Good Neighbor Podcast: Port Saint Lucie
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Port Saint Lucie. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Benjamin John helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Port St Lucie, Florida.
Is your business serving the residents of Port Saint Lucie? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpPSL.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Port Saint Lucie
E311: Unveiling Spinal Secrets with Steven Barger | From Resilience to Success at Expedition Chiropractic
What makes Dr. Steven Barger with Expedition Chiropractic a good neighbor?
Discover the fascinating journey of Steven Barger, the mastermind behind Expedition Chiropractic, as he unveils the secrets to his practice's success on its five-year milestone. Emphasizing the power of building personal connections in a small, family-style setting, Steven introduces us to the intricacies of the Gonstead technique—a meticulous method that sets his approach apart in the world of chiropractic care. Through detailed spine analysis and full spine x-rays, his targeted, hands-on adjustments promise to address even the most severe spinal issues with precision and care.
Steven shares the evolution of his practice and how patient care transitions from acute to maintenance and wellness routines, ensuring spinal health that supports an active lifestyle well into the 50s and 60s. Reflecting on the challenges faced during the early days, particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven highlights how resilience and strategic marketing were key in overcoming obstacles. Listen to testimonials from patients who travel far and wide for his specialized care and gain insight into the personal interests and networking strategies that have cultivated a thriving clientele. Stay connected with Expedition Chiropractic by visiting their website and following them on Instagram for the latest updates and insights.
To learn more about Expedition Chiropractic go to:
https://www.expeditionchiropractic.com
Expedition Chiropractic
772-245-7069
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Benjamin John.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Good Neighbor Podcast once again. Hey, are you in the need for a good and an expert chiropractor? Well, there may be one closer than you think. Today I got the pleasure of introducing Stephen Barger with Expedition Chiropractic. Stephen, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:Doing great. How are you today?
Speaker 2:Good, yeah, I'm doing really, really good. Can't complain about everything. There's a lot of good energy, a lot of positive vibes going on this day, so I'm just taking it in. Awesome, I'm excited. First of all, thanks for making the time. I'm really excited to learn a little bit more about the company and see if there's there's a I want to know the most about it. So let's just jump right into it with that. Can you tell us a little bit about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I own and operate Expedition Chiropractic. We have a small family style office. We've been open five years next Tuesday actually, so just coming up on our five-year anniversary. For the majority of the time it was just my wife and I. We have a small office. I like keeping it kind of small and really get to know our clientele and our patients very well that way and we recently just had a baby, so the wife's taking some time out of the office and we have some other front desk help right now and stuff like that but still really small. I want to get to know my patients very well and make sure that we are able to adjust their problems and make sure we get them corrected. My number one goal is to make sure we get results in our office, so Very cool.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations on the five-year anniversary and congratulations on the newborn.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you yes.
Speaker 2:A lot of exciting things happening all at the same time, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a different world with a three-month-old at the home, so a little less sleep at night, but it's all worth it.
Speaker 2:It's all exactly. You said it best. It's such a great journey, all right. Well, how did you get into the business?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I went to UCF undergrad. I'm from Poison Lucy originally. I went to Morningside Academy, then went off to UCF and got an exercise science degree. My original degree was actually like in coaching I was playing on coaching basketball and golf. One of my professors was a chiropractor. I worked in his office for a few months and said, hey, I want to go back to school and I chose chiropractic school up at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Daytona Beach, florida. And the first month of chiropractic school I just fell in love with it and I knew it was in the right place and just got a real passion for chiropractic and my time in school I started to specialize in Gonstead chiropractic. Most people haven't heard of Gonstead chiropractic but it's a specialty in the chiropractic profession.
Speaker 3:Most people don't know that chiropractic there's over 200 techniques Just because you have chiropractor on the door doesn't really mean that you're the same as a guy down the street.
Speaker 3:We actually have a lot of variability between different offices and stuff like that. So my specialty is in this Gonstead technique and what really kind of separates me from others is I like to take care of the most severe spine. So most chiropractors they kind of take a shotgun approach. They want to hit every part of your spine and hope they find the problem. I like to think I'm more of a sniper. We give you very precise adjustments. Think I'm more of a sniper. We give you very precise adjustments. They're still hands-on but the analysis is really the bread and butter that allows us to take care of the most severe cases.
Speaker 3:So in our analysis I gown my patients or guys and like take their shirts off and I'm going to look at your spine. That's really important Of our analysis. If you went to a dentist you would expect them to look at your teeth and um, I believe chiropractors should look at your spine. It's really important. There's a lot of information you can get from looking at your spine if you know what you're looking for. Um, I have an instrument that I run down your spine that lets me kind of pinpoint what areas your spine you want to adjust. What we want to leave alone again, what we don't want to do is just hit everything and hope we find the problem. Maybe more snipers Really pinpoint that, adjust it and then see if that helped as well, because it's a big big thing If we adjust everything and it didn't help, we don't know what could have helped, or what didn't?
Speaker 3:So it kind of works as a process of elimination. With more complex cases where if I adjust something you come back and you didn't necessarily get the results or I don't feel like we could have done a little bit better, I can kind of cross that off our checklist and go to another part of the spine and then I take a full spine x-ray as well, which is really important, and I use that x-ray on multiple visits. A lot of chiropractors they might take an x-ray on your first visit but they don't necessarily use it on subsequent visits and that x-ray is going to give me an in-depth look of what am I adjusting and what areas.
Speaker 3:Again, what do I not want to adjust and what do areas of your spine that I want to focus on and make sure we give you a precise adjustment.
Speaker 2:Very cool. Well, it sounds like you go above and beyond and provide a real thorough analysis. That's really elaborative. It's like a specialty trade within a specialty trade. It feels like that you kind of described.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and the main thing is we don't want to skip any steps with anybody. Most chiropractors, even physical therapists, they get results with 75, 80 percent of their patients. That you do really good. But I really like helping the 10 to 15 percent of people that might have not got results somewhere else. So really my favorite person. When they come into my office they say then the three other doctors and no one's helped me, and I get really excited and that's when my eyes perk up and said you're in the right place. No-transcript, dive deep into that person's case to make sure that we can get them the results that they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that. It sounds like you definitely take a lot of care and attention and make sure that you're providing a solution, so I really appreciate that. What are some I'm interested to the, because I'm sure there's a lot of these. What are some myths or misconceptions within that industry? Yeah, that's that's a, that's a big one.
Speaker 3:So like again under like the complex cases, people with rods in their spine, or they've had previous back surgeries or just they were told by the medical doctor they couldn't go to a chiropractor.
Speaker 3:Those are my like again, my favorite people to take care of. And I mean, I just had a lady a few weeks ago, extremely bad pain shooting down her leg like just could barely walk, barely get out of bed for multiple weeks, and she was in the hospital and the medical doctor said, essentially you cannot go to a chiropractor, and in most circumstances I would give her that same recommendation as well. I would not recommend her just to go to any person, but she knew some people that were close to me that knew I can kind of handle more complex cases and we were able to help her make wonders of difference in the first month or two of her care.
Speaker 3:So generally, people that said they couldn't go to the chiropractor, I want to make sure that we give them a very safe adjustment. Again, what I don't want to do we don't just rack and crack their spine. There's going to be areas that we need to focus on and areas that we will stay away from and we won't adjust on you. And when you know that person's case and you have a good picture of what their full spine looks like, you can really give them the best care possible and make sure that you get them good results and don't make something worse. When it is complex whether they've had a previous surgery or they're waiting to get a surgery, or they've had rods in their spine or they have a severe scoliosis we obviously see a lot of people with big curves in their spine and things like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I think you kind of answered the next question, but I'm still going to ask it anyway, in case we missed something. Who are your target customers and how do you attract them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so no, that's really good. Who are your target customers?
Speaker 2:and how do you?
Speaker 3:attract them. Yeah, so no, that's really good. So, yeah, my favorite, my favorite case are like the complex cases, but my normal target um, migraines are really really good vertigo I like taking care of people with like dizziness and stuff like that. Um, my general, like overall clientele we have two kind of general patients are the people that come in with an acute case. They have an active problem.
Speaker 3:We need to correct that and then we try to transition those people into like a wellness and maintenance. They want to maintain their spine over time and for most people I can get them down to one or two adjustments a month, depending on the degeneration in their spine and their previous history of injuries and stuff like that where they're able to maintain their wellness, maintain their spine. Just like you brush your teeth twice a day, if you're able to maintain your spine once a month, it will really help you in the longevity and keep you active for a long time. And then that's another clientele I really enjoy taking care of are like the boomer clients, my 50 to 60 year olds. They're starting to retire, they're down here, they move down here to Florida because they want to stay active, whether they're playing pickleball or golf or they're just walking four or five miles a day. I want to make sure we can keep that that clientele active and moving really well for a long time so they can keep playing with their grandkids and things like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, very cool. So uh, tell me, steven, outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Um.
Speaker 2:I'm a big golfer.
Speaker 3:I've been golfing since I was in fifth grade, essentially, so that's probably my, my biggest thing, that, uh, I'm into the most, and right now I'm not golfing a lot with a newborn at home, so he takes up my most time and that that is okay.
Speaker 3:I can take a few months off and enjoy the time with him. And, um, yeah, and I think earlier you said like, uh, what kind of networking do we do and how do we get our clientele? Most of our uh clients patient patients are uh referral based. Um, that would say the majority. But then I'm also in a networking group as well. I'm going to be an I group. That group's been very good to me. We've been able to get a good base of clients then as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good. Yeah, the golf. Ironically, golf is a sport where it literally, when you swing, you're just twisting your spine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a big part of it and if you're able to maintain a good spine and keep it moving properly, you can do those activities, whether it's pickleball, golf, tennis, any of those active sports, If you keep the mobility in your spine you can play those for the rest of your life. A lot of times, you know, but a lot of times people get small injuries and if they don't get those injuries corrected, they so we try to prevent that, make sure we can keep people active and live in their best life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense. All right, we're going to switch gears a little bit here. Can you describe a hardship or a life lesson that you've went through that made you stronger?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's actually a really appropriate question on my five-year anniversary of opening up. I opened four weeks before COVID hit, so that would have been March of 2020, the world kind of shut down and I opened in February 18th of 2020. So I was in week five of my business being open. We had a very good first month, which helped me tremendously. We got, like this somewhat established clientele that was able to help me continue to grow over the next few months. But, yeah, they were telling us the world was going to shut down for two weeks and I looked at my books and I said we can handle two weeks and those two weeks grew into multiple months and hindsight it's scarier than it was when you were in it.
Speaker 3:But by the time June rolled around, we started opening up. We got some markets that started back open and I was marketing a tradition market on Saturday mornings in the hot sun, but that was the only thing open and a lot of people were there. So that really helped us establish a good clientele base and after that we started really rolling and was able to get things going. But that was definitely something that tried the business for sure, because you had to make sure your systems and your procedures and you had to keep your clienteles around, because when you weren't getting a lot of new patients, you wanted to make sure everyone was really happy that you were seeing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of people in a state of uncertainty during that time, so I'm glad that you're one of the businesses that made it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:All right. So, steven, tell our listeners one thing they should remember about Expedition Chiropractic.
Speaker 3:That's a good question. If there's one thing I would say, it would be that if you've gotten average, or you haven't gotten results with your health, at least related to like spinal conditions, migraines, headaches you could give us a shot. The Gonset technique is very different compared to your traditional chiropractor and once people have had Gonset chiropractic they generally will seek out for the rest of their life. I have a lot of patients that drive from Palm Bay and Vero. They come down to Porcelain Lucy. They generally will seek out for the rest of their life.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of patients that drive from Palm Bay and Vero. They come down to Port St Lucie to get their chiropractic adjustments. I have families from Boynton Beach all the way to Lake Placid, florida. Those are hour and a half drives in one direction to come to our office. So once people have tried constant chiropractic a lot of times, they stick with it and are willing to invest into their health and their spinal health to make sure that they can stay healthy for the longevity longevity of their life very good, all right.
Speaker 2:And lastly, uh, how can our listeners learn more about expedition chiropractic?
Speaker 3:yeah, we're our website's expeditionchiropracticcom. Um. We're on Instagram. I have some adjusting videos on there and some just education videos that people can check out. Those are probably the two best places our Instagram page and then, if they have any, they can also look at our website expeditionchiropracticcom.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that sounds great. I like that you provide free resources like that and educate people in that way. It's really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. Yeah, we have good videos on our Instagram. We have some x-rays that we go over with people. They can see the different types of adjustments that I do. It's going to vary between people, but younger people, I can usually use a little bit more first, but we take care of people in their 80s and 90s and with those people I just have to be a little bit more first, but we take care of people in their 80s and 90s and with those people I just have to be a little more gentle, or you'd be. As long as you're very specific, you can help a large range of clientele, of patients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good. Well, I appreciate you sharing your story and being on the show, and I wish you and your business the best going forward, all right.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I appreciate it, benjamin, and I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpportsaintlucycom. That's gnpportsaintlucycom, or call 772-303-1036.