I didn’t hire my first employee until 4 months after I opened my clinic, which hindsight was a mistake, I should have hired someone after 1 month. I think it’s important as the owner to work all positions in your company if your company is a startup.

Recruiting is the most important and most difficult part of owning a business. In order to help more people you need a team, staying solo and small limits the number of people you can help and the impact you can make.

The recruiting process has drastically changed since COVID, so I like to differentiate pre-COVID recruiting vs post-COVID recruiting. I’ve made a lot of recruiting errors in my 15 years of business, but I’ve learned some crucial strategies that are evergreen regardless of COVID or not.

Let’s start with those evergreen recruiting strategies that work regardless of COVID. These are the strategies that if I were to start today would implement ASAP. I wish I knew these early on, cause then I would have a bigger team than what I have now. I think I lost some great team members because of my lack of leadership.

1) Figure out EXACTLY what you want, not what someone else thinks you need
– my early recruiting experience was all over the place. I think at one time, if you were breathing I would hire you.
– early on I was hiring based on what other people wanted. For example, I would read articles about which qualities are in great employees and I would be looking for those. The results were evident, slow growth
– once I got clear about what kind of team I wanted to build, the better I was with my recruiting in finding the right fit, which eliminated 99% of the candidates that applied.
– you are hiring to build your culture, and not someone else’s, so get clear about what culture you want.

2) There is no perfect recruiting system
– I’ve gone through various training on recruiting and befriended CEOs of recruiting companies and I learned that there is no perfect Recruiting system
– you have to go through numbers, period.
– your team culture is unique to you, it’s not right or wrong, so finding the right fit takes time and you have to go through 10x more people than what you expect, to find the right fit.

3) It’s not just about the compensation and benefits
– early on I thought people mainly wanted money and benefits, and so I created different hiring packages that all resulted in recruiting the wrong people.
– it wasn’t until I got clear about what type of team I wanted, that my job offers became more fine-tuned. My current job offer package focuses on attracting people who are in alignment with my core values and who value equal exchange, which means producing results in exchange for compensation.
– this has allowed me to build a rockstar team that produces phenomenal results and in exchange they get paid higher than most in similar positions within our industry, which explains how we have the largest acupuncture clinic in Austin, TX

Since COVID, there’s been the great Resignation and that has drastically changed recruitment. Companies pivoted by allowing people to work from home, which resulted in more people wanting to work from home. Being in the service industry we need people on site to provide services, so the great Resignation made recruitment even more difficult. If I was to not only survive but thrive, I needed to pivot.

With even less of a hiring pool, I pivoted in an unique way:
1) While many companies loosened their recruitment processes, I got even more clearer on what type of team member I wanted and made my recruiting process more strict

2) While many companies just offered higher compensation & benefit packages, I focused on figuring out what people wanted and offered them what they wanted.

3) I embraced the Virtual Employee and created a whole new hybrid system to run and build my clinic, and this opened my recruiting pool by 10x.

I’m an acupuncturist by training and was bit by the entrepreneur bug and then evolved into an innovator. I started my practice, Achieve Integrative Health, in 2007 at the beginning of the Great Recession and after 10 years built it into the largest Integrative Acupuncture clinic in Austin, TX.

My clinic specializes in helping people struggling with Neurological conditions, chronic pain, and supportive cancer care. The most common neurological conditions we help with are peripheral neuropathy, trigeminal neuralgia, Bell’s palsy, migraines, headaches, insomnia, tremors, anxiety, depression and dystonia. Chronic pain conditions that we have a high success rate are back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, elbow pain, wrist pain, fibromyalgia, hip pain, knee pain, ankle pain, feet pain, vulvodynia, and abdominal pain. Supportive cancer care refers to people going through cancer treatments or post cancer treatments.

There’s so many reasons why we are the top Integrative Acupuncture Clinic in the Austin Metro.

One reason is we are the pioneers in the Happiness Restoration Business. We focus on Restoring your Quality of Life in addition to providing symptom relief. We don’t stop at symptom relief, we take healing to the next level. Yes, people come to us because they can’t feel their feet and we help them decrease or eliminate their numbness, but that’s not the real reason they came to us. They came to us because their feet numbness is preventing them from doing something that they want and love to do. For example, some people want to be able to get back on the dance floor, being able to play tennis and some just want to be able to walk without the fear of falling. At Achieve Integrative Health we believe that if we just focus on symptom relief we are doing our patients a dis-service. We want to make sure our patients are able to return back to doing the activities they want to do and love to do, and until we achieve that result we will not stop fighting for our patients. This focus is the single most important factor that separates Achieve Integrative Health from other Acupuncture clinics in Austin, and in fact the whole United States.

Second reason is that we are the only integrative Acupuncture clinic in Texas that provides 5 star concierge service for our patients. We’ve all been to the medical practice that is always 1 hour late, front desk is crabby, receptionist is rude, providers staring at a laptop or iPad, frequently messes up your schedule, can’t ever get a call back, etc. I saw this as an opportunity to revolutionize the medical industry. My wife and I like to frequent the 4 seasons hotel who are known for 5 star service and I thought to myself why don’t we create a concierge service for my clinic, and the rest is history. So when you become a patient of our clinic it’s like you get a personal assistant along with your treatments. But don’t take my word for it, check out our Google Reviews. We have the most 5 star google reviews among acupuncture clinics in the entire United States. The proof is in the pudding.

Third Reason is Results, results, results. We don’t use any acupuncture or herbal technique taught in school or by another acupuncturist. One of our core values is Results oriented, so very early on I focused on only using techniques that got quick results and so I studied with the best of the best year after year. I could see my results improve incrementally, but I personally still felt the results weren’t good enough, not fast enough, and not really sticking. That’s when I decided that I needed to create my own Acupuncture technique and my own herbal prescribing system. That’s when my QRA (Quick Relief Acupuncture) and FPD (Functional Pulse Diagnosis) were born. Because there is no other technique more effective than my QRA & FPD, I am frequently asked to teach my acupuncture techniques and herbal systems to healthcare practitioners from all over the world.

Our Mission is to help people restore their body’s natural ability to heal itself so that they can do what they love.

Our Vision is to equip and inspire 1 million people to do what they love, with whom they want, whenever they want.

Our Core Values are Transparency, Results Oriented, Inspiration, Accountable, Commitment, Service above self.

Social Media…well that’s a hate & love situation…yup, that’s the right order. I used to hate social media. I thought it was stupid and thought only people with a lot of time on their hands would be on social media. Busy people don’t got time for social media. My patients aren’t on social media, it’s just a big waste of time. Boy, was I wrong, and as they say hindsight is 20/20. Now looking back I was the idiot. We tend to criticize stuff that we don’t understand.

Fast forward to 2022, I have over 1 million followers on TikTok, over 450k followers on Instagram, over 11k subscribers on Youtube, 2901 Followers on Facebook, and 45% of our New Patients come from Social Media & Online. 100% of our social media marketing is organic as we do not spend money on ads, boosting, or getting followers. Social Media was pivotal in helping me build the Largest Integrative Acupuncture Clinic in Austin, TX. And yes, now I LOVE social media =).

I made a lot of mistakes early on with Social Media Marketing and wasted a lot of money and time. My first advice for people just starting out with social media is what NOT to do:

1. DO NOT start throwing money on social media ads at first.
2. DO NOT pay someone thousands of dollars to start and do your social media marketing at first for you
3. DO NOT think of Social Media as a get rich quick strategy
4. DO NOT hire a social media marketer who can not show you a track record for your specific profession. having a track record in your industry is completely different from a track record for your profession. For example, my industry is healthcare, my profession is Acupuncture, BIG difference.

So what are some things that I did and recommend newbies start with:

1. Get Clear about who you are and your goal is for using Social Media.
2. #1 goal is to get Attention. Start Building that thick skin and remove emotion from Social Media. The accessibility of Social Media allows people, ie. haters, to hide behind the screen and make negative comments about you. Also everybody likes to voice their opinion and make you wrong. For example, there was a physician who critiqued one of my TikTok video post saying the information I provided was incorrect. A physician is not trained in acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine and we all know what happens when someone who is not well versed in a subject and pretends to be an expert of that subject. This type of situation happens daily on social media. But remember the #1 goal is to get attention and that physician brought more attention to me and added an additional 100k followers on TikTok for me. So I actually thanked him for the criticism =).
3. Be You, Be Transparent. It is true, people tend to do business with people whom they like, know and trust. Social Media is your own personal TV channel that is showcasing YOU. So be yourself, yes there will be people who like you and don’t like you, that’s life. Don’t separate your business page from your personal page, share the same content, be consistent and transparent. The public wants to get to know you, don’t deprive them the opportunity to get to know you. Your story is unique and it needs to be shared.
4. WIIFM Formula. Always use the “What’s in it for me” formula. We all only look at content that benefits us in some way. So provide Value to your Target Market. I opened my TikTok account March 2021 and without spending a dime to buy followers, doing everything organically I quickly grew my following to over 1 Million. I didn’t do some fancy dance or dress in a bikini. I started providing value, introducing biohacking tips to the public. I now teach my duplicatable Social Media Marketing system to healthcare practitioners all over the world to generate new leads.
5. Organic before Paying. I’m not saying never to spend money on social media ads, I just don’t do it right now, because I’ve cracked the code on how to generate leads 100% organically. Spending money does speed up the process; however, don’t start spending money on ads until you can generate leads organically. This goes with hiring a social media marketer. Make sure the person/company you hire has a track record of generating leads organically first. Otherwise, their strategy for you will always be “you just need to spend more money to get more leads”.