Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Brad, so excited to have you. Thanks for joining us for our UAC podcast day. It’s awesome, because I feel like I know you’re fairly well, just from UAC, and from onboarding you and all the things that way, so just tell us, like tell UAC a little bit about your practice. Because your practice is a very different kind of practice…
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Yeah.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
UAC was really cool too.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
So first off, I want to say thank you, thank you for having me, and for giving me an opportunity to talk and share what we love to do and that kind of thing but yeah, we’re different. And we’re okay with being different. And maybe not the average chiropractic office, even in UAC, as we do a lot, we’re definitely womb to tomb. We treat all the way through full life, we’re not a wellness office, we’re not a pain office, we’re not a sports rehab office, we’re not a functional med office, we’re not a sports, whatever. We literally try to be the target of holistic medicine and chiropractic, and we want to have something for everybody, so that way that they can do something to enhance their life in a non-drug, non-pharmaceutical, non-surgical way. And have a heck of a lot of fun doing it and just do something different and just provide some degree of an opportunity that’s not necessarily out there on their main street. That’s what we try to do.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
I love that. So, it sounds like it’s sort of like an entry, a soft entry into vitalistic healthcare, is that what it is? So, you have chiropractic, you are a chiropractor? Do you have other sorts of practitioners with you?
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
So, all of my practitioners are chiropractors, they do have some specialties in peds, we do have some biofeedback and there are feedback training with some of the functional neurology, some of the functional medicine stuff as well, so the goal is to essentially… because I’m in the rural North Carolina, right?
Dr. Stefani Rodsater:
Like, rural North Carolina, right.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
And there’s Charlotte right there. We’re going back in time a little bit in regard to what people think about in regards to healthcare, so we’re still breaking that mold of people’s even acceptance to what chiropractic is. And so we’ve tried to create a little bit of a hybrid, like you said, a hybrid kind of vitalistic entry level position for people to be able to start this concept of, okay, I don’t have to just go do what my primary care doctor and my MD down the road is telling me to do and go live off of this medication for the rest of my life, and this is my only option, and drugs and surgeries and so forth. And so, just to open people’s eyes and then when people get it, when they experience it, when they love it, then they really kind of stay on for more of the wellness spaces as well.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
My gosh, I love that. So not only is that the kind and the compassionate and the chiropractic thing to do, which is to meet people where they’re at, right? So, if their attitudes are just a little bit, you know, they need a little coaxing, and a little bit of education. That’s amazing. But also, there’s a lot of opportunity, right?
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
And it’s like you get people where they are, and it’s a matter of, I don’t know who said it, but I’ve seen it many times. Especially in our industry, it’s like you give people what you want, what they want there, but then you sneak in what they need, and so regardless of what you call it, I’m not going to die on the sword of terminologies and all that kind of stuff, and that’s just not how I am, I want people to actually see the results, experience the benefit. You can call it whatever you want to call it, you can call it Chiropractic, you can call it physical medicine, you can call it manipulation, I don’t care what you call it, just get them better and help change their life, and they’re going to go tell the world about you. And that’s really what we stand for more than anything.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Brad, I know your story, because I know the doctor that you worked for recently, that had a practice to start off. This is, I don’t know, just my whole experience of years, your whole transition through being, working in his office, knowing that you were going to be taking over and now you’ve got this office that’s booming and just like you’re bringing more modalities, more just like cool things to the practice. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what you think made that transition so successful? Because there’s so many peers in UAC, I think that would love to have a successful transition in having their office be a legacy, because really that’s what’s happening and you’re making it even better, I think it’s such a cool transition that you’ve had.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
It’s so great.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
So, I got chill bumps right now, so thank you for that. [chuckle] But openly, I walked into an amazing circumstance, my mentor and chiropractor, my family’s chiropractor, Dr. Rich Berkowitz created a out of this world practice for Shelby, North Carolina long before I was ever thought about. [chuckle] So I have to give him a ton of credit into establishing really the principles and some of the systems and things that we do in practice, and he had tremendous success through his chiropractic careers, a part of that. And I’m in a continuous conversation with him, I saw him in CrossFit today, and ultimately, I talk to him all the time, he’s like a brother, he went down to the Bahamas last week, he brings me back a shirt and a hat, we’re talking a lot. I mean, he’s family. And so ultimately, it’s kind of amazing that business and personal that can sometimes be pretty ugly, has been such a marriage, a fruitful one for us, and so he practiced for 25 years. The practice existed since ’97, and I think if the math adds up there correctly, ’96, ’97. And so when I came out of school, I had a different vision for really what I thought I wanted to do as we probably all did in some way, shape or form, versus what came to reality.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
And so, I graduated from Logan in ’13, and so come into this and I was like, Man, I’m going to be in the sport stuff and I’m going to be able to do all this kind of stuff, and this is what I’m going to… Craziness, right? And then ultimately, I come back and Rich and I have a great conversation as he was present as a part of my education and so forth throughout, so there was that kind of molding of thought process as I went through, which I’m thankful for, especially now, and really what I’m trying to do for some of my CAs that are going back to chiropractic school and things as well, it’s ultimately is, we created a relationship there, that there was trust already. And so I knew that he had my best interest in mind whenever I came out of school, which is I can’t say something that a lot of people have that comfort in knowing going out to the wolves, and so when I came back, because I said, there’s no way in hell that I’m coming back to Shelby, North Carolina. There’s no way, there’s so many people out there for this world than Shelby, North Carolina, and for everybody that doesn’t know that we’re talking about a 20,000-person town that we weren’t able to sell liquor by the glass until 2000.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
We’re progressing rapidly for now. And so, apparently, I come back and I’m like, you know what, Rich? If I’m here, if I’m going to be your associate, if you’re going to kind of mold me, shape me, mentor me into what this can be, then I’m going to take over this practice one day, otherwise, I’m going to go do this for myself because I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be my own boss, I wanted to take my risk and I wanted to be the reason why things happen, right? Good or bad. And so, I was an associate for three years until we came together in partnership, and then we spent two years of partnership together until eventually the transition occurred, and he kind of went into retirement mode and which he is doing some other stuff now, which is kind of cool as well. And secondarily, then I got to take the home as the leader of the practice moving forward and kind of the face of things, especially for the last four years.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
I love that.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
If that trust, what do you think was the magic then in that transition and why it just became so successful? Because it’s beautiful.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
I think it’s one of those things, it’s doing what you say you’re going to do, and ultimately being unwavering in that even in things that are not as successful as what you thought or timelines that were there, but the communication being there, being honest, and then ultimately, you have a relationship that that was built off of years, it wasn’t like somebody just swept in on a white Porsche and decided to be your savior of transition, it was something that was pre-planned and thought out five years before it ever happened. And so I think a lot of people, especially friends of mine that are chiropractors, and they’re looking to buy out practices because they’re looking at it from financial gains and other things there, but it’s not necessarily the right fit, they’re just trying to make the next step financially, or they’re trying to do this from a career perspective, this was the right fit, and ultimately it was not rushed, it was something we communicated about from the day I was hired to the day that ultimately I transitioned as the owner of the practice, and it was something that there was always that transparency. And I think that was the biggest thing for anybody, if I would say, is going to do that with associates to create some legacy or even family, right?
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
I mean, sometimes that’s the squarely ones as you’ve got guys and gals who are wanting their kids to be chiropractors, and they’re like, but I don’t even know that I want them to come back and work for me because I don’t feel like I can sell it to them or whatever that may be. There is that it’s a real thing because you want to monetize your efforts of what you’ve done over the years, right? But if there’s that transparency from the beginning, and then you do what you say you’re going to do, you hold up your end of the bargain. It’s clean and you have nothing but respect, even if it’s not beautiful all the time, there’s a respect, the mutual respect is there that I think goes a long way.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
I love that, there’s something old-fashioned, and unfortunately, it’s old fashion, it should be carried with us, it’s be impeccable with your word, right? Like the four agreements, just do what you say you’re going to do. How you do anything is how you do everything, right?
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Absolutely.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
And I think there’s so much. I love the exit strategies, there’s so many of us in the room that are really… We’re maybe a few years off from that, but we have various stages of that happening, so find Brad and pick his brain about that. Because you know a lot about both sides, right? I feel like you…
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Absolutely.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
The owner and…
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Now my current goals is really… Because how beautiful our transition was, it’s really kind of intrigued me, it’s motivated me to go try and help other doctors do that on their exit, because I want to grow my practice, I want to scale in my practice, I want to expand my region, not just Shelby, North Carolina, but because I think we have an amazing product, an amazing experience. And I also know that there’s a lot of doctors who, and Stef you know this, in our area, especially that they’re the guys who really made it during the hay days of the ’80s and ’90s and so forth. And now they’re like, alright, I’m tired, I’m beat up, but I don’t have that person coming in here to save me, to get me to retirement so I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, and so I want my next steps to be, Okay, well, I’m looking at coming in and doing some acquisitions and so forth, the practices and converting them into what we do, but trying to do that with that same kind of clean process that we had, because I don’t have any negative to go back on there. So that’s really what I’m trying to do now in regard to the next 5-year and 10-year goal, is to do that.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
What a cool niche. I like that. Practicing, brokering basically.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Essentially, yeah. And I’m proud of what we do and no reason not to be proud to be able to share it with as many people as we get a chance to do that with.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
I love it too, that you bring to meet your team to UAC, we’ve gotten to meet a few of those people too. Tell us a little bit about your team culture and your environment within your office, and what you’ve done to really cultivate that.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
So, as you can see, behind me, actually I got this on my wall, my organization and culture is a big thing that we talk about for our staff and our team, because I think we’re only as good as the people we surround ourself with, and that’s why I think UAC is so great, is that connection, is that you get that same thing I’m trying to create from an organization and culture perspective here, we’re doing that in UAC. And so not everybody’s going to have the same passion that I do as a business owner, it’s not reproducible in that same environment, it’s just nice, if you can get people 70% of where you are, we are going to be so successful, so successful with our practices and so forth, just because they have 70-80% of the passion that you bring to the table, and so that’s why I really wanted some of my key players, especially people that I look to lean on for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, hopefully, to get excited about what we really get a chance to do every single day, and that’s not something that they maybe get a chance to understand how cool our practice is versus somebody else down the street.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
And that’s something that they get to see as a part of UAC, and so that’s a big one, and this is something, I know Stef’s big on this as well, because I follow her on some of the socials and things, it’s like we like to have a hell of a lot of fun.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
We do. [chuckle]
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Yes. And so, one of our core values for our office is being fun-ergetic, that’s our goal, and it’s part of our hiring process. It’s something from the beginning, it’s like, are you going to be a stale individual? Are you going to bring some degree of energy into the room? And if you can’t be fun-ergetic and you can’t pick and joke and have fun and have thick skin, and if you can’t do that, you can’t make it here. You’re not going to survive.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
You need to trademark that, that’s awesome!
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Right? That’s who we are. And so everything we do between our in office, like holiday parties that we have for patients, and Halloween is coming up, and we’ve got three to four days’ worth of dressing up that we’re doing, we’re going to have an entire parking lot like festival, food trucks and bounce houses and live music and trunk or treats, and we’re all going to be dressing up as different costume stuff, we’re going to have a good time with it, and we’re converting our office into Hogwarts for Halloween. [chuckle] And so we try to do things like that, just because many people, you’ve treated patients for 20 years, you have your 20-year patients who come in every week, or they come in every three weeks or four weeks, and it becomes monotonous if you don’t make it exciting. And so you guys all know that, and so it helps with your retention, it helps keep people guessing, and so they just don’t know, come on in, same adjustment, same listing, same whatever, and it just creates some fun, and so it’s what has been ingrained to me, like I say with what Dr. Rich Berkowitz was doing beforehand, and so we’ve just taken it and just tried to amplify even more of that, because it’s just who I am, is a part of my DNA as well.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Wow.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
I think that’s important too because it does have to be authentically you. I always think about it, I always tell my staff like, hey, it’s feeding a human need of uncertainty, a lot of the times they’re like, we should put it on a slide show that people know, I’m like, No, I don’t want them to look at me and be like, what is happening?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
What is happening? Yeah.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Absolutely. You don’t get to see Stef in a cow costume.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
That’s a pattern disrupt.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Back to the staff experience at UAC, just because I’m curious, I’ve never brought my staff, I’ve brought one associate with Nick’s sister, but I’d never brought staff to UAC. What do they think? Tell us a little bit about, did you feel like it was worth it to bring them and have them experience it, just give us a little bit of feedback on that.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Yeah, so long story short, 1000%.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Okay.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
And intend on doing it again in future UAC event. And then secondarily, I come back and then the rest of my staff, because I have 18 non-doctors that work in the office, so we have a pretty good size staff within the practice, and so two of them went out there and then everybody else goes, okay, when’s it my time? And so, it created a bit of a, there’s a little bit of both. Like, why did they get to go and I didn’t get to? So, it was kind of nice, actually. It created a little bit of competition and stuff. But for those two specifically, one, it introduced them to something that they’ve never done before with the UAC events and stuff, and I mean, heck, how many times do you go up on a hot air balloon, right? And so we did that with our staff, we got to hear Elle (Macpherson) in some of her words and stuff there, and two of the ladies that came out with me, my CAs, my front desk manager and my clinical manager, they’re young, beautiful ladies that who doesn’t get motivated by hearing Elle (Macpherson) speak, and so that was a good thing to come back from. And then secondarily, they get to hear some of the side conversations, and some of the business talk.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Yeah, [chuckle] and they get to hear this stuff and they’re like, Wow, there’s more than just this patient care thing that goes into running a business and so forth, and creates an even greater appreciation for what we do as business owners every day for them to make sure that they can take a paycheck and they have security in their job and all those types of things, and they’re like, Oh, I didn’t know all these things were running through your head 24/7, and so it was that as well. So there were so many different facets to that that weekend, and then secondarily, I brought then minus my family, and so we got an opportunity, and then minus their families, and so we got an opportunity to create some bonding and so forth as well, and create honestly, some memory stuff that nobody can take from you, and so which I think is great for longevity with our team, and so I would recommend that 1000%, for sure.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
That’s awesome, Brad.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Thank you.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Yes.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
We’re going to button it up here and I’d love to know, you mentioned scaling in the next couple of years, and who in the UAC as far as members are you looking at, watching, observing, seeing what they’re doing? Who do you admire and why?
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
No, it’s a great question. And Joe Esposito is one, I think, just based on the goals that he has, to open I think the latest number I heard was 1000 and plus or whatever, I think it’s so cool and it’s just dream big and watch some things come to fruition. So just hearing that and being in that bubble with Joe the couple of times that I’ve been able to make it out has been pretty sweet. And the way he is shaping that is very different than how I want to, but I think you can learn things like, what do you need on your team? How do you create some different scalable thinking? What are the challenges that you run into from going to five to go into 50? That type of thing, even though if it’s one doctor, one staff member, and it’s a low budget, if you will, low overhead versus, I envision having a much grander office, if you will, I want to say grander, but just we offer more modalities, and I want it to be reflective of what we do within our mega mothership, if you will, but you’re going to run into those same obstacles in regards to the talent acquisition, in regards to your personnel and so forth, how do you centralize scheduling and marketing and all these types of things as much as you can to really make yourself a leaner machine as you grow.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
And so those are the types of things that I even want to develop more relationship within UAC and people who’ve had success with that, of taking what I consider a very successful single practice that is certainly in a standalone entity, and being able to see that go from 5, to 10 to 15 to 20, before you’re looking at leaving a legacy in some way, shape or form, before careers end. And so that way that we’re making some impact that we feel like is worth our time in this world.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
We love what you bring to UAC Brad, thank you.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Thank you, Brad.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Thank you.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
So, thank you so much for being with us and sharing a little bit about you, so we got to know you a little bit better.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Will we see you in New Orleans?
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
New Orleans, I will not, I got a baby’s birthday party. We got a one-year-old that we need to celebrate, so we’re going to have a little bit of fun there. But I plan on getting to Sweden next year too, so excited to be able to participate in several of those next year.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Awesome. All right.
Dr. Brad Moffitt:
Thanks guys.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater:
Appreciate you. [chuckle] Bye Brad.
Dr. Lynne Mouw:
Bye Brad.
