From Big Practice To Balanced Life with Christopher Wolcott

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. All right. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Cliff McRae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners.

0:45I'm excited to have Christopher Wilcock with Sunrise Wellness as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So, Chris, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community. Oh, well, thanks for having me. And I appreciate the opportunity to share. I'm Christopher Wolcott. I'm a chiropractor and acupuncturist, and I've been in practice since 2003, and I do a different approach to muscular skeletal health than some of my colleagues. I spend a lot of time with patients and combine acupuncture and chiropractic and soft tissue work and rehab.

1:30And my goal has always been try to get people better as quickly as possible. And when I do that, they then send people my way. Okay. So, a majority of your new business is from referrals. Is that what you're saying? Yes. All of my new business is from referrals. Nice. Nice. Okay. so yeah i really appreciate you interviewing that so yeah if you had to start your business from square one would you do anything differently and what would you do well i kind of did uh to be honest when i graduated chiropractic school in 2003 i bought a practice and it was a big practice with six rooms and three massage therapists and physical therapists and another chiro uh as i went along and a front desk staff and we did insurance billing and I did that for 20 years and then I sold that practice and we left Chicago, my wife and I.

2:26And when I, when we landed in Asheville, I wanted to do something different that was less stressful, lower volume. And so now I'm just a one man show and it's great. And I typically just work mornings now. And so I, I have kind of done it completely differently and shaped a life that's much more relaxing and much less stressful. Okay. Okay. So why Asheville coming from Chicago? Well, we've got family in Virginia and Florida, and Chicago is far from both. And so once we had our daughter, we decided we wanted to get closer to family within driving distance. And so we sold everything. We had a condo and a house and my practice.

3:20And so we sold all of that and got rid of most of our stuff. And we live in an RV for two years. So that was quite an adventure. And we had our daughter with us and homeschooled kindergarten and first grade. So we had only planned for a year, but COVID hit right in the middle of our trip. So we decided, well, there's not a whole lot to go back to. So, and I had been to Asheville. I grew up in the mountains in Virginia. And so I had been to Asheville as a kid. And so that was a destination that, you know, I definitely wanted my wife to see. She had never been. And on our third trip through Asheville, we just never left.

4:01Okay. Okay. Yeah. I hear that a lot. That's, you know, Asheville's a great area. So, so what have your biggest learnings been as an owner since you started your business? Hmm. So biggest learnings, well, trusting my instincts is something that, you know, I've always questioned, but it seems like they're usually right. And so now I'm more inclined to trust my instincts than I ever have been, because when I armchair quarterback it and look back at my career, you know, when I when I had the feeling that something was fishy, it usually was. Um, and, uh, when I had a feeling that there was a business opportunity that I either took or didn't take, uh, it usually was.

4:50And of course my instincts aren't always right. Um, but it's kind of that Malcolm Gladwell blink thing, um, where, uh, usually your gut is right. So, uh, so that's one big one for sure. Okay. Okay. So what are some common misconceptions about running a business? Would you say?

5:13Well, I don't like to be cynical, but one of the common misconceptions, I think, is that people often say, oh, it must be nice to be your own boss. And that's true unless your boss is a tyrant. You know, I take my practice very seriously. I get very invested in every single case. And, you know, that can sometimes keep you up at night. But yeah, I think that the biggest misconception is that owning a small business is lots and lots of free time. And I don't think that's the case for most small business owners. And they might even tell you and probably have told you that it takes a whole lot of time and commitment to run a small business.

6:01And, you know, I also try not to look at the grass, you know, looking greener on the other side of the fence. But, you know, it's tough to not have any benefits and, you know, no paid time off. And so every time you go on vacation, it's like a double whammy. So I guess those would be drawbacks. From running a business. Okay. So how do you handle taking vacations while running a business? Well, it's different now. When I was in Chicago, I would hire somebody and eventually I had a colleague who would just cover the practice for me. And I had some, you know, I had some friends and we would cover each other's practices.

6:43So, but I would never shut down. But, you know, now I just shut down and in this lower volume, and I see a different type of patient now. It's people that are mostly just trying to take care of themselves and coming in, you know, on a more routine basis. And so it's more flexible, but, but now I just, I just closed the doors and, you know, that's a week of lost revenue, but it's good. It's good for you. And so, and absolutely necessary to, to stay mentally healthy. Okay. And you do a good job of kind of shutting off and, you know, not really taking those kinds of calls and stuff like that while you're on vacation or?

7:24Much better now than I used to. You know, as you get older, you start to prioritize or I don't know if everybody does, but, you know, I've tried to prioritize, you know, time and time with my family and time with my friends, um, over, you know, financial success and business success. And fortunately, you know, I'm able to do that because I've, I've experienced a lot of financial success already. So it makes it a little easier to, to refocus my priorities. So yes, now, now, now I'm quite good at it. Um, okay. Okay. So what have you attributed to your growth so far in your business? You know, I think my, my, from the very get go, I wanted to provide a quality product.

8:12And fortunately, it's, you know, it turns out that I'm good at what I do. And in this particular business, you've either got to be a really good business person, or you've got to be really good clinically and have at least some business sense. And I think I fall into that second category where, you know, I provide a really good product and, you know, I had a database of 6 ,000 patients. And I know that any time any of them had any issues or if they, you know, had friends or family with any issues, they were given my card knowing that I would, you know, treat that person well and try to get them better as fast as possible and certainly not try to take advantage of them financially.

8:57in addition you know I'll turn away cases too if I don't think I can help I'm completely transparent and honest and that you know being genuine with people I think you know is a successful model but it takes longer than you know some other models but but it works in the long run so now I'm in my midway through my fourth year in Asheville and you know that's when it really starts to gain some momentum is, you know, when I've had my hands on people for the last three years. So, yeah. So, I mean, it says a lot about your business, you know, obviously that, you know, you say all of your new business comes from referrals, you know, what do you, I mean, obviously that attributes to something that you're doing and obviously you're making a good relationship with these people.

9:46Is that correct? Yes, totally correct. Yep. Okay. So how do you balance your personal life with the demands of running your business? Well, I think setting my schedule, I think I mentioned already that I try to get out of here at one every day. And, you know, actually, my business has been rebranded. It's technically Sunrise Wellness, but I rebranded it as Wolcott Wellness, and it's officially changing. And it's a funny story that you're going to edit out if you want. But when I was trying to name my business, you know, I think a business name is important. And so I kicked around some ideas and I came up with Sunrise Wellness thinking, well, I'll work seven to one.

10:32But I never really liked Sunrise Wellness. And for the primary reason that I thought it sounded a bit like a retirement home and or a rehab center. um but when i polled people uh people liked it and so uh i ended up going with sunrise wellness and you know and when i checked with the state there wasn't a sunrise wellness anywhere in north carolina and so i i launched it as sunrise wellness but as it turns out ash billions aren't prone to uh getting up that early and so you know that concept uh didn't really pan out that well and you you know the westgate shopping center where the earth fair is yes sure enough man it wasn't three months after i launched my business that sunrise rehabilitation center opened in west gates and so all of a sudden the whole state had no sunrise wellness and now there's two There's a Sunrise Wellness Rehabilitation Center and a Sunrise Wellness, which is mine.

11:42So I'm officially rebranding to Walkout Wellness. Okay. And going back to what you were saying about, you know, Asheville and it's not getting up too early. I mean, I bet you that's a big difference from Chicago, correct? Yeah, I would say the majority. I'd say the majority of my patients from seven to nine and then again from like five to seven. But it's because, you know, we were on the north side near Wrigley Field and, you know, everybody was taking the train downtown to work. And so, so I thought that would work here. But I think Asheville has a lot of people who work from home. And so. Yeah, no, no, you're right.

12:21You're right. So what I mean, I know you said you don't have any employees currently, but when you were back in Chicago and you did have some employees, you are you potential employees. Did you look for anything in particular, like any special qualities that they had or personality traits? Well, that evolves. You know, I had no managerial experience. And so. So, yes, I, you know, as I as I got better at hiring people, I would certainly look for, you know, things like timeliness, which really, you know, I'm pretty laid back at the end of the day. But, you know, in the interview, I would say, especially to therapists, you know, you can't be late no matter what.

13:08You just can't be late because it throws a wrench in the entire day, you know, because we were seeing 40 or 50 people in a day. And, you know, if a massage therapist had six or seven, you know, clients on the docket back to back to back to back, if they were late to work, the whole day gets, you know, thrown out of whack. And so I would try to filter for that in the hiring process. You know, and then there's that adage that you can teach skills, but you can't teach personality. And so I would always try to hire friendly people with good bedside manner. Because you don't want, you know, especially in a small business, you certainly don't want any toxicity because it can really ruin.

13:58you know, when there's five, six, seven people under one roof and a thousand square feet, that's not a lot of space to breathe. So you want everybody to get along well. Yeah. So you said you're pretty laid back as far as your style. So how do you use that to foster a positive and productive work environment? You do anything in particular? Yeah, I think I would, you know, I think I would always try to give positive feedback. And even if it was critical feedback, you know, I would try to shape it into something, you know, positive and fall forward and fail forward if we could, you know, and I always approach it as a team.

14:44You know, we're a team. So, you know, things like at the end of the day, you know, I'm going to grab a broom. I'm going to grab the trash. Like we're, we're, we're all going to try to get out of the office. I don't just finish with my patient and then out I go. So, you know, try to, you know, try to foster a team environment as much as I can. But, but again, you know, I don't, I don't know if I was a good manager. I know I've certainly made some bad decisions as a manager. And so because of that, I, you know, I kind of wasn't sure I wanted to manage people again. And I did have loyalty. You know, one of one, two of the people that I had, I think in the late, like maybe 2010, they're still at the practice.

15:34So that seems like an indicator that it wasn't all bad. Yeah, yeah. They're showing some loyalty. So that's good. All right. Yeah. So I appreciate that. So now we're going to head into the quickfire round. So basically what's going to happen here is I'm going to say one word and and I just want you to answer it best you can as to how it how that one word fosters into running your business. Your answer doesn't have to be one word, but I'm just going to give you one word and how and how it fits with your business. So first word is education. Education. Well, I'm an educator by nature. I taught anatomy and physiology, and I worked in the research department for 10 years and was on faculty.

16:19And I think that probably lends itself to me rambling too much in front of patients and telling them too much about what's going on than they probably even care to know. Planning. Planning, I'm not a great planner. I am a great procrastinator, though, and so I'll put things off as much as possible. But my wife travels a lot for work. And so that has forced me to become a better planner, especially with kids and dog and, you know, managing my work schedule. So inspiration. Well, I do like inspirational things like coaching. I love self-help books, things like E-Myth and Atomic Habits and Seven Habits for Highly Effective People.

17:06And so I do like inspiration. Commitment. Another for commitment. Commitment to providing quality care no matter what. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. That's the end of the quickfire round. So just a couple last questions here to wrap things up. What words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow? Business owners looking to grow. I don't know if I'm the one to be giving advice since I've kind of downsized my business instead of growing my business. But you just said you were doing well. So, I mean, how'd you get there? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, when we're in a growth phase, you've got to keep expectations realistic, I think.

18:03I've seen a lot of people get almost too gung-ho. They'll set very lofty expectations. And I think setting achievable goals and focusing more on the process for how to achieve those goals and not on the goal itself. Like, what are you going to do each and every day to get to that goal rather than looking, you know, months down the road and, you know, looking at the goal, trying to do something every day. You know, maybe, you know, first thing in the morning and then again, you know, before you leave work, you know, what are you doing to achieve those goals every single day on an incremental level rather than from a macro view?

18:55And what's the next big thing for Wolcott Wellness? Retirement, I hope. Okay. Yeah, I don't know if this business model, you know, I don't know if this is a type of business model that could be scaled very well, although I have kicked around that idea. So, but a goal I do have for this business is I'd like to, I'd like to take it on a corporate level. I'd like to find some, you know, larger small companies or midsize companies that I could bring a corporate wellness model to the workspace. and, you know, just do like maintenance care where I go there and, you know, maybe do some easily accessible acupuncture points and or, you know, quick adjustments for anybody that is interested, you know, and then if people need more intensive care, then I could, you know, invite them back to the clinic for that.

20:06So, but I think that'd be a lot of fun for me personally. And I don't know if that's going to be a growth model for me, but I think it'd be a fun way to practice. Like, you know, I think of places like New Belgium or Sierra Nevada or, you know, or Eagle's Nest Outfitters, you know, but places like that, local businesses that are cool and, you know, have kind of a blue collar workforce that I can provide a service, but also, you know, diversify what I'm doing. Okay. And lastly, what's the best way for someone to find you or get in touch with you? Well, I'm all over the internet. Sometimes it's misleading because you'll find a lot of Chicago, but my web address, wokeoutwellness.com, pretty easy to remember.

20:59Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for being a part of the community and for all that you're doing. We certainly wish you continued success in 2026. Oh, thanks for having me. This was fun. Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

21:36more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.