E12: How to Scale Your Business with Systemized Operations | Dr. Jason Barker
You have a vision for your business. Now, it’s time to turn that vision into reality with the right strategies.
In this episode, We will guide you through building a process-driven, customer-focused operation that scales.
Learn how to systemize your operations for maximum efficiency and growth, and hear how a local chiropractor transformed his unique approach into a thriving multi-location practice.
📒 Show Notes and Resources 📒
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Kellen Ketchersid
Kellen is a co-founder of Stag Business Coaching, business strategist, and a systems thinker. He leverages his extensive experience in biotech and consulting to empower entrepreneurs to navigate complex challenges with strategic growth solutions.
Albert Gillispie
Albert is a serial entrepreneur, business efficiency expert and co-founder of Stag Business Coaching who has founded several multimillion-dollar companies. With expertise in optimizing operations and innovative systems, he mentors business leaders who want to unlock their business’s full potential.
Dr. Barker is one of the co-founders of Quantum Health. He is a Chiropractor who specializes in Quantum Neuro Reset, a technique that is a complete muscle testing system capable of identifying instabilities in the body. This technique can prevent, predict, and treat injuries precisely and rapidly. He loves helping patients from all walks of life but has a keen eye for active individuals. Dr. Barker has experience with athletes who are playing sports for the first time to professional athletes.
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EPISODE 12 TRANSCRIPTION
Introduction
[00:00:00] Albert Gillispie: Welcome to the business growth masterclass where business growth is made simple. Listen, as we discuss best practices to streamline your operations, increase your profits, and ultimately create healthier and more valuable companies. Today's guest was Dr. Jason Barker, who is a chiropractor by trade. He's the owner of Quantum Wellness and Quantum Health as well as an owner of a commercial real estate investment business. He has a lot going on.
[00:00:34] Kellen Ketchersid: Yes, he does. He's a cool guy.
[00:00:37] Albert Gillispie: Great episode. Great conversation. Yeah. What was your, what was the highlight of that for you? What was your number one takeaway?
[00:00:43] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, I mean, right off the bat, he starts out by explaining how The nerves work and he can be a little bit of get into the weeds in a nerdy way, but in the best kind of way.
[00:00:55] Kellen Ketchersid: And what I liked is he used an example that he simplifies things for you. And you're talking to a true expert when they can take something that's really complex and distill it down and put it in layman's terms. A lot of people try to talk way up here and I feel like the smartest people are the people who can take something that's really would be hard to understand and can explain it to you in simple terms. So I really enjoyed that. And I also enjoyed just his courage to step out in faith and go for things and learn from people that he saw as mentors. And take that wisdom and put it into a system. So it was really cool to hear somebody who's been there and really done that.
[00:01:38] Albert Gillispie: He had so many great stories about that. The biggest takeaway practical nugget for me was when he talked about how, you know, cause he's a chiropractor, like why is he on a business podcast, but he has built this well oiled machine that is highly efficient, but they're so intentional about the customer experience.
[00:02:00] Albert Gillispie: And they've looked at every detail backwards and forwards and figured out how to be really intentional. And so, I think you'll enjoy this conversation. We had a great time and you're going to learn a lot from Dr. Jason Barker. So enjoy the podcast. All right. We are live. Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Jason Barker.
[00:02:22] Jason Barker: Hey guys. Thanks for having me.
What is a Chiropractor?
[00:02:23] Albert Gillispie: You bet. Thanks for being here. So you are a chiropractor that with a specialty. Can you tell us, I guess, first, what is a chiropractor and tell us about your niche within that industry?
[00:02:46]Jason Barker: Sure. So what a chiropractor does is they evaluate the nervous system for interference is typically what they would say if you're graduating school and then there's branches of it where you're just aligning spines and joints to make sure the nervous system isn't interfered causing headaches, dysregulation and muscle tone and stuff like that. So, For the gist of it, just a lot of pain and aches and dysfunctions in the body.
[00:03:11] Kellen Ketchersid: Right off the bat, I'm like surprised at the answer because when I hear nervous system interference, when I think of a chiropractor, I think of like cracking my back or my neck. right? So can you, can you unpack that a little bit for us? Like what that means?
[00:03:24] Jason Barker: Yeah. So when a lot of chiropractors graduate from school, their philosophy is a closed pin. So it's kind of like a closed link between afferent and efferent nerves. So kind of like a light bulb and battery relationship. You have two wires, one going in, one going out. One controls movement, controls organs, controls the other end, and the other one gives feedback back to the brain, and that's how they work in, in relationship to each other. And when that gets dysregulated, out of place, or the muscle tone is too tight, or too achy, and the joint's not moving correctly, there's dysregulation in that relationship.
[00:03:58] Jason Barker: So our job is to close that clothespin, make sure that light bulb and battery have a good relationship, pretty much. Wow. It's a more philosophical version of what we actually do. Cause a lot of people are just like, if something's out, let's just hammer it back in, you know?
[00:04:10] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. See, he's already getting to like his unique ability to dumb down this super scientific complex thing to wire, light bulb, clothespin. I'm like, okay, my dumb brain can follow that.
Simplifying Chiropractic Science
[00:04:28] Jason Barker: I love it. It's not so much only me. I have to give that to Rachel, my wife. Cause when you graduate from school and you get textbook heavy and you're trying to impress people with medical terminology and she straight up was like, I don't care, none of us care. We want to be able to understand that your kids want to be able to understand it. Explain it that way.
[00:04:45] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah. Well, I think that's important for people. And also I've never heard somebody, I mean I was saying a minute ago that my understanding of what a chiropractor does is something that is very different and more science-based than a lot of people realize.
[00:05:00] Kellen Ketchersid: And It's just cool to be able to hear how even if you're simplifying it for us, how that works.
[00:05:07] Jason Barker: Yeah, it's really doing us a disservice when we say, “Hey, you're backstarting. Let me just crack it or adjust it.” There's so much to the complexity of the way we're designed that it's really important to address & educate on what's actually going on. Whatever you do, reset a muscle or adjust a spinal segment.
[00:05:26] Albert Gillispie: Absolutely. I was cutting off the top of your head. All right, we back niche. So you're not just a… what I would call a traditional chiropractor. You do a lot of functional medicine, functional soft tissue stuff. I'm butchering this. Tell us a little bit more about that.
[00:05:51] Jason Barker: So I specialize in the nerves specifically because what we found out is there's a lot of soft tissue doctors. There's a lot of chiropractors, but their thing that overarches everything is the nervous system. The brain controls the nerves, the nerves control the muscles, right? And the muscle gives feedback to the brain to tell you the tone of the muscle, how it's moving and everything. So, how I relate that is a lot of times the door may be squeaky, right? And we go in, we spray WD 40 on the hinges and it'll stop squeaking, but it's a door latching, right? What dictates the doors latching is alignment for one of the door itself and the hinges and then a door frame. The doorframe is the muscle, the muscles makes that frame sit in place correctly. So it's flush, right? Over time, the foundation shifts, the frame shifts lubricating that doorframe or the hinges as many times as you want. Isn't really going to change the fact that is that door going to latch? So we go from a more quantifiable standpoint because a lot of times in chiropractic, it's very much like, let me adjust you. Hopefully it gets better. Maybe, I don't know, maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a few months. That wasn't good enough for my brain. I want to know exactly what's going on. I need to quantify it. I need you to be able to tell my patient, this is what we're looking at. This is how long it's going to take because that's how the world operates.
[00:07:07] Jason Barker: If you had an investing company and there's like, give me money and maybe in 15 years, I'll pay you. Chances are they're not going to give you money. Right? And that's kind of how we operate is like we want to know exactly what's going on, all the parameters, why something's dysfunctional, and then so we go through a muscle testing system by isolating every muscle fiber in that joint, right?
[00:07:26] Jason Barker: For instance, if you go through a textbook for a shoulder, it's really dumbed down, really. If you look at the shoulder, there's deltoids, there's pecs, lats, and then the rotator cuff, which people think it's one thing with four pieces to it. And in that four, we divide it into 12, because if you take a cadaver and you pull the skin back and you look at the muscle fibers, they're all isolated like feathers, pretty much, and in different directions, even if it's the same muscle.
[00:07:51] Jason Barker: So we're able to isolate each one of those fibers down to it's nerve innervation. And that tells us, “hey, your internal rotation is bad,” but at what degree?
[00:08:00] Kellen Ketchersid: so at what level the neurons are off, is that what you're saying? Like where it's not firing correctly or in a sense?
[00:08:07] Jason Barker: Yes, because every muscle fiber has a branch of the neuron innervating it.
[00:08:12] Jason Barker: So yes, that's part of the truth. And the other truth is the muscle fiber itself in that muscle body isn't working correctly. So for instance, your subscap which is a muscle that just brings your arm and rotates your throwing muscles in baseball and football. If it's not working, there's four parts to it. You think internal rotation by your side, all the way up to above your head are all internal rotation. But what degree is it not working? When it's not working, then it creates all the crazy side effects, right? Tendinitis, chronic tendinitis, which is tendinosis. It's not shock absorbing, so labral tears or, rotator cuff injuries.
[00:08:47] Kellen Ketchersid: And those are the things people identify and maybe like surface level treatments for them, but they're not getting at the root cause, like what you're trying to do.
[00:08:56] Jason Barker: Exactly. It's like, “Hey, let's Google off shoulder pain right at the top of my shoulder.” Chances are the first thing pops up is rotator cuff but it's kind of just like my car broke down and you Google weird noise. It's like car problems. What is it? You know, is it the tire? Is it the frame? Is it a piece of plastic on the inside? It's not, it's not very specific.
[00:09:16] Albert Gillispie: Well,, we are a business podcast and, and you might be wondering what is a chiropractor? You know, who is so scientifically. What is he doing on this podcast? And you've already shown one of the reasons that I wanted you on here. You are able to educate your customer and teach your customer in such an engaging way about really complex subjects. But as far as chiropractors go, you have built an amazing business in such a short amount of time and you have raving fans. You have staff that are highly trained, highly engaged, really good at what they do. There's so much about your business that is amazing and I'm so proud of you that I just want to learn from that. And I want our listeners to learn from that. So how, how have you built such a successful practice compared to the solopreneur, who's just a chiropractor, just trying to get people in the store? How did you do that?
Building a Successful Practice
[00:10:29] Jason Barker: I didn’t do it much at all, really. We stand on the shoulders of giants. I give thanks to Dr. Carey, Dr. House, and Dr. Hodnet, who all had about a decade of experience. They refined it and were willing to take me in and give me the golden egg, right?
[00:10:50] Jason Barker: One thing my mentor always told me was, you can’t learn everything from everybody. But ask for the golden egg—what's one thing they can pass on that you can learn quickly? So, I would go to each of them and ask, what is the golden egg? They all went down the insurance route. Insurance in healthcare, in general, is not what we think it is. So, they went cash practice, which is the arch-enemy of school. School tells you, fill out this paperwork, and you’ll get paid by the companies. But even during our residency or outpatient clinic, we knew that wasn’t true.
[00:11:27] Jason Barker: So, I took a leap of faith, listened to what they had to say, and trusted them blindly because they obviously knew what they were doing. And on the side, when I was leaving school, I was following Albert Tanner and Steven. I thought, you’re doing something right. What do I need to do? Because I’m strong in science, math, and intellectual studies for my practice, but that’s such a small part. Business finances, understanding the psychology of money, and investing are much bigger parts. So, of course, Albert gave me all these books to read.
[00:12:02] Jason Barker: I started zooming through these books like a madman, as if I’d totally put school on pause for a while and just started reading all these business books, building good fundamentals, good principles from people like Ray Dalio. That’s where it all kind of started. Then, I began finding people who are really successful in their field and asking them questions, pretending like I didn’t know anything—because I didn’t know anything. I kept asking people, in this situation, what would you do? At the end of the day, all these products are almost the same. It’s a product, it’s transactional—a product for money. How do we systemize just a different product in healthcare?
[00:12:38] Kellen Ketchersid: For our listeners, a lot of them don’t know how you’ve got your business set up.
[00:12:44] Kellen Ketchersid: Could you talk a little bit about that? I know you’ve had these great mentors, and you’re a very humble guy, saying that it’s really because of these other people. But can you tell us the story about how you learned from these mentors and what it looks like? A lot of people think of the average chiropractic office they’ve walked into before.
[00:13:05] Kellen Ketchersid: What does it look like? How is it different when they walk into your place?
[00:13:10] Albert Gillispie: And from when you left school, what I mean, like how you got started?
The Transition and Growth Journey
[00:13:18] Jason Barker: Oh, okay. I was shadowing a bunch of surgeons when I was a stud tech and working out with Albert and Steven at Capstone. I thought, "Hey, med school is the way to go," you know, coming from an Asian family.
[00:13:30] Jason Barker: They were like, "Be a doctor." So, I pressured myself into this career that I wasn’t really passionate about. I thought, "It’s a high income, high status, respected, and job security is always going to be a thing." But I felt discontent. Something didn’t add up. This isn’t my personality. I don’t fit well into these rigid structures.
[00:13:46] Jason Barker: I hurt my shoulder. You know, when you’re 18, you think you’re invincible. I was snatching and hurt my shoulder really badly. I went to my orthopedic surgeon and asked, "What do I do?" He said, "We’ll get an MRI, give you an injection, and take these pain pills." I was really broke and couldn’t afford any of these things. So I thought, what happens to the average person? How are they going to seek care or find answers without leading themselves astray or damaging themselves further?
[00:14:23] Jason Barker: Then I met Dr. Carey at the gym, and he said, "Hey, give chiropractic a try." My surgeon told me not to, and I thought, "So you’re just going to pop my neck and make my shoulder better?" He said, "Yeah, that’s what a lot of people think chiropractors do." I went to my surgeon, and he said, "No, don’t do that." But I was desperate—I was coaching, that was my career, and I needed to keep working.
[00:14:41] Jason Barker: So I thought, whatever. My best friend and roommate at the time said, "Give it a try, dude. He’s a miracle worker." So I went through with it. Dr. Carey slid my shoulder into 42 different positions, stimulated a few nerve endings, and I had instantaneous results. My shoulder was stable that day. I was able to pick up stuff again. I thought, this is a really strong placebo effect if it’s just placebo.
[00:15:15] Jason Barker: So I asked him, "What do you do? Are you a neurologist or something?" He said, "Yes, we study nerves, and it’s a highly specialized branch of chiropractic." At that point, I trashed my books and thought, forget this—I’m going to chiropractic school.
[00:15:18] Kellen Ketchersid: Really? You already knew just from that.
[00:15:20] Jason Barker: It was like the moment when you find what you’re supposed to do. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know how much it was going to cost or any of the details. I was just a kid, and I didn’t care. I threw it all away, broke the news to my parents—they were mad. They were like, "Chiropractors are witch doctors." My uncles were so mad. But I didn’t care what they thought. This is my life. So I thought, whatever Dr. Carey says, I’m going to do it. I don’t care how much it costs or how long it takes—this is what I want to do. Then I started doing research and realized, okay, this is expensive. So I ran to Albert and asked, "Please hire me to be in your lab. I’m not leaving Lubbock." Albert was like, "Nah." So I thought, okay, I guess I’ll go back to school. But while I was in school, my eyes were opened. Dr. Carey did a great job of not saying, "Don’t do that, don’t do this." He encouraged me to open my eyes to everything—all the truths, all the techniques, everything. And he said, "You’ll find that our technique is the way to go because everything else is short-lived or just a band-aid. I’ve been doing this for a long time."
[00:16:16] Jason Barker: This is the only thing that works as fast as it says it doesn't. It's permanent. So I was just like, okay, usually people are like, no, don't do that. Don't waste your money. You know, he's like, go ahead. If you have the money, learn, learn, keep learning. You'll ultimately go where you need to. And I was really eye opening because I come from a Family that was just like, this is the way everything else is a lie. So I'm learning all these different techniques that are popular, like FDM ART, which are just soft tissue techniques, adjusting techniques and functional movement and stuff like that. And I was just like, Yeah, it kind of scratches the surface, doesn't really get the job done.
[00:16:47] Jason Barker: And I'm just trucking through school, you know, get married, have kids in school. And I'm like, I don't know anything anymore. I'm just like blacked out, like just trying to survive, you know? It wasn't until I had all these job offers. Cause I was like really trying to find a job because Rachel was at home with the kids now and we didn't have an income and borderline homeless, which that'll be the next story, but I was just like, I hope he calls. These dogs call and offer me a job or else I'm literally going to be homeless, but I had a few offers in Dallas to stay and like, I prayed about it and nothing kind of settled. I was just like, I don't feel at peace with any of these things. I feel like it's a financial security move and not like a calling, which also didn't align.
[00:17:27] Jason Barker: I was like, "Hey, is he really going to pay me this much money to go?" And Rachel said, "Pray about it and see what you think. See what God has to say about that." I prayed, but I never felt at peace. Then one day, Dr. Carey called me. I was in the clinic, and I was home with the kids because they were sick.
[00:17:42] Jason Barker: He called me and said, "Hey, where are you?" I was like, "Oh no, he’s at the clinic, and I’m playing hooky because the kids are sick. I’m freaking out, thinking he’s going to say something about me not being dependable." But he just said, "No, I’m calling to tell you there’s a job for you back in Lubbock."
[00:17:55] Jason Barker: He said, "Whenever you’re done, come back." And I was like, okay. I never negotiated a contract or anything. I just thought, I’m coming back. I don’t care if I have to sweep floors with these guys. These are good men, good leaders who take care of their patients. I don’t care if I don’t get paid.
[00:18:08] Jason Barker: I needed to get mentored and be in the right place before starting a career. I came back, and they gave me a contract unlike any other. Everyone else wanted to put me on a salary and work me to the bone. But they were like, "We’re going to split 60/40 with you, and you keep everything above 40%."
[00:18:25] Jason Barker: Once your bottom line is met, you get to build your practice, and we'll mentor you along the way. But we're not going to give you a salary because we want you to learn and grow. I was like, easy—no ceiling, no problem. I've never been able to operate in a place where I'm told, "This is what you're going to make forever."
[00:18:44] Jason Barker: No matter how much more effort you put in. So, I came back and joined the foundation, and about three years into it, I was offered a partnership. Then COVID hit, and we had to shut down all our practices. I was praying and pleading, "Please don’t do this." There was a lot of pressure and then just kept my head down seeing patients, one patient at a time. And God is faithful as usual, practice stayed open, build resilience. There are so many uncontrollables in business.
There's just like, you think you have all these things down and it's just like, the government can shut you down, fire marshals come shut your door. People have to wear masks, you can only have one patient at a time, and it was just like, you can't control it, just keep, keep going, keep going, and then we got to where we're at, and I was just like, there's a lot of people that want to see us, and there's not enough of us, so there's a problem at hand, we need to train more docs because if we don't train docs and get them specialized in this, this technique will die with us and it goes back to the drawing board of just like, who's taking care of these patients in the future?
Chiropractors will not be a profession in the future if the burnout rate stays at what it is traditionally, just that open 7 days a week, adjusting 1000 patients. None of them are really getting better, or some of them are getting better, you know what I mean? This high volume, high stress, high cost. Model. So that's whenever Dr. Carey developed that high-efficiency model, just like having reset specialists at the points. And we just test, we divide the jobs up and then the hours go way down, then you can share overhead because you're hybridizing yourself in the clinic…
[00:20:15] Albert Gillispie: Hang on. Hang on.
[00:20:20] Kellen Ketchersid: Well, you just hit on something that I think we want to unpack in terms of the system, going from the traditional model, right? What you do that's so different. So is that where you're going, Albert?
[00:20:33] Albert Gillispie: Yeah, I wanted to Summarize what I heard first you gave yourself this time and freedom to explore. Yeah, you weren't you didn't feel particularly called which is super mature of you at that moment, even though it probably didn't feel like it to pause to pray about it. You know, having a wife that encourages you to do that is incredible and you gave yourself time for discernment and finding what you were called to do, and then getting started, you made the decision not to go get a job and work for somebody, you know, that there's security there. You touched on that. And on the other end of that spectrum is to start your own practice and just put it all on black and go after it and bet on yourself. Which some people can do, but you found something in the middle.
[00:21:33] Albert Gillispie: What shows discernment and prayer and an open mind where it was, it was a hybrid of you didn't have a ceiling, but you had a team that you could learn from. And that like I really hadn't heard that entire story. And the discernment at a young age with you and your wife had twins when you were in chiropractic school.
[00:21:59] Albert Gillispie: Yeah. What a story there. To have the peace of mind or the maturity to take time for that is awesome. And such a testament of why you are where you are today. And so there are so many questions I have, but yeah, the first one, that was one of the things about your practice is you have built something like a business right?
[00:22:23] Albert Gillispie: That is really efficient, but doesn't feel like that. It does. You don't feel like a cog in the wheel. When you come and come and see you and you're seeing multiple patients at one time, but you've been so intentional with how you've set that up, thinking of the customer experience at every, from when you walk into the door to when you're waiting to when you're whatever, tell me about that.
[00:22:47] Albert Gillispie: How did you guys… what was the process of creating this customer experience that is highly efficient and still really empathetic and, and you don't feel like a number?
The Quantum Health Model
[00:22:59] Jason Barker: Yeah. It all goes back to Dr. Carey. Dr. Carey moved back to Lubbock with this technique originally called AMIT, which is now quantum nerve reset because we practice it a little bit differently and that's the technique we specialize in.
[00:23:12] Jason Barker: He moved back to Lubbock. His son Colton was sick with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. So he wanted to spend a lot of time with his son and he was just like, I want a career, but I need to spend as much time with Colton as much as possible. So I need to be very efficient.
[00:23:32] Jason Barker: And he started out just muscle testing, holding his own points, and then prayed about it. And he told me, God told him to hire assistance because his hands were breaking down because it's manual labor. We're using our hands a lot. And he's just like, how do I do this? And he's like, hire a massage therapist.
[00:23:51] Jason Barker: So you go from nothing to having 2 assistants, and then he booked it every 15 minutes and he's like, I don't know. That's just what he told me. And I had to do it. And I was just like, okay, he did it. And I came to shadow and it was so efficient. And I was just like, asking all these questions. I was like, how is it possible that a lot of chiropractors see patients like, every 3 minutes?
[00:24:10] Jason Barker: It's like, boom, boom, boom, boom. You don't really get to know what's bothering you this week. It's like, just like a cog in a system and he's like, have you ever stared at someone in the face for more than five minutes and talked to them and don't break out contact? I was like, no, maybe do it. So I was like, okay.
[00:24:27] Jason Barker: And I went home. I was like, Rachel, let's stare. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you want to talk about in 5 or 6 minutes. If you're intentionally staring at someone for a long time and talking and listening, it's a long time. And he's like, you can do that. Be intentional. Now that you muscle test, you have a reset specialist working on them where you don't break contact with the patient.
[00:24:45] Jason Barker: You're asking, hey, how are you feeling? Tell me about this week. Tell me about how the pains change and stuff. They get your full attention instead of. You're looking down a notepad or an iPad while they're just spouting stuff off. You're not really listening. Someone's working on them where they get the full doctor's attention.
[00:25:00] Jason Barker: So the system, I don't really know how to tell y'all. It just kind of like he put, he was very efficient, very respectful of the patient's time and his own time. And it fell into place over just trial and error, but it wasn't really an error. It was just like, you've made the system. And then when I came across, I was like, how is this going to work?
[00:25:18] Jason Barker: He's like, here's the proof of concept. I've been doing this for five years now. It works perfect. So I was just like, okay, I'll do the same thing. So let's see if it works again for me. Is it a personality thing? Is it a one off? Is it an outlier? And I reproduced it. In a year I was like, can we teach this to people? I was like, I don't have time right now. That's not a place where I want to do that. I need to focus on my family. And I was like, I respect that, but with your blessing, I will do it. I will put in all the legwork. I will create, you know, make this efficient, teach other dogs, teach a technique.
[00:25:50] Jason Barker: Because if not, once again, it's going to die with us. He said, "Sure, whatever you want to do." And that’s when it all began—when Quantum started taking off. That’s where Quantum Health or Quantum Wellness came from, because people wanted to learn, and we needed a facility to start training.
Scaling and Educating New Doctors
[00:26:06] Kellen Ketchersid: So tell us, how much have you grown since you went from that conversation to now all of the Quantum organizations you just described?
[00:26:18] Jason Barker: That first conversation, I was just an associate pretty much working for Foundation Health and Wellness. Three years later, I partnered with them. From there, we started filming videos and creating teaching modules. Now, we have a doctor in Midland, a doctor in Georgetown, Austin, a doctor in Dallas—more like just in Texas—Fort Worth, I think more. We have one moving to Idaho, one soon to be in Colorado City. We also have 10 students in school who are about to hit the ground running and plant clinics in Stephenville, Dallas, and wherever else.
[00:26:57] Jason Barker: The dream is to continue giving people the opportunity to build their own clinics. The world of management often feels like it’s about "eat your young." Come work for me, I’ll pay you a salary, you’ll work your tail off, and you’ll never expand because it’s my building. Option B is to take out a crazy business loan and figure it out. Option C is a management company saying, "We’ll take care of you, give us 20 percent of your collections with no cap for five years." But what are they going to teach you in year one that you’re still learning in year five, right?
[00:27:36] Jason Barker: We saw people getting wrecked by all of those things. Personal friends of ours were locked into these contracts, and we thought, "Is anyone trying to help, or are we just eating our young?" That’s where Quantum Health Consulting came from. I want to help these doctors be free, build a clinic, treat patients well, and have a cap on our consulting fee. I can’t teach you anything in year 10 that you wouldn’t have learned in year one, you know? If you want to be part of the company where you get referrals and support, great, but if not, you did it—you built your own clinic.
[00:28:00] Jason Barker: That’s where Quantum Health came from. People were asking, "Why aren’t you teaching? Why don’t you help them build clinics?" I realized, gosh, there’s a need. I ran to Matt, one of our business partners, and asked, "What do I do?" He said, "Get organized, get really organized." That’s where it all kinda came from.
[00:28:23] Albert Gillispie: Question before we move on, I want to talk about the customer experience one more time of what you described. I just finished a book. It's called Unreasonable hospitality is awesome. You got to read it. The main principle from that book is to look at everything you do in your business from invoicing to interacting with the customer, like every area of your business and look at it through the eyes of your customer and how can you be intentional and give them the best experience while, while also running an efficient business, high-profit margin business. And that's so important. That's like a lesson that I want people listening to hear what you've done is so efficient. I mean, you're seeing two or three patients every 15 minutes. But you've really dissected every step of that process where I'm sitting in there and getting treated, like we're talking about vacations and my kids and we're talking about, you know, I'm training for a half marathon and you're getting, and you're like giving me advice about that, that you've been so intentional with that. And that's like an important principle that business owners need to take back to their business is looking at every little thing you do.
[00:29:50] Albert Gillispie: How can you give the customer more? How can you intentional with the customer? And, you know, use the collective, use the group, the people that work for you, and ask them, and you can come up with some amazing solutions. And so like, I wanted to pause there. Like that is awesome. And you've done that so well. Now I have a million questions. Can you describe the consulting like I'm five? What is that structure with new doctors that come out of school, like how is what you do differently? Like, describe that.
[00:30:26] Jason Barker: Sure. So I was kind of like the pioneer. I went through school. Typically, you can't learn the specialization until you graduate. So you graduate. Now you got to fly out eight times a year, once a month to Utah to learn this technique and you're horrible. Like when you first graduate, you don't know what you're doing. You're like pulling on arms and tips. Like you need a whole residency. You need the development of skills. It's an art. Right? So I was just like, okay. So I called Dr. Buehler. I was like, Hey, man, I'm unemployed and I will be for a very long time unless we jump on this and you're like, I don't care. I was just like, can I learn this technique while I'm in school? I'll double down. I'll do my outpatient board studies and I will fly once a month to come learn it. But what can I do while I'm in school so that when I graduate from school, I'm green light and ready to see patients so that I'm not waiting another year. And he's like, I don't know. And finally, I was just like, I'm going to fly up there. I'm going to do it. Like, you're just going to have to teach me because there's nothing separating me between me and a doctor's well-established already. I'm hungry. I want to learn this and he finally was like, okay, students can come. So we were the first group of students. Me, my friend, Anissa, Hunter, and Jeff all went up together eight months.
[00:31:45] Jason Barker: It was such a blessing to have community. Tenacious. That's amazing. I was just like, I got to learn this. This is going to be the air that I breathe. And he's just like, in that case, then you can come. I want you to know how important this is. Like, I'm not practicing another technique. This is it. So thank goodness we had all of them.
[00:32:01] Jason Barker: We split Airbnbs and you know, like we flew up there and then I was just like, it really is hard. A lot of people are not going to learn this technique because of travel costs because of time away from their family. And years of unemployment so that's where it came from. I was like, hey, I'm going to be able to film a lot of this stuff, put it on videos, learn modules, break down the muscles from three different angles.
[00:32:26] Jason Barker: You're going to get those videos first. Then when, when I'm teaching you it's refinement. Not initial learning, right? So it cuts that time down. You don't have to be gone in four days. You've come to Lubbock. It's one day we're refining technique,
[00:32:41] Kellen Ketchersid: I'm seeing this pattern and a lot of the things you're saying, which is taking all the wisdom of the people that you know, and then putting that into a system and a framework that makes it process-driven and that's so cool because that's something that we talk a lot about here on this podcast and also in our business with the stack business coaching is. You know so many business owners and their business is person-driven and that's fine to a point But to scale something you have to be more process-driven and more efficient And I just love what I'm hearing and learning from you about the way you've done that personally And it's involved some risk, right? You've had to like step out in faith and a lot of things, literally in faith and prayer. But it's cool to hear. And I think maybe be inspiring to some of our listeners to do that sort of thing. And I just wanted to inject that. But as you're talking about this process that you learned in Denver, right? in Utah, in Utah, sorry… and you bring that wisdom back with you and I'm sure y'all incorporated that into your practice. Now, does that help you continue to scale up? And like, is that part of how you educate some of these people who are joining?
[00:33:57] Jason Barker: Yeah. Yeah. That's what we do is we make it a more efficient process and teaching it better. You know, like there's material and then there's an art of teaching the material just like how we communicate something as complex as neurology to a clothes pin.
[00:34:13] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:34:13] Jason Barker: If we can make it more efficient, more digestible, then people suffer less. You know what I mean? I was so tired of traveling and maxing out credit cards to learn a technique that helps people. But someone has to do it.
[00:34:27] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah.
[00:34:28] Jason Barker: So if I can make this less burdensome for people, with less commuting and everything, it’s a no-brainer that people will line up for it, right? That’s the teaching part. Jared Carey does the teaching. You can learn that as a student while you're in school, in your last year. Once you're done with all your academic stuff, then it moves to the consulting contract. That’s when you decide if you want to build a clinic.
Consulting and Legacy Building
[00:34:55] Jason Barker: You select some cities, and Mo is in charge of real estate, market research, commuting, business formation, and all that. Mo handles that for six months before the doors open. Once that’s done, you’re splitting time between me and Jared. You learn the technique with Jared, and then you split time with me, focusing on the business side, patient efficiency, communication, protocol, and management. How do you interact with employees? How do you interact with reset specialists? Don’t look down when you're talking.
[00:35:21] Jason Barker: Once we graduate from that process, it becomes more about refinement. I talk with them once a week or once every two weeks. We go over difficult cases, X-rays, MRIs, billing issues, whatever. They might say, "I have this weird financial tie," and I’ll say, "Okay, let’s be objective and break it down." I help them through the process. Or they’ll ask, "Why are you spending an hour and a half with this patient?" They might say, "Well, I love them." And I’ll say, "Great, but they stopped paying attention at minute 10 and started looking at their phone. Now you’re doing both of you a disservice."
[00:36:00] Jason Barker: You’re running behind and taking up their time. That’s how the system is divided, pretty much in phases. Then we get into things like accounting. At what point should you start reinvesting in your company? Mo will say, "You’re making this much income, you’re paying yourself this much—now it’s time to reinvest in equipment or expand." Maybe it's time to buy decompression, or by year three, we suggest buying the building so you own it.
Overcoming Challenges
[00:36:37] Jason Barker: As a chiropractor, when you’re done, you’re done. When your hands break, there’s nothing to do. Selling your practice isn’t really a thing. I’m going to get ridiculed for that, but if I sell you my practice, people love me, my personality, and the culture I’ve created. If someone else steps in, the practice will drop to 10%. You’re essentially ripping off the next person.
[00:36:52] Kellen Ketchersid: But I would think with a practice like what you guys are building, it’s a lot easier to sell something like that because you have this process that people can plug into, and the training they go through is so different than just someone who hung up a shingle and did it by themselves for 10 or 15 years, right? I think that’s a really cool thing you guys have established.
[00:37:14] Kellen Ketchersid: If I may, I’m curious—what’s been the biggest win? What are you proudest of? I mean, you’ve mentioned so many good things you guys have accomplished. What’s the biggest win, or what are you most excited about?
[00:37:29] Jason Barker: I’m really excited about rehabilitating doctors who almost quit. They’ve been doing it for 10 years, never had a vacation, and are barely making ends meet. When they say, "I don’t work Fridays anymore, I’m making 20-30 percent more than before with less effort, my body’s not breaking down, and I’m working out," that’s the biggest victory for me. Because I know for a fact that if I can do that for a doctor, he’s serving so many more patients on a higher level. That’s a given.
[00:38:00] Jason Barker: The real win is when you see that spark back in the doctor’s eyes. The passion is there, and it’s just the beginning. You know what I mean? Absolutely. The biggest moment for me is when they call me and say, "Y’all have changed my life."
[00:38:17] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, that’s a great feeling. That’s the kind of feeling any consultant wants to achieve with their clients.
[00:38:25] Albert Gillispie: The consulting playbook workflow you described takes multiple years. What does that cost structure look like for an established or new doctor?
[00:38:42] Jason Barker: So what we do is, if you’re fresh out of school, there’s a $5,000 fee from the beginning to help set up LLCs, JNAP, market research, and cover our flights. When we send these doctors to look at real estate, they often pick things that are pretty, but not necessarily great for business. No offense, but lots of windows—that’s $7,000 before you know it. We have to go and say, "These are the three we’ve selected that are good for your business. The overhead is nice and low, triple net, and the build-out costs are included." Things you don’t think about when you’re fresh out of school. You think, "This guy’s going to take care of me," but then you find out, "Oh, I need to fork over 50K to build these drywalls." Mo helps with that, right?
[00:39:23] Jason Barker: After that, we charge 10 percent of every muscle, pretty much. We don’t take away from consulting or the doctor’s consult fees. Whatever you charge for a consult, you keep all of that because you’re doing all the work. We just charge for the muscle—everything billed for muscle. There’s a cap at about $3,000, and it scales as you grow.
[00:39:54] Albert Gillispie: That’s ingenious. You, Mo, and Jared coming together and being creative with your business is impressive. What y’all do is so different from any other chiropractic practice I’ve been exposed to. The lesson here for our listeners is, if you’ve built something—a system, processes, a successful business—maybe opening a franchise isn’t the way to go. But what would it look like to help the next guy come up and be creative with that cost structure? To be creative with real estate or whatever.
[00:40:41] Albert Gillispie: There are so many pieces to this that are a win-win for Quantum and these newer or established doctors. It’s so creative and fascinating how you guys are really intentional about innovating. And that’s hard.
[00:41:00] Jason Barker: There’s peace in knowing there are such missing components when it comes to being a doctor. Their brains are so wired for high-level thinking and plugging into a system. I asked, "What happens when you’re done?" They say, "Hopefully, my 401k takes care of me." I’m like, "We don’t have 401ks in small business, per se. What’s your plan? Do you own rental property?" They say, "No." "Do you own your building?" "No." And I’m like, "Oh my gosh, back to the drawing board." We’ve got to figure out a way to take care of our clients from day zero—fresh out of school—until retirement.
[00:41:35] Jason Barker: That’s why we partnered with Stag, to figure out, once we get these docs making more money, where do we invest it? Into their own building, into multifamily, into other things. These are avenues they would’ve never known or understood—the complexity of learning about rental property, getting a loan, or a line of credit. We save them all that. It’s part of the consulting fee. We’ll invest it for them, and we partner with companies like yours.
[00:42:04] Kellen Ketchersid: Yeah, and that’s creating a legacy. I think all entrepreneurs want to reach that point where it’s not just about earning a living, but building something that can last beyond you. The scale of it can be bigger than just yourself, and it’s great that you guys are achieving that. It’s an example for a lot of people who are listening.
[00:42:28] Albert Gillispie: My head’s spinning. All right, we try to keep these episodes 30 to 45 minutes long, and we’re getting close to the end. So, rapid-fire round: What are your top three business or self-improvement books that you recommend?
[00:42:45] Jason Barker: 10X by Grant Cardone.
[00:42:45] Kellen Ketchersid: Okay.
[00:42:46] Jason Barker: It’s not about his habits, just the work ethic—I love it. Something y’all introduced to me, and it’s kind of funny, but The Psychology of Money—I don’t remember the author—helps you not get frustrated with millennials versus boomers and how they handle their money. And then The ABCs of Real Estate by Robert Kawasaki.
[00:43:09] Albert Gillispie: Is that Brandon Turner?
[00:43:09] Jason Barker: I couldn’t tell you. The ABCs of Real Estate Investing—because when you meet with these guys, they start talking about equity, phantom money, appreciation, depreciation. You’ve got to understand your terminology, don’t you?
[00:43:25] Jason Barker: Yeah, I had no idea what they were talking about, so that book is helpful. Anybody can read it.
[00:43:31] Kellen Ketchersid: We’ll put it in the shownotes, since we can’t think of the author. They’re great teachers.
Final Thoughts
[00:43:34] Albert Gillispie: Okay, I didn’t know what I’d get from you on that one, but I love it. Next question: What’s one piece of technology you’ve either bought or incorporated into your life that’s made an impact, but not many people know about?
[00:43:56] Jason Barker: An iPad.
[00:43:56] Kellen Ketchersid: Okay, go on.
[00:43:57] Jason Barker: It’s how we run our entire company. All the billing goes through an iPad, all my patient notes, all the fake Excel sheets I pretend to be filling out—it’s all done on the iPad.
[00:44:06] Kellen Ketchersid: Just the practicality of it, yeah—it’s handheld.
[00:44:08] Jason Barker: That’s the coolest thing about our technique—you don’t need extravagant technology to run an entire successful company. Simplify it—a little bit above a journal, but below a computer.
[00:44:24] Jason Barker: Do you guys use any specific tools or platforms? We use JNAP for electronic health records. I know there’s a whole debate like PC vs. Apple, where people say, "If you’re a real computer guy, you use PC." But I don’t care about programming or anything like that. I need something user-friendly. JNAP is very Apple-comparable, very user-friendly, very organized. I use Excel when I have to because my friends all love Excel, but napkins and pens aren’t really sexy anymore.
[00:44:48] Albert Gillispie: Fine, okay. I’ll use an iPad—you win. I dig it. How can people get in touch with you? How can they do business with you?
[00:45:06] Jason Barker: Just through my clinic or my phone number. I’m pretty personable. I like meeting people in social settings—CrossFit, jiu-jitsu. Not running—I’m not running, but at my office, whether you’re a patient or someone I meet personally, you can reach me. That’s Quantum Chiropractic, Quantum Wellness.
[00:45:25] Albert Gillispie: All right, Quantum Wellness in Lubbock, Texas. We’ll put your phone number in the show notes. Man, I appreciate it. I feel like this podcast could go for three hours. I have so many more questions, but thank you so much for being a guest and for what you do in Lubbock.
[00:45:47] Albert Gillispie: Thank you. Thank you guys.
[00:45:47] Albert Gillispie: Thank you for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it—we sure did.
[00:45:50] Kellen Ketchersid: Yep, for sure.
[00:46:00] Albert Gillispie: And if you liked what you heard and want more, click subscribe to our podcast, and we’ll see you on the next one. Also, do you feel stuck in your business? Do you feel like you’re a slave to your business, forever destined to grind away? If you feel like that, visit our website at www.stagcoaching.com and fill out our free business assessment.
[00:46:10] Albert Gillispie: Our business assessment will help you understand where your business is struggling, and we’d love to help you with that. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s available today.
[00:46:36] Albert Gillispie: Thank you.
