We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Mercer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.
Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is pretty simple. I am here to create excellent content for chiropractors. But the term “excellent” has so many meanings and varies from person to person, right? My definition of excellent comes directly from how I found myself working with chiropractors.
When my daughter was born she had a rare tumor in her neck caused by Fibromatosis Colli. That tumor restricted her movement and ability to breastfeed, sleep well, or get comfortable. She was THE thing I needed to protect in this world and I felt like I’d broken her. I did not know what to do to help her and the thought of interventions was terrifying.
Until I met Dr. Cristina Padilla, DC, CACCP. She was my neighbor at the time and saw, firsthand, the challenges that I was having as a new mother navigating this challenging diagnosis. She approached me about how chiropractic care would help my daughter and I immediately thought “no way is this lady going to crack my daughter like a glowstick”. Because that was my perception of chiropractors at the time.
Day by day, Dr. Padilla would talk with me on my porch and share the benefits of chiropractic care for my daughter. Each time she shared something new, I would go directly to Google and try to validate it. I scoured her website, her social media, and any article that I could find that PROVED that what she was saying was true.
No matter how deep I dug, I struggle to find resources that said that chiropractic care was beneficial to babies AND were written in a way that made a new, scared, mother feel comfortable.
There came a moment when I couldn’t deny that I needed support – beyond the interventions we were already receiving through the hospital. I was at my wit’s end. I was on the porch crying because I was tired, my baby was tired, she was uncomfortable, and we couldn’t breastfeed. Dr. Padilla came and gently walked me through a chiropractic adjustment for my daughter.
It was gentle. It was specific. It caused her no discomfort. In fact, she slept through it. I was SHOCKED. Where was the literature that showed this incredible process?
It didn’t exist.
After watching the way that chiropractic care changed my daughter’s life, I knew where I needed to use my talents in writing. Since that moment I have committed to writing for chiropractors who work with children and families so that they can communicate effectively the impact that their care has on the wellness of infants.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Growing up, you could find me nose-deep in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not book, running science experiments with anything I could get my hands on and making presentations to teach everyone around me all the things I’d discovered. At the time, I had no idea that my love for learning and ability to translate complex concepts would become the cornerstone of my business.
Now, I use my passion to help chiropractors communicate and connect with their current or potential patients to increase patient conversion and build a practice community.
I drive website traffic and content engagement for chiropractors by creating chiropractic content that goes far beyond sore backs and necks. My done-for-you wellness focused blogs, newsletters, and social media content explain chiropractic care in a way that patients actually understand and relate to.
As a mother to a brilliant toddler, I understands the impact that chiropractic care has on development and wellness of children and my own brain is fueled by my routine chiropractic adjustments. When I am not lost in a science journal, you’ll find me playing outside with my daughter or planning the next adventure with my husband.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
PIVOT *insert Friends meme here* lol. Everyone has to pivot at some point in their business and sometimes that pivot is pretty humbling. That’s my experience, at least!
The largest pivot that I have had to make in my business is the pivot from trying to serve as many people as I could to only serving a select few. As a creative thinker and small business owner, my goal was to help as many people as possible! I wanted as many practices as possible to have excellent content and I was very successful at connecting with practices and bringing them on as clients. But my business grew faster than I could manage and I was not creating the QUALITY of content that I wanted to.
You see, my approach is completely custom content. I am essentially a member of the practice team and know everything about them. But I was not charging my worth. So while I was helping MANY practices, I was completely burning out, my clients noticed the shift in the quality of my work and I was missing deadlines.
That was NOT what I wanted to be known for.
So I humbled myself. I let go of the clients that did not light me up inside, doubled down on the ones that did, and hired a business coach to help me understand my value. If you’re a numbers person, like me, that means I lost income, put more work into clients which meant less time available, AND added an expense each month for my business coach. It felt like i was back at square one.
But that pivot has made a world of impact on my business. By recognizing that I really could not work with everyone, I was able to realize exactly where my passion lies. A business coach helped me see the huge difference in the service that I provide and what other companies provide and helped me see that the quality of writing I produce for doctors is worth exponentially more than I was charging.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
This question is awesome because the answer is the MOST frustrating! The thing that has helped me build a reputation within my market is TIME.
We all want relatively quick success, right? Everyone reading this is an entrepreneur or aspiring to be one. If we are being honest with ourselves that is because we want to control our schedule and our income. But when you are funneling into a total niche market, it takes TIME.
In my case, specifically, I was entering a world of highly educated doctors who have been completely sabotaged by marketing companies. There was zero trust. In fact, I’d argue to say that there was negative trust. We had trust issues.
I was completely blind-sided because I KNEW what my goal was and no matter how many times I explained that I really did want to get to know them and write for their practice, I was written off completely.
It took one doctor to take a chance on the newbie in the industry and then years for word to travel that I am not like everyone else.
From the beginning, I have let everyone know that I value honesty, hard work, and intelligence. I flaunt my intelligence and ability to understand complex concepts and then prove that I can do it. I do what I say I will do.
That, combined with time, has built my reputation in an industry and we’ve gone from having trust issues to being an awesome pair!
Contact Info: