropractic trend forward in the direction we want.
Dr. Viscarelli: That’s right. I think that the biggest thing is with those students, as you said, raise up a child in the way in which they should go, it’s a lot easier than resuscitating old dead chiropractors that are stuck in their ways, that believe that it just can’t be done because they haven’t don’t it before.
But when these young students see their friends and their classmates and people that are at other campuses coming out, opening these beautiful practices and doing it on a proper budget, getting funding and lending, learning exactly all the ins and outs of running and opening and running that business and hiring and training staff and such, it gives them, it gives them a glimpse. They say, “Man, I want that and I believe because they can do it, I can do it.”
The Jumpstart Program has brought clarity from that transition period of being a student sitting in those seats through that demographic study, lease negotiations, city permitting, contracts, contractors, that marketing push, all the way to the ribbon cutting and onward and upward. It brings clarity where there’s doubt. It brings clarity where there’s uncertainty. It brings clarity where there’s unknowns. It answers a lot of questions, and when you have clarity, it gives you confidence and when you have confidence, it backs up your passion. When you have passion, you’re going to do what it takes to make that dream a reality.
So when you’re seeing these young practices open and kick butt, I’ll tell you what, Hessy, it is really, really rewarding not just for that person, not just for us in AMPED, but for our profession at large. I’ll tell you guys, if you’re interested in learning more, if you’re interested in being a part of a movement that is wrapped around the principle of chiropractic, pure excellence and supports our profession that we love so much and want to see it advance, I’ll tell you what, you need to visit AMPEDNow.com.
You can message us through the website, you can hit us up on Facebook, you can find me at MichaelViscarelli on Facebook, you can find him at Jeremy-AmandaHess on Facebook, you can message us there, you can reach out through ChiroSecure if you wish or hit us on the website. It’s our goal to see if we are a good fit for you and you’re a good fit for us, that we can mastermind and facilitate growth so we can keep moving this principle of chiropractic that we love so much forward.
Speaker 3: This has been a ChiroSecure production.