Show notes
Dr. Stephen Franson is a true champion of the Chiropractic Wellness Lifestyle who packs deep experience from over twenty years of clinical practice. Known as “The Systems Guy”, Franson is the founder of The Remarkable Practice, an innovative coaching and consulting company that helps DC’s create a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life. Stephen is also Co-Founder of Chiro Match Makers, a specialized placement service that matches the right chiropractor with the right opportunity. A sought-after international speaker, author and teacher of Chiropractic Business Success; Franson was listed as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Chiropractors in 2017. You can read his best-selling book, The Remarkable Practice: The Definitive Guide to Creating a Successful Chiropractic Practice. Franson graduated from the University of Vermont (91) and Life Chiropractic College (96) and opened Franson Family Chiropractic (97) which became one of the largest wellness clinics in the world. Stephen lives a Remarkable Life in New Hampshire with his wife Camilla (DC) and their two children, Sam and Emma Grace. You can usually find them on the beach, enjoying their family favorite past-time: surfing the frigid waters of New England all year round. The Remarkable Practice: The Remarkable Practice equips Chiropractic Teams to optimize their results in Attraction (marketing and lead generation), Conversion (value creation, communication and sales), Retention (relationship building, value deliver and Ideal Patient creation) and Team Building (creating World-Class Teams) through all 4 Seasons of the Chiropractic Career: Launch, Build, Scale and Exit. 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 532 of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. I’m your producer, Luke Millett, and here’s your host, James Chester. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): So today we have the opportunity to interview with Dr. Steven Franson. If you want to hear the story about how he became the doctor that makes people stronger, stay tuned. Welcome back. This is another episode of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. Today I have Dr. Steven Franson with me. We’re going to talk about some remarkable stuff, remarkable practices. Really, we’re going to nail it down with a launch build scale exit strategy systems that they run. They call this guy the systems guy, so we’re really going to get granular on that one. We’re also going to tell his story about how he got into chiropractic, but before we do that, I’m going to let everybody know our big why. Do we do it? We do over here at Chiro Hustle. Well, first things first is the First Amendment. That’s freedom of speech. It’s pretty important to us. I hope it’s important to you. And then medical freedom and family health freedom. They’re not the same thing, but I hope that we can stand for something because those things really matter to me, and I hope they really matter to you. Next then the line, we do support BJ Palmer’s Sacred Trust and protect that in regard to it well. If you do not know what that means, go to your favorite search engine and look for BJ Palmer’s Last Words or maybe search for BJ Palmer’s Sacred Trust, and you’re going to have a better understanding of this beautiful professional chiropractic after that. And then we get into a little bit further, we do support the Subluxation Base Chiropractic Practitioner, which we think is really important. Let’s not remove our language or lexicon from these schools. Let’s keep chiropractic pure. And then at the end of this, we do believe that when man or woman, the physical gets adjusted, it connects them to manner of woman, the spiritual, and that is inate intelligence and universal intelligence. And with that being said, Dr. Steven Franson. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: Oh man. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Welcome to the show. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: Yeah. If that’s not chiropractic foreplay right there, getting ready for a podcast, I don’t know what it is, and Jim, that was good, man. You just laying it down. I’m in the right spot. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Oh boy, the hair of my arms are standing up right now, man. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: Right. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): That’s right. I love it. Yeah, that’s like, if I always say if nobody listens to this whole show, at least I paid the fee to them. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: I was going to say we should wrap it up because anything that I say at this point is only going to screw that up. That was just beautiful. I was just talking, man. Pay the fee, right? You do all the boxes. None: Yeah. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): So, so your story, man, it looks like you finished school up 96 from life. Yep. What, what, what really, I mean, this is going to be a chance for you to reintroduce yourself to your friends, family, colleagues, the people that you help with the launches of their offices. They probably know like you as the person, but they might not know your whole story unless they read your book. So let’s just jump right into this one and tell people how you got into chiropractic. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: Okay. So I’ll tell the thumbnail sketch version of it because the full length version is long and very emotional. So I’ll spare you that. So it all, you know, basically kicked off for me back when I was a kid when I was 10 years old, 11 years old. I’m from a place called Wuber Massachusetts, which is just north of Boston. And Wuber Massachusetts is famous for one thing. And it was the ground zero for a big cancer outbreak in the early 70s. And they actually made a movie about it with John Travolta and Robert Duvall. It was an incredible story telling the story of all these families and the, you know, the diagnosis, the treatments, the suffering and then eventual passing of 27 people that lived in my neighborhood. And those were my neighbors. They were friends, family and friends. And one of them in particular was my best friend. This guy, Patrick, Patrick Toomey, Patrick was somebody that I had spent a lot of time with, you know, went to school together, played baseball with all the boys together, spent, you know, after school time together, all that. When Patrick got sick, I was like by his side through the whole ordeal. Right. So if you’ve been through, you know, treatment, cancer treatment, it’s terrific. It’s horrible. And we went through all of it. Right. And Forrest Ryan and his Chimo and his general decline and through that process, uh, it was just awful watching my friend waste away and I can remember even, you know, at 11 years old, um, just being so frustrated and confused, you know, his hair’s falling out, his skin lesions and the smells and, you know, you suffer. It was just awful. It took like 18 months. And finally they were like, well, there’s nothing more that can be done, right. done everything he can do. And I can remember just saying is like, is there anything that we can do for him? Because everything that you do to him, he just keeps getting sicker and weaker. And that just continued for like a six month cycle where he just, he went down hard and fast. And eventually he died. And I can remember sitting with my dad at Mass General and having this just conversation after, just sitting in the waiting room and I wasn’t really saying much of anything. My dad was like, you know, you are right. What’s on your mind? And I just remember at that point just saying, I know what I want to be when I grow up. And he’s like, that’s great. What do you want to do? And I said, I’m going to be a doctor. And he said, what kind of doctor do you want to be? And I said, I’m going to be the doctor that makes people stronger. And at that point in time, I had no idea about chiropractic or I didn’t know anything about the wellness lifestyle, the chiropractic principle. But that was the exact moment that I realized my purpose. And I spent the next 10 years just studying the human body and grew up as an athlete. I got really into fitness and nutrition and just anything that would make a human being healthier and stronger. But I didn’t know much about anything about chiropractic. I ended up getting an injury hurt my shoulder, couldn’t finish my season in college, I was playing sports and my shoulder was trashed. And I was at that point, I thought it was going to be an orthopedic, I wanted to go into orthopedics. And they basically said you need surgery and it had me pumped up on all kinds of drugs and everything. And I was all done, I’d lost a bunch of muscle and I just lost my identity, couldn’t work out, couldn’t surf, couldn’t play my sport. And my dad dragged me to see his chiropractor, Dr. Tom Michau in Watertown, Massachusetts. And during like one of my Christmas breaks, and he made me go see the chiropractor. And this poor guy, you know, he put up with me, you know, while I was standing there cross-armed and you know, I was the educated skeptic. I’ve already been taught that these guys are quacks and they can’t help you. And you know where the story goes. He showed me what was going on with me. He taught me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You know, he taught me how the body really works, taught me how the body really heals. And he told me my shoulder problem was, you know, the root of the cause was in my neck and I had to restore the nurse supply to my shoulder and I’d get my health back. And I got my shoulder back. So at that point in my life, I was getting my life back. So that was when I decided, you know what? I got to seriously consider becoming a chiropractor instead of a Northropaedic. And then one day I was literally on my knees praying after church, it was empty church, there was no one around. And I was just like, Lord, all right, Monday’s coming. I got to submit my applications. I got to decide which way I’m going. And I was just, I need a sign. So I got up walking out of the church, just as you hit the big brass bar at the double doors and it just echoes through the church all the time here. Steven Branson. And I’m like, God. Right? And I turned around, it was the pastor. And he was just walking right at me through an empty church. And he was like, hey, I just heard that you’re going to be a chiropractor. And he just walked up to me and he gave me a big hug. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: And he just said, you’re going to be a great chiropractor. That was it, man. Wow. And I never looked back after that. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): So there’s many people, I know you said that your purpose is to help more people, help more people. And that really resonates with me from that story. And it really kind of ties up like your service mindset based on seeing your friends passing at a young age. And when you don’t also excel because of an injury, it puts you in a real crummy mindset. And that’s what a lot of chiropractors get in their offices, man. They get a lot of use. That’s exactly right. They get a lot of people that aren’t in their best light. They’re not feeling great. They’ve tried a lot of stuff. They’re skeptical. They don’t know that it’s actually the answer that they’ve been looking for their entire life from first breath to last breath. That’s exactly right. They don’t realize that it’s the answer. I was just telling you offline, I went out this weekend and got 69 new patients and three days for an office out here in the front range, Parker, Colorado. And people are so interested in something. They just don’t know what’s called chiropractic. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: People are desperately seeking what we have. Yeah. People have never been sicker. There’s never been more suffering. There’s never been more demand. There’s never been a better opportunity in chiropractic to step into the light. So your community is chock full with subluxated, vaccinated, toxic, deficient, suffering human beings. They have you surrounded. And they are on their knees every night praying for you. They’re looking for you. The question is, are they finding you? Are they hearing the message from you? Are they hearing? Is your market message penetrating? Are you speaking into their listening? Are you connecting with them? Because they’re literally 20% of your community at any point in time is actively seeking help, actively seeking help. JAMES CHESTER (HOST): We can track the data. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: Yeah, it is. There’s no guessing here. It’s just like there’s literally do the math on 20% of your community. They’re actively seeking help. They’re Googling. They’re asking their friends. They’re looking around. They’re looking for a solution. And just the question is, is are they finding you? Are they hearing you? JAMES CHESTER (HOST): Well, the chiropractors that listen to our show, my message is just own it, be proud of it, and don’t sell it out. And be really, really considerate. But like we’re discussing here, you have to go out there and harvest your community. You have to go out there and tell people the truth, whether it feels good or not. And you have to have those dinner talks that we were talking about. And you have to do your new patient orientation classes. And you have to do a proper day one and day two. You have to like build a relationship. You know, when I get those people in the offices, doc, I say, what I do is I call us the relationship builder. You’re in come in for these first two visits. If you like us, you think we’re a good fit. You’re going to stick with us. If you come in for these first two visits, you realize we’re not the right place. There’s no strings attached for further care. But I guarantee you one thing, you’re going to like us. And then I have five of them. We get them scheduled. And it’s really fun because I’m like, the back side of the story is the best. That’s exactly right. Because I tell them, all I ask you to do is one thing. Promise me you’ll show up to your first visit so we can help you. And then I get their firm commitment. And then I get them all scheduled and all their paperwork ready for them. And I put a smiley face on their certificate and I hand it to them. I say, hey, man, I put a smiley face on this one because we really like you. We’ll see you at the office. DR STEVEN FRANSON DC: It’s beautiful. Great. It’s great. I mean, I think chiropractors, you know, I love chiropractors. I mean, I married mine. We have seven in my family. And I think I’m raising at least one more. My son says he’s going to be a chiropractor. So, you know, but at the end of the day, we do. We need to embrace what it is that we have for the marketplace, right? So we have this crowded and confused blood red ocean and the health care marketplace right now that nobody trusts anything or anyone anymore. It’s what an incredible opportunity, right? Because it’s like the playing field has been leveled, right? So, but you’ve got to be good. And your message has to be good and your message is good. We have this incredible message. And, you know, so I used to say before COVID, I used to say, listen, you don’t have to make them wrong to make you right. All right. So sometimes people are afraid that it’s like, oh, yeah, I don’t want to be argumentative. I’m not, I don’t want to be combative. I don’t want to make people, don’t make people feel stupid. You don’t have to make them feel wrong, right? So for you to be right. And that’s more of like the social Jiu-Jitsu of like, don’t try to…
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