Lauryn: [00:00:00] Okay, Savvy. Well, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.
Savy: Thank you. I appreciate
Lauryn: Did you, when you were dreaming about one day being a guest, was this exactly the topic that you were like, Oh, I hope I can go on and talk about absolute crisis care?
Savy: Yeah, I don't think that
this is the topic that I thought I was like, you know what, one day, Lauren's gonna ask me to be on our podcast, it's gonna be great. This is not the topic
that I
Lauryn: gonna be how I'm killing it in practice.
Savy: yeah,
Lauryn: mean, you are killing it in practice, but then just weather came and killed your practice.
I was
Savy: get on it.
Lauryn: Yeah. Yeah. I, so I think that, so we had Cairo WealthCon in October and it was like two weeks after the hurricane or something, right? Like it was
really close,
Savy: well, yeah, it was, it was like three weeks after the initial hurricane and then a week after, I think, Milton, which is the second [00:01:00] hurricane. So,
Lauryn: but I remember, um, one of our guests. Um, Sebastian Bonin, he's from Puerto Rico and he was on stage and he was talking about this crazy hurricane that went through Puerto Rico a couple years ago and how he thought he'd be prepared for something like this. And he ended up like, it was like 18 months before things were recovered.
And so it was just like one of those things where. We're just seeing, I mean, gosh, like we've got fires, you know, poor Dallas is getting an inch of snow and the poor
Savy: I mean,
Lauryn: have to,
Savy: I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida, and North Florida has like a foot of snow or something. It's insane.
Lauryn: okay, take me back to, um, the days up before. Because like, you're in St. Petersburg, like you're
no You've been in practice how long?
Savy: Um, my practice has [00:02:00] been open almost nine years. I've been in practice 11 years. I was an associate for two years before I opened that.
Lauryn: So you're not new to hurricanes.
Savy: No,
Lauryn: all.
So like, take me back to kind of the week before, or I don't know if they were talking about it
Savy: I was. Oh my gosh, I was living my best life. I was on a two week Europe vacation for my husband's 40th birthday. I was literally living my best life. We went to um, Spain. We went to Paris. We went to Amsterdam. We finished off in Munich for Oktoberfest. Literally living our best lives. And we were in Oktoberfest kind of watching the weather because, you know, I'm like, all right, I see this hurricane coming and, and I think I'm going to have to close down the practice probably.
And, and as it starts getting closer, we're like, oh, this looks like it's going to be a direct hit. Like, We need to get back. So we were actually [00:03:00] scheduled to fly back to Tampa on the day, Hurricane Helene hit and Delta canceled my flight. And I was like, I've got to get back. Like my kids are
there. I mean, I've, I've got to get back.
So my kids were staying with my parents who live about an hour and lens. And. We flew into Orlando because that's the closest that they could get us. We drove through the freaking hurricane, like there's hurricane force winds. We rented a car. I remember Enterprise being like, where are you going? I'm like, don't worry about it.
It's fine.
Lauryn: You don't need to know.
Savy: It's two hours West. Not in the Tampa direction, it's fine. Um, and so we ended up going over to my parents house, driving through the hurricane. The worst of Helene, before all the flooding happened, happened at like eight o'clock. We got in my parents house at 8. 05, right? And Then [00:04:00] by nine o'clock, my neighborhood group chat just starts blowing up. And I'm like, oh no. So by nine o'clock, the first neighbor says, water's in my house. And I'm like, Oh God. All right. And then, because the water happens after the hurricane goes past,
right? So you get the storm surge afterwards. And then the next neighbor, that neighbor, about a minute later, water's in my house now.
Another neighbor, water's in my house now. And we're like, Oh no, this is bad. This is bad. And then by about three o'clock in the morning, We got texts from everybody who stayed through it saying, this is getting really scary. I've got three feet of water in my house. Like I'm on a bed, you know, and they're just, they're like cuddling their kids on the bed.
I, I mean, it got pretty scary.
And so I knew that our house was not exempt
Lauryn: Now your [00:05:00] clinic is like, okay, so your clinic is higher up, right?
Savy: Yeah, so we, the clinic is in a, it's 18 feet. We're on the 12th floor of an 18 foot like tower
Lauryn: So you, at this point, like, I'm assuming priority one is get me the hell to my children. Like, yeah, mama bear, like, not even, you know, um, and then like, how do you guys go about deciding when to cancel? Like is any time
Savy: Like, okay. So I try and follow the school protocol. Typically when we're canceling, but it's really like, okay, when is, because some people were evacuating for this, um, and then a lot of people just like, I'm not leaving my house. And so I'm like, okay, at what point does it become a safety concern? And also when are people evacuating?
Because what I've seen is [00:06:00] when I stay open, I mean, we'll go from a full schedule to. A million cancellations, like 90
percent cancellations in two seconds.
Lauryn: But you've probably also seen a ton of, so like, I'm just picturing like, let's say on a Monday, the news is like, Oh my gosh, this Thursday, Friday, we're going to be in the direct line. Media loves to, you know, I don't live in hurricane world. I live in, um, snow territory, you know, where they're like, we're going to get three feet of snow.
It's going to be terrible. It's going to be the worst blizzard that we've seen. And then it's like, We get an inch of snow. So I would imagine a similar thing happens.
Savy: Oh, the media for sure hypes it up. And that's why I think a lot of people don't actually leave, is because we're like, yeah, we've been through this a million times.
Hurricane party. Like, great. Yes. It's, it's what it is, Right.
And so we, I mean, I wasn't here for the hype up of this one. I was out of the country, living my best life in Europe.
Lauryn: And is your [00:07:00] team like messaging you and just
like, Hey, how
Savy: it started on Monday being like, hey, I don't know if you've seen I don't know if you guys have seen this, but like there's a hurricane coming and it hit on Thursday. And so they're like, there's a hurricane coming, like what do you think we should do? And then on Tuesday, they're like, yeah, so you know, people are starting to really freak out.
Lauryn: Loving your Instagram stories. Can't wait to see what you bought at Paris. Um, can you give us some feedback on what you want us to do?
Savy: So on Tuesday, I'm like, okay guys, go ahead and cancel Wednesday. So everybody can get their homes prepared,
whatever. And then obviously we're going to be out on Thursday. Let's plan on opening back up on Friday.
Lauryn: Oh, you're going to open up Friday.
Savy: Yeah, sure.
Get in there on Friday. Get back to work.
Lauryn: okay.
Savy: No, um, we did not end up opening on Friday.
Lauryn: So, it would take me back then. Okay. So you're with your kids now and you're now starting to worry about your home. You're not having to worry about patients. Like [00:08:00] everything's
Savy: Everybody's cancelled at this point. Yep, everybody's cancelled. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm like, well, if this happened to me, this is probably happening to others right now, right? So, next day, my husband and I are like, we've gotta get to the house and see what's going on. Um, and so, we had to, luckily, my parents Still took the kids because seeing our house for the first time was intense.
We still had to park about a mile away and then wade through about three feet of water to get to our house. It was gross, like sewage water. It was disgusting. And then you get to the house and to walk in for the first time and see everything that you've ever worked for completely ruined. To, and that wasn't even, honestly, I'm not attached to things that much, but to see literally knowing your house will never ever look the same, right?
And all of your [00:09:00] kids toys you had to throw out, their, all of their clothes that you had to throw out, the things that can't get replaced, like the artwork and stuff that they've created, like literally everything is just destroyed. I mean, it was a really emotional day. I, I actually filmed, like, an Instagram story, and
you can just hear me crying on the story, um, And, like, tears holding back.
Lauryn: and it's true that a lot of people, like, do you have flood insurance?
Savy: Yes, I
did,
have flood insurance,
Lauryn: but a lot of people did not,
Savy: well, and it doesn't, I mean, it's kind of crap what they cover, to
be very honest.
Lauryn: what, what do you mean?
Savy: Like, I mean, they're, It is going to cost a lot more to rebuild my home than what we're getting reimbursed for.
Lauryn: Got it. Okay, so it's not like, not that anybody would be this heartless or whatever of like, Yeah, but now you get a new kitchen! Like, [00:10:00] it's not, it's not fun like that.
Savy: I mean, don't get me wrong. I always wanted to redo my kitchen.
This just wasn't how I wanted to redo my kitchen. So,
you know. Yeah.
Lauryn: Yeah.
Savy: Um, but yeah, luckily we were able to cut out all the drywall. We had to go four feet up with the drywall. We were able to cut all of that out, get all of the stuff out of our house.
I mean, the amount of crap that we just put on the front lawn, that was literally there for months before anybody came to pick it up.
I mean, it was
Lauryn: the weekend. You didn't open up Friday. You decided to stay closed Friday.
Savy: We, we say close Friday.
Lauryn: So like When do you go, how long did you stay closed as a clinic for?
Savy: Um, we were open on Monday.
Lauryn: Okay.
And what was that like? Like, first of all, how, how big is your team?
Savy: Uh, we had [00:11:00] five people,
Lauryn: Okay.
Savy: total.
Lauryn: So how do you hold, so yeah, I've got multiple questions here from like the business standpoint, because that's where like my brain is just like, not wanting to be heartless, but also like I am running a business. So did you have to like give a pep talk of like, see you Monday?
Savy: okay. So, I didn't know how I was going to come in on Monday because literally as soon as water starts going through my neighborhood group chat blows up. I'm like, dang, if this is happening to me, I can't imagine the amount of people that are going to lose their homes from this
in my practice. And so my immediate thought is. Shit, what's going to happen to the practice?
How far down the rabbit hole are we going to go [00:12:00] with this? And then also, am I going to have to lay off my team?
Lauryn: Right.
Savy: because
Lauryn: if you go, you know, if you go from 300 patient visits a week down to 100, like,
Savy: big John, it's a big job, right? And so, yeah, I mean, we were seeing around 400 people a week before and. I was just like, where's this going to go? How, how far down are we going to go? Am I going to have to lay off the team? So I was really nervous about coming in on Monday and seeing what kind of aftermath we were going to walk into,
right,
And not only that, but then I just knew what I was dealing with personally. I mean, I was in a really deep place. Like we were like, we're homeless now.
Lauryn: uh huh,
Savy: We're living with my parents an hour away. Like, well, we only did that for two weeks [00:13:00] because I love my parents, but it was not sustainable. and then, yeah, so I was just like, okay, what are we going to walk into?
And I was still super emotional. And I was like, how am I going to be there for my patients? How am I going to be there to support my team during this when I'm feeling the way that I'm feeling? Right. And I knew that they were all feeling this way because even the people that didn't get flooded, they had survivor's guilt from this. Because everybody knows somebody that did, right? And then, Monday comes in, we get in the clinic. Honestly, I'm not one that usually cries. And I cried so much that day. Literally, everyone that saw me was crying, and I was crying, and, like, every patient I saw was just We were all crying together and hugging. And I'm not a cryy person. Uh, but it definitely happened. Um, but then the texts start coming in. And [00:14:00] over that week, our practice, well, 25 percent of our practice lost their homes. So a pretty significant amount. And then, 13 days after Haleen, we got hit with Hurricane Milton. And it was a direct hit, and so a lot of the people that didn't flood with Hurricane Haleen got flooded with Hurricane Milton, or the wind destroyed their homes. And so then we went down another probably 5 to 10%. So at that point, we're looking at over 30 percent of the practice. their homes are wiped out.
Lauryn: right.
Savy: And so what's the first thing to cut?
They're like, you know, I love you guys. I know you'd help with my stress, but I don't even have a home.
Lauryn: And I think that's definitely a part that I don't know. Sometimes I hear chiropractors imply that. I don't know, kind of to the essence that if you [00:15:00] haven't trained your patients, that you are the last thing they should cut. And I just want to do like the biggest fricking eye roll I possibly can of like, no, these people need like drywall and like a
Savy: they need a roof above their head.
yeah.
Lauryn: So
I'm actually surprised you only lost. 20 because I would imagine even if I didn't lose my house, like when you're in a state of panic, like, well, I might not have lost my house, but now my kid's school is flooded. So now they're redirecting here. So my, like, I feel like people just in general, when there's, because you run a wellness clinic.
And so, you know, like you've got people, we've got people who are like once a week, right. They're once a week. And as soon as like something changes in their life. Even a little bit sometimes. They're like, okay, well, we've got football starting and like, I just need to
like, figure [00:16:00] out when, when we're gonna be able to come for our appointments.
And it's like, it's okay. What's the football schedule? And so like, I can only imagine that there had to have been a bunch of people who even were just like, I'm fine, but my sister in law's not. And like, they're gonna be living with us. And like, just that
Savy: Oh, oh, I was just talking about the people that lost their homes that discontinued care the patient volume loss that we saw of just people getting off of care because they decided to Stay wherever they evacuated
for a month because they couldn't get back to
Lauryn: We'll let, we'll call you. A whole bunch of we love
you,
we'll be
Savy: call you.
Yeah.
Lauryn: Like, great. I don't know if our normal reactivation text through sked is gonna be as emotionally supportive as it should be. Okay, so what did you tell, okay, from an organizational standpoint? So, okay, so like, you're telling your team, and even if you didn't [00:17:00] have a good process, what would you have done differently?
Of like, did you keep a spreadsheet of like, just like basically don't try and convince anybody of anything else, yes, do you do auto debits?
Savy: Yeah,
Lauryn: Yep, so like, pause all auto debits, pause everything,
Savy: you know, I, I really, I debated this one because I'm just like, okay, if they were affected, we definitely tried to say, Oh, well, you know what, let's just go ahead and pause this auto debit for this month, we'll reach back to you back next month to try and get you back on track, help with the stress levels, blah, blah, blah. Most people were like, Okay, let's give it a month. We'll, we'll, we'll see how it shakes out. But, there was a lot of people that were like, We don't even have a roof above our heads. And you have to be so sympathetic.
And my team,
I just told them, [00:18:00] I said, That Monday, I was like, Listen, everybody that called in, Love the hell out of them.
Right? They will eventually come back, But they've got to get their life together. And I was like, I am so sympathetic to this, Because I'm in the same boat.
Lauryn: mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Yeah, it'd be like if your hair stylist called and was like, Okay, so shoo, are we, I have you down for a noon for foils, like are we good? And you're like, I don't, what? No, I will not be there at noon for my foils. Um, and honestly, a woman's hair is sometimes categorized higher than her chiropractic.
I could be going through a trauma with really bad roots,
Savy: uh, so, yeah, I mean, our numbers went from around 400 a week to down to for a good like month, like 150 a week
Lauryn: Okay.
Savy: for, yeah.
Lauryn: So, did you, like, did you reach out [00:19:00] to your landlord to see if you can get a reduction, like, like, is there any, was there any of that kind of stuff going on of like,
Savy: That wasn't even an option. I was just internally freaking out and being like, okay, what are we going to do? I just lost my home. I have so many expenses coming up, trying to figure out, Hey, where do we live in the meantime? How do we rebuild our house? And now my practice is getting cut. What do I do with my employees?
I don't want to lay them off, but also like, how do I support them in this time? And they really rallied around me. And I was like, I, I need to be there for them. I need to grow the hell out of this practice in order. To keep everybody on. And so I think I went from more of the sympathetic state to like, all right, let's just get shit done.
Let's go to work. Let's start some action.
Lauryn: so what is action that you took?[00:20:00]
Because, like, I saw Kim Kardashian get blasted for posting something on social media about, like, skims while the fires were happening. And so it was just like, is there, is it, like, kind of insensitive to be like, new patient special?
Savy: So I really in my head, like I talked to my whole team about this. I'm like, all right, like, how do we get some quick income, but also not be insensitive
to what is happening in this situation. And so. One of the things that we did was we did a reactivation campaign for former wellness patients and so we pretty much offered them a pretty discounted like 12 or 24 pack that they could get back on track with care with a free progress exam. Um, so anybody that had fallen off literally since I've been in practice, like nine years, right?
And like,
discounted wellness rates.
Lauryn: were these, [00:21:00] like, including the people who just fell off in the last,
Savy: No,
Lauryn: Okay, so you kind of, like, had those people, like, just don't reach out to them. This was, like,
Savy: it was like, Hey, anybody that hasn't been in for, you know, let's say six months plus, like, let's go ahead and do this reactivation special. And we, we framed it in a way of like, we know how stressful this can be and we want to help, um, and to lower that financial burden, we're offering it at this amount.
Lauryn: Yep. Is there any culture, um, when something like this happens in a town, of just being able to call a spade a spade and being, like, Businesses are going to close. Like, support businesses.
Savy: gosh. Well, St. Pete is wonderful because it is such a supportive community for small business, so everybody rallied around small business. It was amazing. I mean, there's such a good culture. Like people were trying to support as much [00:22:00] as they could. and I mean, the way that this community came together was really amazing.
Lauryn: Okay, so there, there is a little bit of grace to
Savy: Yeah. And
Lauryn: to put the pieces back together.
Savy: Yeah, and I think that we have a really good network of other local businesses in the area that are kind of the strategic partners for us. And so we all band together to, to help support one another and to really get the word out there, like, Hey, listen, these business, these small businesses need you,
you know. So if you're able, these are things that you can do.
Lauryn: Right. Um, I have seen. A lot of Kairos do like free adjustments for like EMS and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And obviously that's not helping their bottom line, but like is kind of trying to keep their name in that. Did you do anything like that? Like I could [00:23:00] see that backfiring.
Savy: I didn't, um, I mean, EMS wasn't really involved in this one.
It's not like the fires. So I didn't do that, but we did do a, uh, I kind of, uh, go fund me essentially, where we, for instance, at Christmas time, we had, uh, our annual event cookies with Santa. And so in order to, and we have a professional photographer every year come, we have Santa come. And so for the parents to get a picture with Santa, we said it is a suggested 20 donation, and this is where it's going. And it went and was distributed to all of the different families. internally that were affected.
Lauryn: Oh, okay.
Savy: So all of our families internally, we had a whole spreadsheet of everybody that lost their home, um, and was severely affected by the hurricane.
And so everybody, and we did a few other things around the community to [00:24:00] try and generate money. And then we split that between everybody in the practice who was affected.
Lauryn: Okay. What's another thing that you did besides the Santa thing?
Savy: Um, so we actually did a, there was a One week, one week or two, no, excuse me, two weeks that we did a discounted new patient exam, but then put 100 percent of proceeds to that as well.
Lauryn: Got it.
Um, so
you had just done a two week, so like, I'm just thinking, alright, numbers are down, because you have two associates. So, numbers are way down, you've got two associates, and you've got your life, your personal life, your home, in crumbles,
like, Right. Like much did you feel like you were able and you had just been on a two week vacation, right?
Like, so like maybe even a normal world, it'd be like, all right, I'm going to take the next two weeks off. Like, but where did you feel the pull? Like, did you feel like you [00:25:00] needed to lean into your team more because of that emotional aspect?
Savy: yeah, absolutely. I mean, everybody on my team was going through it emotionally. Nobody else on my team lost. their home, but they were feeling it in some capacity, right? I mean, they, they knew so many people that were affected. They were having these heart to hearts with our patients that were coming and just crying.
I mean, you know, you, like our second job is almost as a therapist sometimes. And so trying to be there for them and just kind of taking that on. And then I think that they probably felt a lot of this, like, okay, what's savvy going to do? Because our numbers are way down. Right. So I had a conversation with them.
I never brought up any like layoffs or anything like that, but I was like, guys, our numbers are so down and I know everyone is going through it, but we've got to get these numbers up [00:26:00] for this business to keep running like it is right now.
Right.
or how it was running, and so yeah, we did the reactivation campaign also, um, on one of your episodes you had, you were talking about how you implemented Shockwave,
and so a while ago I ended up getting Shockwave, so we did,
Lauryn: Shockwave
Savy: Shockwave.
Lauryn: Okay,
Savy: I went, I literally did the same exact one that you did.
Lauryn: It works amazing. I'm
Savy: Yeah, it's great. Patients love it. And it's 10 grand versus
Lauryn: Yeah, you could buy six of them. Like, Anyway, good, good.
Savy: yeah, so we saw we did discounted shockwave
packages, right? Uh to try and generate new just more income like
quick
easy
Lauryn: people? Like, is that your main way that you're getting ahold of people is through text? Like,
Savy: most part. yeah.
Yeah, but um after milton the Our whole [00:27:00] area so the second hurricane our whole area didn't have power for like two to three weeks So it Yeah, so it was really like,
Lauryn: Milton sucked too!
Savy: yeah,
Lauryn: Did your office have power?
Savy: we luckily are in the same grid as the hospital.
So ours always have.
Lauryn: keeps power.
Savy: Yes. Um, but nobody else had power and there was no water. You couldn't get gas. Everybody evacuated for Milton. So Not only did everybody was they're going through like this emotional trauma of what helene just brought but then 13 days later Here comes milton.
So about You know 10 days into this they're like milton's coming guys. This is gonna be even higher storm surge and blah blah blah And so everybody got out of town And
they were
Lauryn: close your clinic for another two weeks?
Savy: I had
Lauryn: Oh [00:28:00] my god! While you're paying
Savy: Yeah,
Lauryn: payroll
Savy: yeah and 10 grand a month for rent. Yeah
Lauryn: did you have savings?
Savy: Yeah, I mean,
yes,
Lauryn: You did. have savings.
Savy: did have savings.
Lauryn: Used to. I used to have
Savy: I used to have savings. It was a thing of the past.
Lauryn: Okay. So why, why was there, how did you decide that you were going to like guarantee payrolls like that?
Savy: I just said, let's see. I had a conversation with my husband. I'm like, listen, the next couple months are gonna be rough. Like, thank God he's working. Um, but I was like, they're going to be really rough. And he knew that. And I said, what do we want to do going forwards? Like, How fat like I want to support my team.
I want to be there for them. They're here for me right now [00:29:00] Um, and I want to keep them On board and he said I fully appreciate that. He's like, let's see how the next 90 days play out
and that was,
our goal. Just Make it to 90 days
Lauryn: it to 90 days.
Savy: Yeah, and so With kind of this community of like strategic partners. We all were like, all right All of our businesses are suffering right now.
So how are we all going to support each other? We did like old school screening and like pop ups in
each other's offices and stuff just to support one another And honestly within in two and a half weeks. I did five screenings
Lauryn: You got that new girl energy.
Savy: I have that new girl Yeah. I
Lauryn: talk about this because last year I had, um, so usually in the multi passionate carpenter, we don't let like noobs in. And I was talking to this girl doing her like discovery call and she's like, well, I'm two and a half years in. And I'm like, kind of on the cutoff that I may not let in.
Like, what are your numbers? And she's like, well, we see [00:30:00] 450 a week. And I'm like, okay, how many jobs? She's like, well, it's just me and four CAs. And I was like, Okay. And so then we start talking. She had like 400 new patients last year and like her CA. And so she, she came into the program and she was in this like strategy call with seven other docs who have more or quote experience than her.
And everybody's just like leaning in like, okay, so how did you get that many new patients? And she's just like, screenings. And we're just
like, huh, you know, because you've got all these docs who are like, ugh, I've graduated past needing to do a screening.
I don't need to do screenings anymore. And it's like, yeah, that same doc is like, I really want more new patients, but I'm not uncomfortable enough to do a screening.
So yeah, you're like, fuck you. I'll do anything now at this point to save my clinic.
Savy: I mean, literally, you go back, like, if I go back nine years when I was opening up the clinic, I was like, yeah, [00:31:00] screenings, all the time, you know, like, I had probably two a week. And then other two days a week, I'd be at networking events after work and, you know, doing talks all around the community. I'm like, Oh no, I'm getting that energy back in here.
Like we've got to grow the shit out of this right now, um, to get these numbers back, to be able to support my team, just to be able to support myself, to be able to rebuild my house. Like it's kind of one of those things when I left my associate position and I opened my practice, I was like, all right.
This is it, like, it is, I'm, I'm all in, right, so I'm going to go all in on this, and it was kind of the same, like, survival, like, we're doing this,
we're, we're getting these numbers back up,
Lauryn: So you did screenings, you did a reactivation campaign.
Savy: yep. What else did you do?
We did a Women, Wine, and Wellness internal event that got a lot of people from the community
in here.
Lauryn: How far, how late after the hurricane was it?
Savy: So we had to push it back. It was supposed to [00:32:00] be right, it was supposed to be a week after Hurricane Milton, the second hurricane hit, but 90 percent of St. Pete didn't have power at
that point. And I was like, uh, no, this is in bad taste being like grab all your girlfriends, come drink some
wine and support local business. So
Lauryn: We have power.
Savy: we have power. Um, no. So we had Cancel that one, postpone it, and we did it the following month.
So, Hurricane Elaine was September 26th. Uh, Hurricane Milton was like the second week in October.
And then we did Women, Wine, and Wellness in the middle November.
Lauryn: Okay. So yeah, how did you start? So then like a month passes,
Savy: Uh huh.
Lauryn: how do you start re reaching out to those patients who you know quit because their life got super affected?
Savy: [00:33:00] Yeah, it was one of those things that we, honestly, it wasn't even, it was the personal outreach. It was a phone call and just being like, hey, I just wanted to check on you, like, I know you've been through it. We just wanted to see how you're doing, you know, and not even make it about them coming in the clinic.
Just check on them personally and, and how they're doing. And then by that point, honestly, I wouldn't say a ton of them, but a decent amount of them were like, you know what? I've got my life figured out. I have a rental right now, so we're able to kind of get back in and like get back into a normal routine, but it wasn't until November that people started sort of trickling back in,
Lauryn: Mm hmm. What is, so what is currently going on with your clinic and health? Cause
as we're recording, it's January.
Savy: numbers are coming back up. You feel the momentum going Um with all of the [00:34:00] screenings and everything we did I mean, it was a pretty big influx of new patients and we needed that So right now we're about a little over 300 a week right now so it's coming back up because those numbers got scary like I hadn't seen those numbers in practice since I mean Early COVID days. Right? When my practice took a huge dive and, but we were able to rebound in 2020 and like see even better numbers towards the end
of it. Um, but I remember in the beginning of 2020 being really scared and I mean, it, uh, end of September and October, I was, I was still in that like, Oh my gosh, what is going to happen?
I can't even afford to live life right now. Um, but personally, I mean, And we see the numbers coming back in the clinic right now. We have such momentum. Momentum kind of stalled around the holidays because we always take a week [00:35:00] off. I let my team have a week off to kind of recharge. And so momentum did die a little bit.
It took us a couple weeks in the beginning of January to get that back. But I mean, now we're booked out like two weeks. So, um, that's, That's a good problem to have. I will take it. and I have a marketing coordinator. Unfortunately, I hired her, maybe fortunately, unfortunately, I don't know. I had hired her a week before I left on my two week vacation,
and then Hurricane Helene hit.
I was like, why did I add another person to my payroll?
Lauryn: So she was like a local real person or like a
Savy: Yeah, she's a local real person. She's my marketing coordinator, but also CA.
Lauryn: Got it.
Savy: Yeah, so I had just hired her on before I left
Lauryn: Yeah. Hard to say fortunate, unfortunate, like,
Savy: I mean, but the good news is she's amazing and she's really doing a lot to try and help grow the
business. And things that I didn't have time for,
Right.
So that you kind of get away from the community connections and like fostering that relationship, doing a lot [00:36:00] of the Just being on top of the social media, so it's not a last minute like, Oh, who's going to post the reel today? Blah, blah,
blah. Being on stories. I mean, she's, she's doing really well with that.
So I'm so fortunate and so grateful that I have her on the team. But I remember right after it happened being like, Well, I wish I wouldn't have made that higher.
Lauryn: But it's good. You wouldn't, you know, you would have had to spend time on, you know, your marketing. Um, so what's going on with the house?
Savy: We are currently living in a one bedroom apartment. It is 700 square feet with my husband and I and our two kids. It's real cozy. My love language is always quality time. Now, my love language is a hotel by myself. But luckily we are signing a lease for a townhouse. hopefully mid februa a townhouse with more spa to take a while for my ho We decided with [00:37:00] just my a I mean, my house has neve built in 1970. This was t Um, is what they call it, but I'm like, I don't know the government's messing with the weather.
This might
happen again. Right. And so my anxiety is like, no, I don't want to be in. I mean, we live on the water. I don't want to be in a place that this happens again.
Lauryn: Okay. So
Savy: so No, I love my community. I love my neighbors so much. All of our besties live in the neighborhood and I don't want to move. Um, so we are using what was our home as the concrete block of our home as the first floor.
So that will be the garage. slash
storage area and then we're building a new house on top of it
Lauryn: Got it.
Yeah.
Savy: that we'll live off of. So, um, it's a long process. We're still in architecture plans and then we have to submit for permitting and then it'll probably take another six to eight months to build. So, my goal was
Lauryn: Are you going to be the weird house? Are other [00:38:00] houses around you doing that too? Are you going to
Savy: No, a lot of other
Lauryn: Okay, you're like, I mean, not that you should build your house based on whatever, but like you're the only house that's like our first
floor is the
second floor
Savy: else. But, uh, yeah. So we're, we're doing it. Um, I was hoping to be in by Christmas. I don't think that that's going to be realistic.
So we are signing a year lease for this townhouse. Um, if I can get in by February ish of 2026, I will be happy with
Lauryn: Yeah. And you probably, I mean, you're probably dealing with all of the, I mean, we had a single really bad hailstorm come through and the amount of crappy roofers that just flood to an area when, you know, so like you're probably sorting through. You want to be on a good contractors list and not some sketchy person.
And
Savy: All those things.
Lauryn: so what is something that you think that you did exceptionally well on reflection, like looking back, like what is something [00:39:00] that you as a leader for your team and your clinic and your patients did really, really well. And if you were like giving advice to someone who is going through a tornado, a hurricane, a fire, et cetera, What's your
Savy: Honestly, I think that Number one, the fact that I decided, like, I'm going to support my team through this, I'm going to keep them employed, because it would have been a lot easier on payroll had I just been like, eh, you
know, let's, Let's cut down on who's here. But the fact that I made a commitment. I was like, you know what? We are going to get through this. It's going to be a rough couple months. But like, I need everybody to come together. And let's grow the hell out of this practice. In a very short amount of time. Kind of getting back to the basics. Uh, I think. For me as a leader, that was really good, and I'm really proud of my team and how they supported our patients, too. during this time, I mean, obviously our volume was a lot lower, so they spent a little bit [00:40:00] more time with people on the table than they normally do. Um, but they loved the hell out of these patients, and I think that they felt really supported. And the way that we just checked in with the people that even, that were affected as well, right? And just checked in with them and were like, okay. Like, how are you doing? You know, what do you need from us? How can we help? I think was, was pretty great.
Lauryn: What is something that, in reflection, you'd do differently, air quotes, next time? like, what's something that, you know, you were making a decision in the moment, and now that you've had time to process, is like, ah, probably would have handled that differently. Or if it's even, like, in your preparedness for something like this.
But it sounds like you had savings.
Savy: I did have savings, which was great. Um, uh, know, I'm not really sure. I, I would have, had I been home, I would have lifted my furniture. So maybe I didn't have to buy all new furniture,[00:41:00]
Lauryn: What would you
have lifted at three feet? You wouldn't have lifted it that
much,
Savy: How would I have left it at three feet? I don't know.
Lauryn: Yeah.
Savy: Um, I, I honestly don't know. I think that we navigated it as well as As we possibly could in this situation and luckily, although I won't say that the practice will never go through something like this again because Things happen that are out of your control, right? Um,
Lauryn: And you are in Florida.
Savy: and we are in Florida, but personally, we're building our house so this doesn't happen again. but yeah, I don't, I don't know, honestly, what I would do differently in a different situation. I think we navigated it. With as much grace as we could.
Lauryn: Alright, really random question. I have an intense fear of alligators. Like, it's a weird phobia. I don't know if like, in a past life, I
Gotten eaten by an alligator, um, because I'm in Wisconsin, I should not be, I should not think and dream about alligators as much as I [00:42:00] do. Um, were alligators an issue at any point in this?
Like were
alligators, like, because like this was ocean water,
Savy: Yeah. But, but,
alligators are in the ocean. They're freshwater.
Lauryn: right, they're not in the ocean,
right? So, but like, but you've got like waterways blending and
Savy: There were, there were several. I didn't hear about anybody like getting eaten by an alligator or anything
like that. Yeah, but there were like alligators in pools. Um, and then people found alligators kind of like
walking along the beaches and stuff afterwards.
Lauryn: Okay.
So
it is as terrible as I thought it was.
Savy: I have a bigger phobia of sharks.
Lauryn: I don't think you should. I don't, I don't think you should. Um, as somebody who lives in Florida, do you, would you ever go swimming in a lake?
Savy: no,[00:43:00]
Lauryn: No. Okay. So people in Florida don't swim in lakes,
right?
Savy: I learned when I was in middle school, I did learn to ski on a lake in Florida. but I also skied over several alligators heads.
Lauryn: yeah. All right. So I don't
Savy: So as an
adult, I don't know.
Lauryn: You don't let
Savy: would not allow my kids to go swimming in a Florida lake.
Lauryn: Okay. That validates everything I've ever thought. Thank you. Yeah. Um, all right. Any final wisdom or advice for anybody who is listening, who is like going through it, through their practice with something that's completely out of their control and affecting their patients and their community?
Savy: I mean, I think you just have to band together as a community and love on the people that are there, that are supporting you, that are supporting your business, and just do your best to be there for the people that are going through it.
Lauryn: Well, thanks ab
I, [00:44:00] um. I hope, I hope every, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, the fact that you're already in the 300, that's incredible girl. Like that's, that's incredible. I hope your new girl energy stays and you guys just like sorta like 600.
Savy: I am prepared to crush it in 2025.
I had this annual planning meeting in 2024. I got the team so hype,
Lauryn: Oh God. You had to have a plan. Yeah. Yeah. You are really having to step into the leader that they need. Like I bet your leadership skills like went up a notch or seven.
Savy: I feel like it is.
Lauryn: Yeah. That those are the good leaders is like under stress. We, we rise. So I say, we, as if I would, I'd be like, I'm not leaving my house.
There's alligators everywhere.
Um,
Savy: how did we go through this whole podcast and you didn't ask me what my Enneagram type was?
Lauryn: I already know your Enneagram. You're a three.
Savy: Yeah, of course.
Lauryn: It didn't need to know. I only ask people that I don't know their Enneagram.
Savy: Okay, [00:45:00] that's totally
Lauryn: And I didn't know that because you've told me in the past, it's just like.
Savy: You're like, I
Lauryn: Talent sees talent. Yep. Yeah. Threes see threes. I see it. I see it. But it is funny though, in the same sense that reverse thing happens. Where somebody would be like, I think I'm a three.
And I'm like, no, you're not. I don't say it. I can't say it. You can't be like, no, you don't have an incessant drive and vanity. Like, no, no, you're not. But, okay. Because people want to, they see the word achiever and they're like, I'm an achiever? I want to be that. And I'm like, mm hmm. Yeah, let's talk about the dark side.
Let's talk about the dark side, so.
Alright, yeah. There's a dark
side.
to every, every single one of them. Um, okay, Savvy. Well, thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing. I think that, I think that this is happening, you know, this happens to small businesses and clinics all over, and just having someone that can even just resonate with what the grief that you're going through is.
So, thank you to speaking to [00:46:00] that.
Uh, she's
Savy: you for having me on.
Lauryn: If somebody needs, wanted to like reach out to you, uh, you want to
Savy: reach out to me on Instagram SavvyErbyFord or BlossomFamilyCaro is my clinic.
Lauryn: Cool. All right. She slayers, um, make sure that you are clicking like, or subscribe or follow, or whatever the button is on the platform. You listen to the podcast on go follow savvy. Cause she's just got a fun little Florida Instagram account. That is us. Northerners are like, Oh, it looks nice down there in Florida today.
Savy: It's like 30, 38 degrees today. It's
Lauryn: I'm
Savy: cold.
Lauryn: I'm so sad. No, honestly, honestly, this is why our family goes to Mexico every year instead, because we do a week. all inclusive. Well, we do like a tropical week, usually in January or February. And we have for the last seven years. And ideally it's just more convenient to go to like Miami or Florida.
Like it's cheaper. [00:47:00] It's America. You don't have to deal with customs. You don't have to deal with any of that. You don't have to deal with diarrhea. Um, but like you look at the weather and it's like, oh, Average highs are 65. That's like, you could get an 80 degree day. But like, I need guaranteed I also, besides alligators, another nightmare I have, and it's usually only when I'm coming up to like a vacation like this, um, is that it's like the last full day, and I haven't gotten enough time tanning.
Yeah.
Savy: It's a real problem.
Lauryn: Real problem. I should keep in therapy. Ha ha! All right, thank you again. Thank you so much. She slayers. Thank you so much out. If you are going through any of this until next week, bye.