We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Garrett Zavesky a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Garrett thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I had a phenomenal mentor throughout chiropractic college and for the first two years out of school. I worked with him diligently and asked him every question imaginable. For the 7 years that I knew him I was a sponge, taking in every piece of information possible from what I believe to be the best chiropractor you could ever find. After about a year and a half working as a physician under my mentor, he told me that I had all of the knowledge of someone 17 years into practice while I was barely 1 year into practice. When he told me this, I had the light bulb turning on moment-why don’t I open up my own practice? For the next 6 months I read and listed to anything business related to prepare myself for opening up my own practice. Fast forward about 7 months, I moved down to Nashville (Feb 2023) not knowing a single person. I took a full time job at a different chiropractic clinic, but did this knowing I wanted to open my own practice ASAP. 5 months later I opened my doors and had no clue what to expect. 24/7 all I did was think about what I could do for my practice. About 1.5 months into practice it was going way better than I could have ever expected and I knew that I wouldn’t have to be working 6-7 days a week splitting time between my other job and my clinic. In October 2023 I went full time at my own clinic and haven’t looked back since then. It has been an amazing journey so far and I seriously wouldn’t change a thing that has happened.

Garrett , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I became a chiropractor because of my moms experience with her chiropractor (which turned into my mentor). She had dealt with shoulder pain for 8+ years and had tried physical therapy for 6 months with no resolve and met with an orthopedic surgeon who wanted her to undergo rotator cuff surgery. She did not want surgery and was recommended to a chiropractor by her friend. After one visit with that chiropractor, she woke up the next day and felt 90-95% better. At the time I was in undergraduate school ready to go to physical therapy school. She told me to go shadow this chiropractor because it was an amazing experience. I started shadowing him 2x a week after work and after a few months realized that is exactly what I wanted to do. What really stood out to my was his philosophy of care. His goal, and what he would tell patients, is that he wanted to fix you in the least amount of visits as possible. This really stood out to me and that is exactly how I model my care. I offer chiropractic care combined with a few other modalities (dry needling, flexion distraction, mckenzie method, fascial distortion) with the goal in mind of getting patients out of pain and back to functioning as fast as humanly possible without the use of injections, medication, or surgery. What I am most proud of is probably that I have stuck to the same methodology as I had when I envisioned my practice. Nothing in my mind has changed and my goal is to help anyone and everyone in Nashville that could benefit from my services. The name of my clinic is You Chiropractic. Most people resent going to the doctor and understandably so. It can be boring, there are excessive wait times, and it can be quite expensive. Everything that happens in my clinic revolves around YOU-the patient.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your firm or practice?

I love this question! I have met many other chiropractors that took out a huge sum of money to start their practice. I did the exact opposite. As I said in a previous question, I had the knowledge of someone 17 years into practice while I was just 1.5 years into practice. Essentially, I knew that I could help people out more efficiently than most other musculoskeletal physicians. When I opened my practice, the goal was to keep my overhead as low as possible. Every piece of furniture in my office is from FB marketplace, and I don’t have any bells and whistles at all in my office. It is essentially a chiropractic table, acupuncture needles, and 4 walls surrounding me. I know that I do not need more than that to help people. I saved up a small sum of money from my previous job and just used that to open up. No loans taken out, and nothing that I do not need. It is not the fanciest office you will ever see, but it is all I need to help people in the way they need it.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Instagram ads! About 1 year before I opened my practice, I found a chiropractor on instagram that claimed he had 50 new patients minimum every month from using instagram alone. I was very skeptical, but followed him pretty closely to see if I should pursue that more. Eventually he posted a testimonial referring to the person he learned everything from. I reached out to this person and he taught me the exact strategy that I am still using to this day. in 6 months of practice (3 part time 3 full time) I have seen no less than 30 new patients a month and saw 50 new patients in December while offering 0 discount on my services! It has been amazing, and now that I have this knowledge I can confidently say I could move to any decent sized city in the country and open a practice from scratch!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://youchiropractictn.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.garrettzavesky/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.GarrettZavesky