Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:00:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode align your practice podcast. This is your host, Dr. Joe Esposito. And I'm excited to have Dr. Taylor Hoskins on the podcast today, Doc, how are you?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:00:12

Great. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:00:14

You're welcome. You know, I wanted to talk about opening practice. And since you open a practice fairly recently, I can't say you're elderly, but you are getting a little seasoned. I think it's over a year. So you're still a little bit of a newbie, right? And still getting the experience but, but you've had a lot of lessons learned over the time. So I thought it'd be a good discussion for you, you and I to have. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:00:40

I mean, we were just under two and a half years, since we opened. So I feel like I've lived now 20 and a half years, it was two and a half. But like you said, they are lessons. And they have definitely made the future appear to be a lot easier than the than the last two and a half years that we've had.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:01:07

That's crazy. I'm thinking a little over a year, and it's two and a half. So to me, time flies to you. It's like, oh, two and a half a long years. So, um, I always say we and align life can make opening a practice easier. But it's not easy. Right? Would you agree that the concept of launching a new business, I don't care if it's a pizza place? A laundromat chiropractic office? Opening a new business has a lot of tasks, a lot of energy, right? I mean, overall period?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:01:38

Yeah, absolutely. I remember in chiropractic school, you know, everyone talks about opening their own business, or everyone talks about, you know, owning their practice, or I'm just going to work as an associate for a couple of years. And then I'm going to open my practice. And we talk about it like, it's just no big deal. And then the closer you get to graduation, and the more real it becomes your you start to realize, oh, wait, how do I do this? And yeah, I think that a lot of people in the beginning of chiropractic school, they're like, oh, yeah, everyone opens an office, I can figure it out. But then once you get down to it, you're like, Oh, where do I? Where's what's step one? Where do I start?

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:02:24

Yeah, it's paralyzed by so many tasks. And I always say, you know, there's probably a round, we I counted, I don't remember how many 1000 I counted. But I estimated at the end of trying to figure it out about 1000 decisions that you have to make. And we say align life's helps you with about 7500 that you don't have to even ask yourself, so that we have a few to help have you make some decisions. But really, there's just so many things to do to get a successful practice off the ground. So Dr. Taylor, who I want to be speaking to now is doctors out there that have maybe been an associate for years, and they have always wanted their own practice, or a student that has this vision, since they were maybe 15 years old to being a chiropractor, and they just cannot wait to open their doors. And I want to kind of speak to them directly from your experience, my experience would we learn? So I'm going to start off by going through what I think are the biggest adversities when opening a practice. And then we'll break that down that you can share some of your experiences. Then I'd even like to look at your behavioral profile, your business favorite profile and say, This is how you're wired. What did what how did that help you the way you're right, and how did that have some gaps? And will? That'll be today's discussion? Is that fair?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:03:43

Yeah, that sounds good. I'm extremely excited to talk about all of that.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:03:49

Right? So first off, what are the biggest adversities you're, you're sitting there as a student right now you're finishing part four boards, you're getting a little anxiety, you're like, Alright, I think I'm gonna do this. To me some of the biggest gaps and we'll go through each one of these, I'll list them real quick and I'll break them down number one is underfunded, not having enough capital. Whenever I tell people how much money they should get, they get they their jaw hits the floor, they go unconscious, they wake back up and they're like, Are you kidding me? Because I want them overfunded. So if they break their leg, if they have adversity with their family, if the economy turns if they lose their staff, and they need an extra 10 grand to survive or 30 grand to survive, I don't want anyone to lose their business because the underfunded that's that's the most painful you know, you're getting there and you can't pay your rent your payroll and you have to close that I couldn't think of a more painful disheartening situation. Number two is not having systems to move the number before you run out of cash is too and number three is by not knowing how to hire and onboard your staff that they become liabilities, they don't help you, you burn out your money again, at the end of the day, you're going to burn out money on one of these three. So let's go with the first one. Under funding, which one reason why I want to Juwan? As you pulled it off with pretty low funding, that I was actually questioning you, if you remember, like, tell, I don't know if we can do this? What what, what did you learn from that? Like? Where did you suffer? Where if you had the money would have been easier for you? And what were the good lessons that you learned from not having the full funding? Software? Brian's?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:05:39

So? Yeah, so I'll start off by saying that, you know, you, you go to chiropractic school, and everyone, I think we, we assume, Oh, I'm gonna graduate as a doctor. And doctor must mean, I'm gonna make a ton of money immediately. And then I think as you get closer to graduation, you kind of learn the reality that unfortunately, a lot of chiropractors, they don't know how to make the money that their work. So then you have that you have the hundreds of 1000s of student loan debt you're in. And if you haven't saved and you don't have, you know, a really rich family to support you, where are you going to get your money? So then a lot of people do what I did. And I said, Okay, I'm going to take an associate position, and I'll stash away some cash. Until I save enough money to open my own practice, I had no idea how much that was gonna, how much money I would need to save. So I had no idea. Like, I didn't have a strategy, I didn't have a plan. I was like, you know, I'll put X amount percent of my paycheck into a regular savings account, you know, which isn't great. But then, when I did get to the end of my time as an associate, I didn't have any, I didn't really have any, any money saved. Because as an associate, I wasn't making a lot of money. But also I kind of got unexpectedly laid off because a COVID are looking for laid off. Okay. Wow. Yeah. So I mean, it was was pretty unexpected. So I had already been talking to a line, like, I'd already been talking to you guys for about a month or so. So I knew this was something I wanted to do. You know, I had the idea of like, hey, where am I going to get this money, but I didn't happen. So

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:07:37

that's a realization, just just to hit that point. I also thought because I had a license, and I'm a doctor, I thought banks would just hand did you think that I just thought, no, no, I got a license. They're just going to hand me money. A lot of students don't know coming up with some seed capital that the bank wants you to come up with, for them to give you money. Some people don't know that. Either. They think they have the license. It's all right. It's just easy.

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:08:06

I'm a doctor, I can treat people right. So like I have the potential to make a lot of money. Isn't that enough? Come on. Yeah, that I think that's definitely a mindset though a lot of a lot of chiropractors and students have however, it's not the reality. And you know, I was, unfortunately, I lost my dad when I was 15 years old. And I had some money saved away in a very, like, cool, like a very hard to get to savings account from his life insurance policy. And it was not a lot by any means. But it was something I'd always said, hey, if worse comes to worse, if I'm literally about to be homeless, this is the money that is going to save me from not having to sleep on won't touch it until then. But then I came to the realization, hey, I'm not going to have a place to sleep if I don't have a job. So maybe this is going to have to be what I use in order to start my business so that I can make money so don't become homeless.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:09:12

So you had you had a few dollars to get going but not enough to put down for a loan. So you actually didn't get fully funded. So the fact that tell us about using the Align life system to help leverage that to get cash flow because it is a beautiful story. I have I showcase your story once in a while because moving forward with the relationship because we believe in you because who you are your integrity, your your work ethic, we could just after spending time with you, we just had faith. So tell us a little about there's also lessons learned about yourself. There's lessons learned about business when you don't have the money. You can't throw away money because you don't have it. So you can't be you have to be pretty purposeful, pretty good intention every day, every dollar right when you have limited, so you don't have the chance of making a $30,000 mistake. You just couldn't. So I tell us about utilizing the line life system in that regard. Does that save you when you have limited dollars? And what did you learn? Because there's some I can't say good, but there is some good lessons learned when you're on a shoestring budget that you don't have the leniency of throwing money everywhere. Right, you have to be really focused. I think. So did that help in a weird way? To be focused when you know, there wasn't a dollars to play with?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:10:42

Yeah, for sure. Because I mean, yeah, you're right. shoestring budget. That's, that's, I think that's even giving me more credit than what you had. And I'll just just to be transparent with, with people, because I think a lot of times we hear people say, Oh, well, I didn't have any money. And then they say, you know, I only had $75,000, that I that I I scraped up out of my savings. I had 10 grand, that's it $1,000, you can't do much with $10,000, whether you're opening a practice, or I mean, maybe you can buy a really like a really cheap house. Buy a used car, you can't do much with $10,000. So I mean, using the Align life systems, when I was on such a tight budget, I think the biggest thing that helped me, or the biggest, yeah, the way that helped me navigate this journey, truly the best is knowing that the money that I put towards, like digital marketing, I remember I sent you a text one day, whenever we were getting started. And I was like, I don't know what we're gonna do about marketing. And you said, you got to put at least $500 towards it, you got to figure it out. And I was like, Okay, I've literally spent all 10,000 of my dollars, though. So what do I do? And I figured it out. And I put that $500 towards it. And was it a lot? No, was it going to get us all of these digital leads? No, but it did get us digital leads, and it got people to come in the door. So I knew that was something that I could put my money towards, and not set it and forget it sort of thing not have to worry about it, which was, that was nice, because the stress levels were very high.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:12:29

Yeah, and on the line life side, on the corporate side, that means a lot because we spend so much time vetting out these people to make sure that 500 doesn't disappear. Because in the field of chiropractic, there's probably 70 players are doing digital marketing. And you can hear stories, I put five grand and he kept my child and I hired this one for six grand. And then I did, and they're going around in circles. And although there's great success stories, there's also a lot of pain of vendors that may not produce. And if you have limited dollars and align life, we vent out every single vendor, ensure that they can get a return on your money before we allow you to spend your dollar. So I appreciate that story that that 500 That last 500 did go and start the funnel of creating lead generation for your clinics. So that's great to hear. The second so that underfunding is one of the conversations. The second one is, we talked a little about systems, which we'll break down more on a future podcast. The third one is staffing. And I want to pull in your we're going to be doing more and more I know what the student clubs and we're doing now. But looking at what we call that profile called a PDP profile. I was called a business behavioral profile, because it kind of tells us how you're wired. And I'll go over how I'm wired. I'm wired as to up to down. So I'm off the chart dominant was funny Stephen France and looked at mine. And he said, and so did the PDP people. I've never seen this in my life. My first is dominance. And extraversion is off the chart top where it hits the top of the level. And then my pace and patience and my compliance is on the bottom. Like it's just the at both ends of the spectrum. So I'm more low compliant. I'm a typical CEO big vision, not as good of an implementer I have a lot of extraversion, so I could speak but I'm going to fall down on systems without a manager. That's my profile. Yours You can explain real quick, somewhat similar, but I thought you were high extraversion but you're not so explain you're so similar.

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:14:39

It's so funny, because you know, we are you and I are very, very, very similar in terms of like dominance, very dominant. And I am very much lower when it comes to the pace and the patients and also the systems you know, I want to do things my way and I want it done right now. That the area where we vary is our introversion extroversion, so you're highly extroverted. And most people do when they meet me, they think I'm extroverted because I can be, however, naturally I am, I'm more introverted. I'm below the line, as we say, in the PDP and I'm more towards the introversion. However, when I'm stressed out, I get extroverted

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:15:22

to try to fill that gap. Right when

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:15:25

things have to get done. I can turn it on, I can perform, if you will. And you know, that definitely can be to my advantage. But it can also be to my disadvantage as well. But yeah, learning that PDP oh my gosh, like that, that right there. I wish that someone had shown me that way earlier in my life.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:15:49

Yeah, it's interesting. I it matches so well, when you're hiring people that profile, but in your profile, you've been dominant, that helps you get through adversity on being underfunded. If you had low dominance, you may not have made it through what you did, because your dominance but tell us like the extraversion, you're probably tired a bit opening for the first year or so because you had to force the extroversion, like you said, you'll do it. But it's not an innate, comfortable thing. When I speak, I'm lit up and I get energized, you get tired? It's because it's how we are wired. What did well, how was systems when you two things versus utilizing systems? When you're like me, a local clients? How did you navigate through that in your head? Your thoughts, because I visited your practice, and you're using systems you are? So how did you do that? With your profile?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:16:47

The one of the things that my staff and I are re training on right now is the conversion aspect of the of the LMS systems. And we were going through the module of the conversion one module this week, and listening to the videos about you know, the why and this and that. And it's funny to listen to the three motivators behind human behavior. Number one is people move towards pleasure. Number two people move away from pain. And number three, they want to do it the cheapest, easiest way possible, right? So initially, I wanted to move towards pleasure, which I thought was I'm not going to follow systems, I'm going to do it my way. Because I also want to be cheap and lazy. I don't want to spend my time I'm, like, learning these things. And following this regimen and like, outlined, plan, like what. But as time went on, I realized I was, I had a lot more pain than the pleasure, The pleasure was only it's only temporary. So then it's like, Alright, I got it. I want pleasure now in real pleasure, long lasting pleasure and less pain. And the only way I'm gonna get that is by just dealing with it sitting down learning the systems, because in the long run, it actually is going to be cheaper and easier for me.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:18:16

That's a great point. I like I like the way you've got self awareness around that because once you buy into it and you change your story in your mind, it becomes easier. In regards to staffing, you and I having dominant personalities, sometimes we steamroll people potentially, we can be a little brash, maybe because we're of a dominant personality. So tell me your journey there with the Align life systems and personality profile. You went through some trials and tribulations with staffing. Would you learn and how are things now?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:18:50

Oh, boy, man, we could just have our own podcast on just this. So I remember the first person that we hired, you know, I, we were so excited to hire someone because oh my gosh, it's our first hire, and we're gonna, this means that we're going to grow and like, oh, my gosh, I'll have more freedom and this and that. And yes, like that's, that's the goal of hiring people, right? But if you don't do it properly, that's not the outcome most of the time. So because I'm highly dominant, but I am introverted. A lot of times I can be and I'm very urgent. I'm super urgent. I want it done right now. I can come off as explosive or like, all of a sudden I just lose it. And that's really not it. But that's how it's perceived. Because I'm not because I'm more introverted. I'm not really sharing a lot of how I'm feeling in the moment or what's going on. And then all of a sudden, I just say it and people are like, whoa, okay, so then that leads to less respect from the people that you are hiring and Like I said, the first person that we hired, she was, I don't think that she didn't respect me. But I mean, you know, there definitely wasn't the dynamic of I am her boss, she is the employee. And so when it had finally gotten so bad, it was just like, alright, just gotta go. Like, there was no conversation about, Hey, how can we get better? Hey, yeah, it was just like, Alright, bye, you're fired, which is not, not ideal.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:20:30

So you went through some a number of different staff members, but you feel that they didn't respect you as a boss, because you didn't have the leadership skills at the moment that you have. Now, a couple years later, right? Would you say? Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. It's our ability as a leader. Yeah.

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:20:46

Oh, yeah. As a as a leader, you I mean, people are there people who are natural born leaders, like you and I are natural born leaders, we know that we are meant to create a movement to change people to move people. But that doesn't mean we're going to be amazing at it immediately. And I think a lot of the times, especially when you have such a dominant personality, you just assume oh, well, I know how to do it. Because I'm meant to do that. And so you don't think that you need to learn or hone your skills or anything like that and be a little stubborn, maybe. So as we have been in practice, and we've hired people and gone through staff, unfortunately, every single time after we have let them go, or they've left, I've sat there and I'm like, Alright, so this was a big learning lesson, this thing right here, whatever it was, at that point, this can never happen again, this, the tone has to be set for this employee. on day zero, like the moment we have our first interaction with them, this is the time we have to set and that was not an easy thing to learn. However, I'm not going to say I'm perfect, however, I will say that like I think I hope I've had enough pain to have a pretty good grip on it

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:22:09

now. That's, that's awesome. So what about the systems that like the scorecards, the onboarding process for lying, like the group interview, the breakout at the revolution on vulnerability based trust? How did these things have built your leadership over the years you see value and all of those different things?

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:22:30

100%. So the the onboarding, then the new employee orientation. Okay, so the first few hires that we had, I didn't do it, or I just kind of like went through whatever whatever PowerPoint was, you know, available to us. And I didn't like add anything personal to it. And the outcomes that we got were not great. Our current CA, when we hired her, we spent probably three, four hours onboarding her her first day going through this PowerPoint going through the employee handbook, talking about the scorecards, this, the scorecards, we told her, this is how you know, whether you are excelling at your job. And you know, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing what we expect of you, or this is how you know if your job, if you're in danger of losing your job, like, and this is what you need to look at to say, Okay, I need help, or hey, I need to continue to be great at what I'm at what I'm producing, you know, but I will say the vulnerability exercise that we did it revolution, that was that was very eye opening. Very,

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:23:47

that was my favorite thing. And I dragged it on an extra hour because I kept walking around going, there's a breakthrough I can't I can't throw about to and then I see this breaks. I'm like, oh my god I see over here and I'm like, keep going. It's too good. So I realized, we all need that we all need to get vulnerable with people, we need to build our leadership. I think that's the thing I'm most proud of our last year and a half with line life is not creating more forms and process but just focus on teaching leadership. It's such a gap in business, especially small business right is, you know, it's not something that's taught very often in small business. Before we got on the call you the podcast, you had said one of the things that got you through this was the Align life tribe and the tribe we call is the group of doctors and clinics. But you also said the corporate tribe, meaning the team that I assist with and support, talk through that is what was the benefits for those that are looking out of line life because some people on this call maybe, you know, looking at the line life opportunity and saying, you know, where's the benefit? Tell us about the line life try from your perspective on opening a new clinic.

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:24:58

Yeah, so um, And I will say that I knew Dr. Marina Schaeffer, Dr. Raymond Nichols and went to school together were best friends, I mean, and they were already part of a limelight. So I had a glimpse into what a limelight was through them, and through what they were telling me. So I knew it was good. I knew I knew it had to be good. However, once I became a part of a line life, that's when I really realized this is this is worth way more money than anything. Because at any moment, I know any, any other doctor in the franchise, any other ca any other office manager, anyone, I can call them, I can text them, I can email them, and they're going to answer me. And they're going to have a good answer, not just uh, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Like, they're genuinely going to engage in the conversation or help me with problem solving. And anything else I could need anyone could need. But the corporate aspect. Because of my PDP profile, I was kind of like, I don't want to do anything corporate Come on. I will say, and I want anyone who has that mentality to really listen to this. This is not like, corporate that most people think of. I never once was nervous or afraid or hesitant to contact anyone in corporate about anything, literally anything. I remember, there was one day where we were really frustrated early on in business because of some things that were out of our control. Well, maybe it was because I was underfunded. But and we, I think we we emailed Carrie, Carrie Quinn in corporate and we said this is what's going on. And she said, You know, I can't really I don't have an answer. I don't have a solution for you. But if you want to jump on a 30 minute call and just vent and I can just like be there for you. Let's do it. And I just thought to myself, Okay, first of all, this is great. It's Second of all, what corporate team does? You know, and one thing I've always thought and then the last thing that I'll say that I think is very important for people to know because I pride. I pride myself on like telling this to people who are hesitant about doing anything corporate or franchised or anything like that is I love to tell people. I know Dr. Joe Esposito, I know Dr. Kristina Esposito, I have their number, if I need to contact them, I can call them. They're not just this entity above all of us. Like, I mean, I know you, you know me, and we can have a conversation. And it's wouldn't be odd if I needed to get in contact with you. And I don't think that other franchises other corporate offices. I don't think they operate that way.

Dr. Joseph Esposito: 00:28:24

No, I appreciate that. Very, very touches my heart on that, because that's how the culture I want it to build. And I'm glad that you feel that. I you know, I'm also proud because I wanted to create an organization that we take care of each other because this profession just felt so fragmented to me, like, I felt more fighting than support. And I was a weird guy that if I couldn't get some results, I would refer to a chiropractor down the road. And so you got a different technique. I sent the check to them with my staff and the patient. And they were like, What are you doing? I'm like, Well, I want them healthy, and I'm not getting a result. Can you take a look, and here's the full payment pre pay. They're like, You're weird. So I always liked unity on everything, whether it was sports as a kid or, and it just seemed this profession was just against each other in a weird way. So I appreciate that you feel you could call another office matter, another doctor, another staff member and they lean on you. And I know from my heart that you're going to do that to other people. I know that 100% If someone calls you you like I got you, I'll take care of it. And that's the beauty of above systems. It's it's relational life is relational businesses, relational their systems, and it's all great, but it comes down to a culture and that's I appreciate you acknowledging that into closing up right now. You're now in a beautiful office I visited and I was really, you know, it was because I remember the beginning and you were one of the ones that was totally on our fun and something I shouldn't have done. I'm just proud that you and I I made it happen. I didn't make it happen, you made it happen. But I took the risk. And I'm so proud of what you've done, you have a beautiful office and you're serving your serving people and changing lives. And that's why we all do what we do. It's why created a line life, it's why you became a chiropractor, right is people are getting healthy. And we're telling the story about the truth about health care. So I think it's always good to add on mission. But if you have any final words, I appreciate your time and your insights and sharing with people that are on this call listening that may be scared or misdirected, or they don't know what to do. And I think your words were very meaningful. So appreciate that. Any final words closing up today? Well, I

Dr. Taylor Hoskins: 00:30:45

want to say thank you for saying that you're proud of of me, because I mean, it was it was rough. You know, when you're in it, it feels so difficult, and it feels like it's never gonna get to any other place than what you're in. And you know, now that we're on the other side of that, it's looking back, like, oh, my gosh, oh, and you know, I definitely am proud of myself as well. And, you know, I just want to let other people know that if you are scared, and if you are hesitant, and you don't know, if a system based, you know, option is right for you, or I don't know, whatever it might be. focus less on that and focus more on being with a tribe of people who want what is best for you. And they want to help you serve your mission and your purpose in life. Because, like you said, it is all about culture. And if you're in a culture like that, I don't know how you can fail or how you could ever regret becoming a part of that.