Dr. Lee A. Newman is a second-generation Chiropractor and a June 1986 graduate of Life University, School of Chiropractic in Marietta, GA. Dr. Lee practiced hands-on for 24 in the Southside community of Pittsburgh, PA establishing one of the largest practices in the area.

In order to reach even more people with the Chiropractic message Dr. Lee has worked with associate doctors since 1988 and helped them to establish and successfully purchase 16 offices since 1997.

Dr. Lee has also worked with hundreds of clients helping them grow to over 200 visits a week becoming Chiropractic Warriors. Many have then gone on to the next step of integrating associates into their practices successfully.

Being a second-generation DC, Dr. Lee has been around the profession his entire 60+ years. “I was the kid whose school nurse needed permission to give me an aspirin”, remembers Dr. Lee. I can also remember my father’s 25th reunion at Logan College in St. Louis in 1974. (1959 Grad)

As a wealth of knowledge on being a successful clinician and business person, Dr. Lee is eager to speak to any DC wishing to grow their practice.

TRANSCRIPT

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  You made it to Chiro Hustle! Sit back and learn from the greatest influencers in the profession on the world's number one chiropractic podcast. Before we dive into this powerful episode, please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling.

This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, Align Life, Brain-based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic.  LET’S HUSTLE !!!

LUKE MILLETT (PRODUCER):  Hey guys, welcome to episode 539 of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. I'm your producer, Luke Mullett, and here's your host, James Chester.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  So today we have the opportunity of interviewing Dr. Lee Newman. If you want to hear a conversation about mindset and practice growth with associates, stay tuned. Welcome back to this another episode of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. They have Dr. Lee Newman coming on. Really excited for this episode 539. I always joke around, but I say, can you guys believe that I can? Actually, we turned six years old, July 4th. Pretty cool. I'm really excited for the show that we've been producing, and Dr. Lee Newman is going to share with us today. Concepts on mindset. I think that a big takeaway from people will be practice growth associates, which is a program that he offers, and then Money Mastery. I think that there's a lot of things when people talk about chiropractic. I know when I first started going to chiropractic events, there are a couple faux pas. People are like, you can't talk about money, you can't talk about patient value. I'm like, why not? That's chiropractic business. We're going to talk about some of that stuff today. Before we get into this episode, I'm going to let people know our big why. Why do we do what we do? Well, the First Amendment is important. We've never censored anyone on this. The First Amendment means freedom of speech. That's really a value add is we stand in the gap and allow people to share their truth, specifically about chiropractic. We also support and believe in medical health freedom and family health freedom. They're not the same things. Everyone involves your family. What involves you? I think that in order to understand those things, we have to understand chiropractic and how chiropractic plays a role to both of those. Then philosophically standing, we protect and believe in BG Palmer's last words. That is the sacred trust. Please protect the sacred trust. If you don't know what that means, go to your favorite search engine right now and go and find BG Palmer's last words. You're going to learn so much more about chiropractic than you previously did. Then as it goes on, we do support the Subluxation Base Chiropractor, which I think should not have to be said. We do have to say that because some of the schools are converting out of the languaging of this beautiful profession. Then two more of them. Actually I spoke over in England, Dr. Lee. They said you can say anything you want or you can talk about chiropractic, but you can't talk about inate intelligence or universal intelligence. Otherwise, you won't be allowed back to the university. I said, okay. Just want to let you guys know that the school asked me not to speak about inate intelligence or universal intelligence, so we'll get that out of the way. We do believe that when a man or woman in the physical gets adjusted, it connects them the physical to the spiritual, which is universal intelligence. With that being said, Dr. Lee Newman, welcome to the show.

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you having me. Let me just start off by thanking you and acknowledging you as one of the very few people that is supportive to the profession. It's one of my rants. It's why docs that we need to do it for ourselves because no one else will do it for us. Jim has spent now his professional career assisting the practicing chiropractor and think about how rare that is. I want to acknowledge and thank you.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  In a career where not many people acknowledge or see or approach, I really appreciate that because it's been, once again, I'll be in my 15th year. As an advocate and a non-cairpractor, I knew that there was something special about this profession. I said, if I can just start getting more content out to the general public, how do we do that? I was like, well, make some movies, go out there and do sales, make a podcast. We're definitely riding the wave and I think that it's just going to get better and better for chiropractic. Awesome. So second generation chiropractor, you've been doing this thing for quite some time. How was it for you growing up in a chiropractic family?

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  I think that it was very interesting on several different fronts. So first, I went to public schools, but I was the kid where the nurse knew that she couldn't just give me an aspirin or it was weird or my 10th grade chemistry teacher, he was the guy that asked, why don't I want to be a real dog? I need a special permission from the high school guidance counselor to be able to take classes at the University of Pittsburgh my senior year and she personally knew my father and gave me a hard time. So it was a standout, it was a one off. At the same time, the time that I spent in my father's office, it was a tremendous lesson mostly through osmosis of just watching him take care of person after person after person and even back in the 70s, the goal was to see 100 people a day, five days a week. In fact, we ate dinner at five o'clock every night and on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, my father would go back to the office for the 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. shift. And so this was before any type of insurance existed and I remember back to $4 adjustments and I absolutely remember $7 adjustments. I just turned 60 so I've been in it since I was conceived but have active memories into the early 70s. In fact, I can remember going to Logan, my father's a 59 graduate of Logan, he went to his 25th reunion in 1974 and I was at that and I went to many continuing ed seminars with him. So it was an interesting childhood. But it led me, how I ended up, after Little League didn't work out and I joke about it but it's true and I wasn't going to be a major league baseball player, there was nothing else I wanted to be. And because I accelerated my education, I was graduated and then in my own practice by myself, I was 23 and that was 37 years ago in two weeks. So that office which is still running will start its 38th year in two weeks and that was July of 1986.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, from historical context to what is the date today, the 27th of June 2023, you've helped transition and sell 16 practices during that time and I know one of the things that you do is help with associates. So let's talk to people about that unique thing that you do when it comes to helping chiropractors establish longevity of their careers.

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  So here's what I believe is that A, you should create something that's worth replicating and in the real world, I define that as a 200 visit a week practice, if you're good at algebra like me, 50 weeks of 200 is 10,000 visits a year and so it makes the math easy and so if you were to collect $60 a visit, that would be $600,000 a year and more or less depending on what you collect per visit but let's use 60 as a low medium number and so that's certainly worth something worth reproducing. And so at that point, if you're that doc, I think that there's basically three main challenges. One is working with the right docs and that is the entire, I don't want to say game, but it's the entire issue with successfully working with associates. So being able to find an interview more than just the random person occasionally to create a recruiting system that you're speaking to multiple docs kind of all the time and to take them through a interview process that you have a much higher certainty on of whether this candidate is the doc that you're looking to work with. I would argue that there are many different types of anything, different types of docs and it doesn't mean that those docs can't be successful elsewhere but the docs that you have the ability to work with successfully and help, I think, I call it Mr. Propate Ed, what's the right ears and mouth and nose or the right characteristics of your associates? For example, how do they take care of patients? Generically speaking, how many visits do they think the average patient needs before supportive or maintenance care, right? It connects them geographically into your area and you can make a lifestyle argument for any area depending on preferences, right? Three is, again, how they work in a team and in an environment to make it all happen. So hiring the right docs. The second major challenge is how do we train the docs and I believe that there is a reproducible system for anybody in the practices for both docs and CAs to learn how to do each and every task. And so it's a matter of identifying what the necessary tasks are and then creating a standard operating procedure that we can teach to this case associates. For example, how do you do a day one? How do you do a regular office visit? What should that look like? The thing that we're going to do dozens, hundreds of times a day, and a 200 visit a week practice, you're probably going to have a day near 50 visits a day once a week at least. And so how do we do that without breaking the system? What are the standard operating procedures and making that happen? Third, right? The third major challenge is proper management. And again, I would encourage any business owner, certainly the chiropractic practice business owner, the practicing chiropractor that owns his or her own practice, you should read the e-myth revisited by Michael Gerber. Briefly stated, he says all small business people are entrepreneurs. We've invested our time, effort, money and expect a return that were technicians, in our case, being the doctor. And then third, being the business manager, and I would argue that it is the business manager that we were never taught to be that is our weakest skills. And so how can we connect our mission, changing the world once fine and nervous system at a time? How can we connect that to my six most important tasks today? So what's the vision? What's the goals? What's the battle plan? What's got done yesterday? And what are we focused on today? And so to have this management in place so that day after day, week after year after year and now decade after decade to service large numbers of people to change communities and to change the world once fine and nervous system at a time.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Well I really love the strategic plan and how you have been able to help multiple docs, build their careers and build their businesses and understand their roles within that. I guess I have a couple questions about growth. Number one I guess is about bringing on staff and not only that but the associate. Do you believe in the old tried and true statement of higher slow and fire fast?

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  Yes and so I have a Newman axillary right and so I am sure it is not new news that the world of chiropractic management has this common knowledge and like you know there's a one day, two day, four day, three day new patient intake. Genearically it's all the same and I would argue mastering any can lead to success but each of us have contributed individual new into the pot and so my saying is that no chiropractor has ever fired an employee too soon right and so we think that we can improve and like if the CA just did this or that or the associated so and we have this big heart for service and for connection that we think that we can help the person through but people are who they are by their results and so I would have definitive road maps of like here's where I expect to be by when and certainly for any new employee 90 days is certainly an important mile post and the employee is either succeeded or not and if they're close to not and you think that you can help them in the next 30 absolutely the 60 days maybe I stay invested but if not then we need to move on and again so we've never fired anybody too soon.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  I love it I think it's really important for people to understand their methods behind the energetic shift in the people around them like there's so much that goes into the energy of output and people can be checked out all day and be sitting there but they're not producing.

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  That's the worst their bodies still show up but the rest of them has invariably docks out there ask yourself if you heard this like after you got rid of an employee even short-handed without replacing the employee the practice grew by 15 visits right and 15 visits is enormous growth for doing nothing.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah except for removing an energetic disconnect. The bad juju yeah. So let's talk new patients I know that you help grow your offices and they do a lot of different things for marketing what would you recommend like somebody that upstarts with you with your practice growth associates program.

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  And so I think about marketing in five silos and so the game here is to develop the five or six strategies that you personally are going to attempt to execute on here's the five silos right one is internal and so having the messaging the branding the in office the emails the communication to our patient base to our email list to people that know us to dramatically increase referrals to is corporate events and it's so it's to reach out to people at work right so I like to work with nursing homes not for their residents for people that get paychecks I like to work in schools not for students for anyone that gets a paycheck there. I like to work in any company near my office and defining like what the right you know it's between eight and thirty employees are more or less and they're in this location and and they have this attitude right so defining that the filter is important but second is to have corporate events talks screenings health fairs ergonomic checks whatever else the company might want third silo is public events right and so there are still. In the you know the right public events to attend and so you going back to Alaska this year for the big screening absolutely what is that the state fair or state fair yeah right and so every July in fact it started the Monday after the fourth of July and so this would be the latest week possible because the fourth is actually on a Tuesday and so it would have been July 10th my community the south side of Pittsburgh had the s s s s the south side summer streets spectacular and so we would screen right outside the office and down at the carnival and invariably every July we had one hundred new patients right that creates all kind of chaos but it also created life changing new patient relationships with people that still go to that practice today right so that's public third it and it or fourth so internal corporate public fourth is internet and so it's never been easier to start for no money right you can create a following on the internets of you your brand your message for no money at all as simple as having a Facebook profile who would be an ideal patient let's try to friend them look that person said yes hi thanks for connecting now read my stuff oh now you have a question well maybe you should come in and like it's a little bit more elaborate now but that's basically how it works lastly is your personal sphere of influence so I think having like a group of five it could be health care but doesn't have to be but are there five other small business owners in your community that you can meet with as a personal board of directors to cross promote if it's health care right imagine having I had the dentist the hearing aid the vitamin shop and a couple others and like we cross marketed right you imagine if you had any type of social media like this podcast to cross be guests on to if you had a health awareness day where it's like the health fair but every vendor does their version of the spinal screening and so those are the five silos is to identify the four to six strategies and so let's call it's final screening is a strategy within each strategy is to define the tactics the to do's that need to get done in a given month right and so for spinal screenings I'd want to conduct four hours of screenings a month I'd want to schedule new four hours of screening right maybe I want to practice my scripts for 30 minutes twice a week and so now we have to do steps for each of the marketing strategies so that on a daily basis in addition to everything else taking care of people and following up and and following up on the money and everything we can build in some of our marketing strategy tactics are to do's like today's the day I'm going to study scripts today's the day I'm going to go out and try to schedule four new hours

 

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  You made it to Chiro Hustle! Sit back and learn from the greatest influencers in the profession on the world's number one chiropractic podcast. Please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling.

This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, Align Life, Brain-based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic.  LET’S HUSTLE !!!

 

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  and so that's how I think about marketing. I love it actually I didn't know Pittsburgh was your stomping ground I'm actually going out there for my first time this month to cranberry township I had an office there and I'm going to be doing an event out there Cody Jordan I don't know him but I have a successful doc

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  out there it's a great area you'll crush I'm excited I don't know the exact name of the

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  event but it's coming up mid month out there in cranberry township so I've never been to

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  Pittsburgh before Pittsburgh is it's a hidden and you're going the right time of year the weather sucks but like this is the right time of year but it's a hidden gem and it's there's

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  lots of fun things to do in Pittsburgh yeah and per you're talking marketing and I love this talk I love this this interview so much how much should a office allocate financially

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  towards marketing monthly I had that conversation with my guys today and so I think that you know there's different levels of being in practice so certainly when you're open and again I think it's one of the errors that new docs in practice for themselves make which is not conserving every penny and so again there are opportunities right now from very little money out of pocket and if you're in a struggling like if you're struggling to pay all the bills I think that you can market for free but like it's more elbow grease and more of your time but in an established practice I think it's perfectly reasonable to allocate 10% of your case value you know the question becomes and again this is another important conversation when it comes to marketing the only thing that matters for us is practice and chiropractors is what's the cost for a new patient to open the door and physically walk into your practice right and so I think that spending 10% of your case value which is taking all the cash that you collected dividing it by all the new patients so what's the value of a new patient and so you know $2,000 would be a healthy average number right now and you know I know a lot of docs that are way higher than that and lots that are fighting to get there and so you can spend $200 per new patient however there are lots of marketing people particularly internet related but also in the physical world that will not accept this number as their metric as their conversion and I would really have I would I would want to get this car it doesn't really matter to me how many people opted in visited a page site left a post filled out a form right like I know that my internal systems to follow up are strong enough the only thing that matters when I'm spending money on marketing is what does it cost to get a new patient there is a secondary which is the quality of the new patient but assuming that the quality is going to blend out into average right I would spend 10% of my case value which is going to be between $200 and

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  $300 or $150 and $250 right now well I think that that's really good takeaways for people so if you guys are watching this and you're finding some value in what we're talking about today share this show that's the fee for us is we do this as a service to the chiropract profession and we really appreciate it when people share our show that's how people are going to learn more about this chiropract profession and the business modeling around it and really the beauty of the profession too so I know we did a lot of business chat there let's convert a little bit more into things that have inspired you I know that your dad was a chiropractor you said you've been in the chiropractor profession for a long time who are some of your mentors and who helped you become the man that you are today yeah well

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  so you know I think that in terms of my chiropractic success I've had three major influences as well as probably a dozen less significant but significant as well but like certainly my father and we lost him now two years ago but he practiced for 34 years by himself and and frankly there were lots of wrong things that he taught me but like he was able to teach me I think one of the most important things which is you know personal confrontational tolerance or in English how do you deal with anybody that walks through your office door and to have that full confidence and in fact in the 80s for those of you that go back that far I did most of my outpatient clinic at life as a student at the Lucky Street clinic in downtown Atlanta in the inner city and you know I got to work with Dr. Larry Webster every day for 18 months and he was actually class he was six months behind my dad at Logan which and is why I went to life my brother and I both went to life and which is why but we got to work I got to work every day for 18 months and certainly I I he was an inspiration as well now that you mention it and unfortunately he passed on my birthday in 1997 you know at 50 and it's just or I think it was actually 60 and it's kind of mind-boggling but certainly I had two other coaching relationships and I saw Dr. Gibson on your list of podcast interviews now almost 90 you know he was my first coach there were lots of things you know when I got out I opened by myself and I was able to get to 50 visits in three months and then I was stuck and Chuck gave me the the the framework to be able to grow you know to I think 501 was our best week ever but it was 300 visits a week for decades you know 15,000 visits a year I think the best year was 22,000 visits which is well over 400 a week and like that I credit a lot to Dr. Gibson and then in order to learn how to do associates properly and to run multiple offices and mindset on that I was a client first and then worked as a as an associate coach if you will with Dr. Lloyd in Seattle and he certainly taught me how to do associates the right way I think that I've probably taken it to the next level as well and if I could I get to experience two weird things so one is is I'll go back to my core lessons on associates and so while I have even more now there are there are seven core lessons that are roughly about an hour each and when I actually listened to the whole thing through I end up coaching myself which is a really weird experience if you've ever done any type of coaching and then the second is to be able to like it might be egotistical but like I have this one weird skill set which is understanding chiropractic business the chiropractic practice from 360 degrees and so to have worked with dozens of associates to have successfully sold 16 practices to those docs that at least 14 are still running today and my first sale was in 1999 and so it's you know a quarter of a century later and all of those visits that still happen you know I have this weird skill set.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Well from the whole interview today one of the things I really appreciate is it sounds like you are passionate about helping the chiropractic profession succeed you're interested in the long term effect of success within the profession and sounds like you have a lot of fun doing what you do.

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  I do I want to encourage I have a homework assignment for like any docs that whether you struggle any doc right and so the question is we talked about maybe this was before we started recording I think that your job is a practicing chiropractor if you're practicing full time you should want to see 200 visits a week if you want to see more I can support that too but 200 is the number because I say so but there are reasons underneath it right and one of them is the money that's involved and even the difference between 150 and 200 and in order to do that and Jim and I agree you should focus on one new patient per calendar day that's seven a week and this year we get the bonus that's 366 in the next 300 you know because of the leap day that's coming up and so business wise marketing 200 a week I lost my train of thought right in the middle 200 a week.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  What was your question? I was rounding up and I was talking about.

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  Oh I have a homework assignment right and so the question is one new patient per calendar day so today is the 27 do you have 27 yes or no and so if the answer though here's the homework assignment the question is where are these people and I'm going to give you an answer and so you should walk drive take the subway or bus to the nearest pharmacy to your practice and go back and look at all the prescriptions waiting to get picked up and you could take a picture of that I have dozens of them right any random pharmacy anywhere in the country you could expect three to 500 prescriptions a day without getting into that argument per se how many of those people would benefit from 1224 36 of your adjustments.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Amen and I'll close out by telling people a really good marketing strategy that I teach to people is if you're wanting to grow your practice and you want referrals go and build a relationship with the people that run the urgent care in your community. They have a lot of unattached cases that come through that are slipping falls people that don't want more pills and potions and lotions and they're going to refer people to you because they're looking for people like you that can help their community get healthier and be less drugged and I tell people I learned this from the Evers group when Barry was with them is he said if we don't tell people the truth about chiropractic someone also closed them for drugs or surgery and the population you're talking about and I'm talking about are in accord with each other so we have to go out there and find people and if people made it their ambition and their to prospect one new patient a day for a year they'd have a very fun practice that they're running that they weren't feeling like they were underwater and they were having a lot of people coming through the doors and then the referrals would go

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  up and you know I think you sell people when you have the next one that you know is coming our job is to and again just we haven't talked about this but as a profession you know you hear oh those chiropractors they want to keep you coming forever but I would argue that as a profession we grossly under recommend what is clinically needed for our average patient right and so you know I think that the average recommendation while the average PVA is under ten so the recommendations have to be you know let's see if our few visits if we can help your pain that's the experience that a random person gets going to an office that

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  has a chiropractic sign on it yeah well I know we're up at the edge of our time is there anything I didn't ask you that you'd like to share with our audience today no I really

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  appreciate the time if anybody wants to reach me I'm out there find me happy to chat and

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  looking forward to doing more work with you is there any resources that we can send people

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  to web addresses or pages yeah so my website which is under current review is coachwithdoctorlead.com but find me on Facebook I do have a Facebook group coach with doctor leave Facebook group and so things like this interview and other stuff that I share is on that you can reach me directly by email and it's dr. Lee Newman at gmail and we can set aside you know some time to talk one to one about you and your practice I love it I love it so go check him

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  out coachwithdoctorlead.com go to his Facebook group reach out to him do some one on ones

DR LEE NEWMAN DC (GUEST):  with this guy he'll teach you one final appeal right that general pair went out to any chiropractor at any level but if you're a 200 visit a week chiropractor and you feel that you're struggling with the problem of success I call it the golden hand cuffs of success the more successful you are the more you're worried about the business you can't leave you're tied to it you're spending nights at the office and you're looking how to expand your reach beyond what you can do personally to serve more people make more money and create a real work life balance I'd love to

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  speak with you well that's a wrap guys reach out to dr. Lee Newman he's episode five hundred and thirty nine the Chiro Hustle podcast reach out to this man see how he can help you with your associates possibly helping you understand how to sell a practice and develop that money mastery and mindset so with that I'm going to close out by telling everyone like I always do you're just one story way keep hustling I'll see you guys on next episode thanks dr. Lee thanks appreciate it bye for now

 

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Thanks for listening to Chiro Hustle! Please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling.

This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, Align Life, Brain-based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic.  LET’S HUSTLE !!!

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