Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: All right, well, welcome Jared Himsel to the UAC hot seat today. I’m so excited to have you on our podcast. It’s just me today. So, I’m so excited to have you and Jared, I know you’ve been in UAC for a little while. Tell us a little bit about what brought you into UAC and what’s gotten you started here?
Dr. Jared Himsel: Well, it’s been… I don’t even remember when I first started. It’s been a minute. It’s been… I’ve been in it for a while. I can’t… I honestly don’t even know my start date, but I do know that I was brought into UAC, I would say in inadvertently through friend of a friend that’s no longer in UAC. And he was introduced to it through, I believe it was Garrett Gunderson, honestly.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: I mean, it’s been a while ago. This is back when he was doing… No, it was Freedom Fast Track. Now, I know it’s called something different, Wealth Factory and something along those lines is how I got into it, initially. So, I’m getting older. My memory doesn’t serve me well, but that’s what it was. [laughter]
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Okay. So, one of the things I have to start off asking you about is… Just because I know a little bit about things that going through with Nick, but I know that you have had like quite the transition to a cash practice, and it’s just been one of the biggest blessings. And I know a lot of us have gone through that transition. And I’d just love to hear about that full story. I mean, I think so much to learn from your experience and what you’ve learned and how this has served you in your practice.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yeah, I think one thing that I am at a point in my life, Stef, is I don’t have a problem being very transparent. So, to keep the story on the short version, we had an FBI investigation probably… Gosh, it’s probably been nine, 10 years ago now when we did a lot of Medicare, Medicaid in our area. And the short version is that, is if you get audited, that’s a federal program. They don’t send their normal, mom-and-pop people to you. They send an FBI agent and that was scary as all get out, but it was awful. Like 17 agents and then like two years of going through audits and notes and then essentially having to pay back areas that we didn’t bill right. And areas where we made errors. And then like, and then really working through the billing process and figuring out what the rule says about those programs.
Dr. Jared Himsel: And I’ll never forget it because my wife… We were sitting at the table one night at dinner and she said, what would it take to go to be a cash practice? This is just too much stress. And I literally got pissed off at her and I said, I have… In nice words. I don’t have any clue. Okay. But I was not very happy at the moment. And then that’s the cool part about it. So right around that time the other buddy of mine that they introduced me to UAC invited me to UAC. I think my first one was out in Utah, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, it was out in Utah. And I think that’s right. So again, my memory’s been so long, but I was talking at that workshop and meeting UAC members, and I said, Hey, I want to do a cash practice.
Dr. Jared Himsel: So, I was talking to Patrick Gentempo and he said, listen, I have a program, but I honestly I’m going to steer you towards this guy named Stephen Franson. And so, I just talked to Stephen Franson at that first UAC meeting, and again, fast forward now through I think it’s been six, seven years, give or take a solid five for sure that we’ve been rocking and rolling through transitioning 100% to cash. I believe it was this COVID year, 2020, we went a 100% cash. And we have just the clarity, the level of pride that we have in a good way in our office has just been out. It really just been an off the chart and 20%, I told Stephen this the other day, 20% year over end growth for five years running now and all cash practice. So, 100% cash.
Dr. Jared Himsel: We don’t do insurance. I mean, the only thing I can say is that if a patient in our office is in-care and they get into an auto case, we do have a local attorney. We will help them through some auto treatment. But that is just because we’re not going to send them out to some of the chiropractor that doesn’t do credit care. That’s it. It is 100% cash practice and we’re just continuing to pop and pop and grow. So that’s the kind of a little longer than I wanted it to be. But I wanted to be transparent because people don’t understand that that was like a major life event that didn’t define me. We let it kind of go deeper into perspective and ask questions and we did not let event define us. We took it and we helped it to shape where we’re at now.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Alright. Where do you think you got that like real motivation? I know it came from… The idea came from your wife, but then to be able to truly make it a reality is, you know, that can be a tough transition especially…
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yeah, it was really just our faith life. Number one, we’re a strong Christian family and really the core values really going back to the bare minimum and stripping everything down and saying, what are our core values? What are our core values in our life? And what are the core values in our practice? And how do we want to go to bed at night and be able to know that we serve God? That’s where it started. We went back to the basics, our core values.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s awesome. I love it. All right. And I know that you have spent some time in your practice on traction, right? Like you guys have spent… Tell us a little bit about that experience and what that has brought to your practice specifically.
Dr. Jared Himsel: So, if you’re referring to the book Traction by Gino Wickman, right?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: So yeah, in EOS we were on a 100% off EOS and obviously with Stephen Franson and TRP, they have like a… He introduced me to that concept, and they do a really good job in TRP of making it more chiropractic driven. But we’ve also went outside of TRP and hired EOS coaching and actually brought them into our practice, which has made it amazing. So, EOS gives us a really simplified structure and it helps us to go from top down, from a visionary integrator to all your department heads level 10 meetings, running them every week, never missing, start on time, end on time. It gives us the structure to flush out issues, have to-dos, and then really to get some of those. Lately the headlines have been the new thing for us where…
Dr. Jared Himsel: We talked to one of the EOS implementer and they’re like, Hey, your headlines don’t have to be like, Hey, we had an FBI raid. Right? It doesn’t have to be that. A headline, it could be something like, I mean, a coworker that upsets you because they showed up late. And that’s how you get this environment of openness and transparency and accountability. You bring up things that kind of upsets you and you allow those things to not fester over. Or like Melissa Marley told me one time, I think she put it in TRP, “Don’t let a staff infection become a situation.” Well, most of the time, and even in the EOS 90% of the time, the problems are people problems, right?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, sure.
Dr. Jared Himsel: And so, if you can create an open environment and you can foster accountability but not creating like fractions within your company. That’s the key. And lately the headlines part of our level 10 meetings and department level 10 meetings, everyone has to run their own level 10 meetings, not just the leadership team. That’s been an epiphany for us. So, EOS has been awesome. It has allowed us to really thrive and continue to grow, and it will continue to do so.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: And the V/TO is huge too. The Vision/Traction Organizer, we run right off that.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s awesome. How have you felt like that, especially those having, passing off leadership to some of the people on your team, has that really cultivated them as leaders? What kind of changes have you seen in your team and then how has that impacted your practice and the growth of your practice?
Dr. Jared Himsel: Well, the hardest thing to do is to let go, right? But that’s one of the tools that they have is to elevate and delegate and then to trust but verify, right? So basically, it’s hard. It’s hard to do that, especially for years when I ran a practice by myself without having really a big team. But the structure allows it to happen pretty organically. I think the coolest thing is watching the department heads become leaders because initially they bring a stuff to you and you’re like, well, do you want me to bring that to your department with you? Or do you want to take it to them by yourself? Because they expect you to solve it for them. And we’re no longer in the business of solving all of our department’s issues.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: So, watching them solve their own issues, and then when they get stuck, funneling that up to the integrator, which brings it to the leadership team. And eventually, if it’s a big enough issue that we have to solve, we’ll solve it on our level 10 meeting when we do it weekly. So, it’s pretty cool to watch them become leaders and it’s a dynamic process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but you just got to stick to it.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: How long has it taken you to integrate it fully?
Dr. Jared Himsel: When we hired an implementer, it really started taking off.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Okay.
Dr. Jared Himsel: It was an investment we were willing to make, and we did it. And we would like to probably bring an implementer back in again a few more times. I think we are not… I think to really submerge into EOS you should do some of their seminars and those kinds of things, which I haven’t done. And that’s because Dr. Stephen Franson’s done a great job with it through TRP. But when you start looking at there… It is really good, but then there’s also some things I think that in my opinion are a little bit too messy. So, I like to keep it more simple and we’ve all agreed that like trying to simplify things is really the key to it. But the big thing we’ve done is creating systems and processes, right? And so, when you look at the pie chart of traction and how they talk about breaking it down.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Right.
Dr. Jared Himsel: The V/TO is really where it’s at. You have to have a strong V/TO and everybody has to know what your V/TO is, which stands for Vision/Traction Organizer. It’s essentially taking your 10-year vision and break it into a three-year target. And then from there you reverse that into yearly, quarterly, all the way down into your scorecards and then your rocks, right? So, they call them rocks and then in the TRP, they call them a project planner, but I like the rocks term better just from reading traction. So, I would say we implemented pretty quickly after an implementer, but we also are staying committed to the process and not allowing ourselves to deviate. If that makes sense.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s amazing. And that’s awesome. All right, so speaking of that Vision/Traction Organizer, Jared, what’s coming for you in the next 10 years, three years, one year? Tell me a little bit about that? Share…
Dr. Jared Himsel: Well, it’s right over here on my wall, right? And so, the 10-year vision we have is really to… We had to go outside of just a numbers game. We want to put something out there that kind of moves us. So initially, I wasn’t under the impression that I wanted to have a bunch of practices. Talking to Dr. Franson and I kind of like just doing one really well.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: But I’m open to whoever the leaders are that come on to our team. We have other associates. What if they want to plan a partner? So, our 10-year vision, my wife and I sat down recently, and we redid that. We just basically said, “Hey, we want everyone to know who VCC is, which is our practice name, Vital Connection Chiropractic. We want everyone to know that we kick ass, and we want anyone in the state of Indiana to be able to reach us within three hours. That was our 10-year vision. So, A, VCC, when you know who that is, that name, B, know we kick ass and C, they need to be able to reach us within three hours, which tells you that we have a vision for expansion. So that’s the 10-year.
Dr. Jared Himsel: And then the three-year target, we essentially set around a monetary goal reversed in here in all of our KPIs and all of our vital signs through TRP. And then we’re reversing that into the yearly cadence and down to the ground level to the quarter, and then the rocks. And even this year we took it so far as to look at the pockets of quarters from 2022 and look at the percentage of say, collections, new patients. We did a deep dive into that to try to get a really good idea of what the cadence of the quarters looks like. So, we could not freak out if you get off to like a slow start in January, which is with marketing is, there’s a little bit of a lull there. So rather than freak out about it, we just recognize it now and we just know that it’s starting to shift and change once the marketing calendar shifts and changes. And that was really helpful too. So, I mean, I can get specifics if you need them, but basically the three-year target is really those big, the big vital signs as Franson called them and breaking those down. But we did it as far as our accountability chart, how many members we want on it, and who those members are and their defined roles. So, we’ve gone as far as how many associate chiropractors we’ll have and all of that.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Sounds like you’ve got a good strength in organization. I love.
Dr. Jared Himsel: I actually don’t.
[laughter]
Dr. Jared Himsel: I am a visionary 100%. But if you know one thing about a visionary is that you have to do some things and get some structure around you. So, putting people around me that have forced me to get this structure, it gives you clarity and like Franson always says, “Clarity is the greatest accelerator.” Right? So.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: I will procrastinate with the best of them. So, I am not the most organized person. I am completely a vision centric and that is one of my top five strengths is I’m a visionary. So just how it is.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Dr. Jared Himsel: They call it futuristic on the strength finders. Right?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: That’s one of my top five.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Okay. I got one of those. I got that in my top five as well. So, I’m there with you.
Dr. Jared Himsel: You get it. You get it.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: The organization.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Do you have organization, or you don’t?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: No, no. That’s not one of my strengths at all.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Exactly.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: I want to switch gears a little bit Jared, just because I know that you’ve got kids and family is a huge piece of your life. And so balancing family life and practice and really like rocking out all these different kinds of systems and taking the time to make the changes. I know you’re also really present at home, and I just would love for you to share with us a little like maybe some of your best practice tips to the… As a dad and what kinds of things you do to be more intentional with these kiddos?
Dr. Jared Himsel: Absolutely, so, yeah. So, he heard me, right? One of them. You want to come on here too? Come on.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: [chuckle] Right?
Dr. Jared Himsel: Show bear and hug these shirts, when you see them, show them the Boilermakers, right. Let them know what we’re all about here in this family.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Purdue They do show us that.
Dr. Jared Himsel: They just popped down here. So no, I mean family is everything. I think that that’s one thing that you guys, I’ll just throw that right back at you guys. I know how you roll, and family comes first and we’re the same way. So, but to steal another line from Franson, and I’m quoting him a lot. He’s paid me to market here for him on this call, so he’ll pay me later. “But balance is bullshit.” So, like, it is so true, there isn’t really any balance. It’s about alignment and we’re going into Q1, which is where we’re at is our busiest marketing quarter. It starts like late January. So, we know that and Heidi, my wife knows that as well. So, we have to keep in mind that the alignment right now is more pointed towards work, and then making sure we have that cadence after work to come home, decompress, do not talk work. Initially we get to dinner. That is one thing we do is we have dinner every night as a family and we have it at the table. No distractions. That is our rule. And then we have like a high low that we do with our kids every night at the dinner table. So that’s just something simple to keep the kids in check.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: But then also, we go hard for Q1 and then we plan those vacations. So, the first vacation we’ve got is at the end of Q1, really at the end of April, after Easter’s over. Drop that in. That gives us a lot of energy. And then this year we’re going to do a second beach vacation. Something we have on our mind; we’ve been wanting to do for a while. So, we’re going to do that middle of the year. And then I also like to plan out and align my hunting schedule. Because I’m a big hunter. So, I think that when you get those dropped in and knowing that a lot of those are happening with your family, that gives you a lot of energy. The juices flow. They know that dad’s cranking hard right now and that they know that the vacation is coming down the pipe. But then just daily, having small things like dinner together and making sure that the TV’s turned off, getting outside and playing sports with my boys, that’s where it’s at.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, I love it. I just think that family practice… It’s always great to hear new ideas from people. I love the high low thing.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Cool.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: I know my kids are a little small for that, but it’s so fun to like to introduce those new things, like of gratitude and just ideas around the table in that way. So that’s amazing.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Well, now our kids are praying, they’re the ones leading the prayers before meal, which is really even cooler.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh, nice. Will we see you guys in Scottsdale?
Dr. Jared Himsel: I don’t know yet. I haven’t booked that yet. We just talked about that actually as a celebratory gift. The big thing for us is Q1 and we are slammed with marketing, and we are leading the charge. So, I’m suggesting we go just to get away for a weekend.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yeah.
Dr. Jared Himsel: And so, to be determined, we’re going to be one of those last-minute decisions.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yes. Well, I hope we get to see you there for sure.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Me too. I want some warm weather.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: [chuckle] Exactly. Well-deserved at this point, right?
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yes.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Just before we move on for marketing. What are you hitting so hard right now? I’d love to hear what you guys are up to.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Well, there’s so many avenues to go down with marketing and as our team grows, one thing that I’ve learned, and this is straight from EOS, when you’re focused on everything, you’re really focused on nothing. And so, we’ve learned that the hard way with marketing, getting all these different marketing ideas. And really with a cash practice, marketing is like your backbone. You always should be marketing and promoting, right? So, it just… It’s really an expression of your passion and your purpose. But right now, the marketing we focus on the most is… In Q1 we do a lot of screening events, just old school screening. And we have an awesome screening team, and we have an awesome system how we do it. So we have a lot of screening events and we have some new team members that we start out with like more 1099 workers and now they’re becoming full members of our team and they’re actually doing this for us on a full year calendar now.
Dr. Jared Himsel: So Q1 is heavy with the screenings. I’ve been doing dinner workshops now for years. Those happen every month. The social media, Facebook stuff, you know we still do those ads and we’re still working through those things. And then of course, internal new patients, it’s always there. There’s a few internal office events that go on. The first one happens this weekend with SprintSet as you’re aware of that. We do a SprintSet red carpet every January. And so that’s really the bulk of the marketing. We backed off of the corporate talks, around COVID time and we’ve tinkered around them a little bit, but right now it’s a capacity thing. As I bring on another chiropractor, we’re going to hire another associate. I think that as they get more and more freedom with associates coming on board, that I’ll be able to sit back and do some corporate. That’s really where my passion and skillset is at, is this public speak. And as much as I love adjusting, I can make it rain with new patients pretty easy.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s awesome.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yeah.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: I’m marketing that 20%. That’s where it’s coming from… So that’s pretty incredible.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Amen. Yep.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Well Jared, thanks for joining us. To close out, I just always really love to know like, what’s your superpower? What can we come to you for specifically? What do you think you bring into that UAC room?
Dr. Jared Himsel: Well, there’s a lot. I think the cash practice is probably where I would lean there. Because I just… The more I talk to people, the more they really are not 100% cash practice. They want to claim they are, but when I dig deeper, I’m like, “Okay, so you’re still collecting this and that in that insurance. So how much are you collecting a year?” And I just start prying away the layers. And like, “Oh, it’s only 400 grand.” I’m like, “Well, when you can take that 400 grand and say goodbye to it and you’re ready to cut the tape, you know, cut the string, then we’ll talk.” Because that’s what a true cash practice is. There are no strings. And so I would say that that’s having to go through that… I would say that’s a really a strong superpower. And then on a personal side, I’m a pretty damn good hunter, so if you’d like to come hunting come see me.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: What’s your favorite place? Where’d you go?
Dr. Jared Himsel: I’ve been in a lot of places. I just got back. I took a bucket item. I got a nice bull moose this year in Alaska. That was an amazing trip. I’ll go back. I’m going to go back; shift gears a bit. I’ll probably elk hunt again this year. I’m going to elk hunt and book to New Mexico and then I’ll probably go, maybe a caribou in Alaska go for a caribou so.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Do you clean them too? Or just get them?
Dr. Jared Himsel: When I can, I absolutely do. Yeah. We are huge field to table people. So, my wife, we have a nice big chest full three deep freezers down here, loaded with game meat. And I don’t want any of that crap commercially grown junk meat. So, you can’t sell me on it.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: That’s awesome. Well, that’s awesome. I’m so excited to see you. I hope we get to see you guys in February, but if not for sure our May event. So…
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yeah. And when are you due?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Oh yeah, I won’t be at the May event [chuckle]
Dr. Jared Himsel: When are you due though?
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Beginning of May. May 1st.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you won’t be there.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Nope, I won’t be there. My husband Nick’s thinking about it. Because I know it’s the financial event. And so that’s going to be a really awesome big one. So…
Dr. Jared Himsel: Yeah, I know, but babies are more important.
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you Jared, so much for joining today. You did an awesome job.
Dr. Jared Himsel: Hey, I appreciate it. Tell me, “Go, Cubs, Go.”
Dr. Stefanie Rodsater: No, I will.
Dr. Jared Himsel: All right.
