We recently connected with Kyle Severson and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kyle, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I moved to Duluth almost immediately after I graduated Chiropractic school in November 2017, having been nearly obsessed over the last year with gathering information and setting up plans to open my own practice.

During that planning process I hired a practice consultant that ended up being one of the smartest decisions I believe I made. He helped me avoid unnecessary mistakes and helped walk me through many business processes I had never experienced before. My best advice to anyone looking to start their own practice is to get a coach/ consultant to help increase the learning curve as mine did for me.

When I got to Duluth, the challenge was that I only knew a handful of people and building a successful practice comes down to the amount of people that know you. So while my office was getting built out and prepared to open, I had three months to get to know as many people as possible before opening. My job was literally to become popular. So I went to as many different events as possible and went out of my way to introduce myself to anyone I could talk to. I joined the Chamber of Commence and was a regular at their events. I volunteered, I went out at night, and I was always on the go to meet people. And whenever I had a good conversation was someone, I would add them on Facebook and made a note to invite them to my grand opening.

When that grand opening day actually came in April 2018, I had a huge turnout and was able to offer a great new patient deal so when I walk into the office the next day, I had a ton of people on the schedule to get me started in the right direction.

Kyle, 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 got into chiropractic as a runner in high school. I had a number of overuse injuries that didn’t quite seem to want to heal fully. Nothing helped me get back to full strength than chiropractic and I found the philosophy of chiropractic’s natural health approach to be so special and logical. I put my head down entering college to become a chiropractor and I didn’t look back.

In our office we are proud to provide 100% pure chiropractic service, meaning we use adjustments (gentle forces into the spine to change, modify, and improve) to correct subluxations (a dysfunction in one or more segments of the spine that irritate the surrounding nerve tissue). We do this to improve the overall function of the spine and nerve system so the body has a better potential to work properly, including the ability to heal properly. Although most people find themselves in a chiropractic office due to bothersome symptoms, our goal is never to treat those symptoms – that’s the goal of medicine – but instead get the body working better and often times those symptoms disappear.

Because healing takes time and health is always a process, we shape the way we provide care into a lifestyle instead of a “quick fix” option. We run our care with focused and timely appointments that are extremely flexible to make it easy for people to make going to the chiropractor a regular part of their week, just like I do myself. Since most health insurance continues to limit and cut benefits for chiropractic and other things that actually bring you real health, we have a variety of plans with clear payment arrangements to fit any lifestyle and budget.

We compare ourselves to be the Chipotle of chiropractic offices, quick service even when the line is long with a few options on the menu that are delicious. While I feel like the more traditional chiropractic offices are more like Applebee’s, nothing is super great on a vast menu and it can take a long time to get served.

We have a ton of faith in what chiropractic care can do to change lives, in fact, we see it every week. So our simple goal is to try to give as many people as possible an opportunity to receive that care because you never know if it could completely change their life. That’s why we only have a small fee or completely no charge for a person to get checked out in our office. It’s up to us to show how we can help, and more often then not, we can always help, it just depend how much and how fast.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think the most helpful thing in succeeding in chiropractic is communication. The most technically skilled and knowledgeable chiropractors are not always the ones that see the most patients and are making the most impact in their communities. Usually the biggest practices are built by the chiropractors that talk the best. Being able to explain what you are doing and handling questions and objections are certainly key to building trust in patients and he heals most in whom most have confidence.

To build my own communication, I listened endlessly to recordings of other chiropractors who were master communicators and continue to read books in the profession to stay sharp with it. Communication is another thing I was thankful to have a consultant train with me on.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

From the business side, a big thing I had to unlearn is my relationship with money. Having had my parents support me growing up, going through seven years of higher education as a poor college student, and then graduating with $200k in student loans, you don’t have the best relationship with money or even know that there is such a thing. Even though I am a health care provider, owning my own practice also makes me a business man and it’s important that I learn to be able to sell my care. In order to be most effective at this, I had to become more comfortable with money and understanding really the value of what I was offering. For example, If a spinal surgery costs $50k+ and may not even work, than a couple thousand to prevent it is extremely valuable. Therefore, it’s a lot easier to persuade people to pay for your care when you yourself knows how truly valuable it is.

In addition, I had to change the way I thought about spending money. Don’t get me wrong, finding a deal on something is great, but if you constantly are looking for a deal, that’s exactly the people you end up attracting to you. If I wanted to attract people into my office that didn’t want to be cheap on their spine and nerve system health, I couldn’t be cheap in other areas of my life as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wildernesswellnessduluth.com
• Instagram: drkyleseverson and wildernesswellnesschiro
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildernesswellnesschiro

Image Credits
Comfort & Cashmere Images Wolfskull Creative