May 1^st marks 10 years of business for Spracklin Chiropractic. The middle of April was 11 years after graduation, has everything been sunshine and rainbows?  I’d be lying to you if I told you it was. This past year has actually probably been one of the more difficult ones, not necessarily from a practice prospective more so from a family prospective.  I have had a lot of things going on with my family that keeps my mind wandering, but overall business has been great.

Small business ownership is not for everyone and I’ve had my doubts over the years.  The ups and downs of the finances and the ebbs and flows of practice are tough at times. You will question yourself and doubts arise all the time, but we have for the most part stuck with our original intention.

You’ve got to spend money to make money is the famous saying, while there is some truth to this, as a business it really sucks.  The locations that we are in have been awesome up to this point (minus the bats that we continue to find in the Minden office) but we have decided to do a few improvements to the offices that will be seen in the weeks to come, it is fun to spend this kind of money, not really but with small business ownership, you either have to spend some money to improve the business or pay it in taxes.  So it looks like improvement is the way to go at this stage.

The buildings are perfect for what we need at this point and the current equipment is great for our needs. I’ve always said that my goal is to have offices that are mirror images of each other and we are getting there; there are a few things that I’m on the hunt for in order to accomplish this. From a patient prospective, you probably wouldn’t know the difference but from a practitioner prospective I definitely notice.

We are always looking for new and different opportunities to integrate into the offices but the scope is fairly narrow as to the things that we are open too. DOT physicals work awesome into the offices but if you are looking for anything that involves injections or high pressure sales pitches, you may want to keep looking. We make no apologies for what and who we are, honest to a fault and simple are the way of the offices. Reasonable prices will always be a trademark for the office and we will continue to accept most insurance. We get approached quite a bit about different sale tactics and therapies but find it almost impossible to say yes to certain things because they don’t fit a certain criteria.

Most recently we have been doing a lot of acupuncture. It’s an awesome therapy that does wonders for people but this is not something I push a lot, it can be used for lots of different conditions but if the patient is not willing to try it a few times then it’s not worth exploring.  You have to give it a fair shot to work and most people in my office are not willing to give up the time and money so we try other things first.

Practices and people come and go from the area.  We would like to think that we will be around for many years to come, treating patients in an honest and ethical way will continue. There is always a new therapy or sale pitch (we’ve tried a few and while not necessarily a flop, keeping it simple is usually the easiest and best way). Attitude and mindset play a big factor in practice development and we try to bring a positive, fun spirit to the office daily but just know that everyone has a story and if that spirit is a little down on a given day, give a little grace.

With all this being said, we appreciate your patronage over the years and look forward for the years to come.  Growth is the goal but sometimes holding the status quo is the best you can do for the moment and that is okay. Be kind to people in the world and bring smiles to those around you.