How to Take Control of Your Practice Finances: A Conversation with Dr. Holly Tucker

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Holly Tucker, chiropractor, Profit First professional, and financial coach, to talk about something most practice owners avoid… money.

And not just money, but the way we think about money.

We dive into what really happens behind the scenes of a growing practice, why so many practitioners feel stuck financially (even when they’re busy), and how a simple shift in structure can completely change your relationship with your income.

Dr. Holly breaks down the Profit First method in a way that actually feels doable, whether you have $100 in the bank or you’re bringing in consistent revenue but still feel disorganized.

We also talk about:

•  Why financial clarity is missing in healthcare education 
•  The difference between being busy and being profitable 
•  How to start managing your money (without overwhelm) 
•  The real role of bookkeepers, accountants, and coaches 
•  And how your mindset around money shapes everything 

This conversation is honest, practical, and empowering.

If you’ve ever wondered, “Where is my money actually going?” or felt disconnected from your numbers, this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

🎧 Listen in and start building a more sustainable, intentional, and profitable practice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

You are listening to the Staffless Practice Podcast. We aim to serve the facilitators, practitioners, and teams of the wellness practices of our community with real deal Monday morning ready tools. Be sure to follow us wherever you're watching. Tag us, like us, and make sure you check us out online at gostaffless.com. Again, I'm always excited to have a new guest in my podcast room who I don't know. I just hear your name. Oh, you gotta talk to Dr. Holly. She's amazing. So please introduce yourself. Who are you? Where are you? What do you do? What's your deal?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yes, thank you, Dr. Jody. Um, so I am Dr. Holly Tucker. I am on in coastal North Carolina. I am a chiropractor. I uh have my own practice, that's where I am here today, um, Azalea Chiropractic in Acupuncture. Um, and I have been a certified Profit First professional for the last almost six years. Um, and I work with a uh remote uh accounting firm called Beyond Your Books, and I do profit first coaching for many different types. What are you talking about? Profit first is uh is a methodology that was written a little over 10 years ago by this guy named Mac McAllowitz. Um he's super entertaining um entrepreneur, and he wrote this book that really like it. I read it. I read it back in 2016 or 2017, and it just completely revolutionized the way that I saw my business finances being a you know small business owner at that time. I was in practice with my spouse, and um, yeah, it just completely changed our outlook on what success meant and all the things, like making our lives easier from the financial aspect. So I became very passionate about it. I sought out certification and you know, through a couple of other life and job changes and moves across the country and all the other things, like I still love it. So I still to this day I do coaching and I practice. So that's me.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

And then coach, it's not like uh get a certificate in a weekend kind of thing. It's a legit program that you and it's also their headquarters are like 30 minutes from where I am right now. Oh, really? Yeah. So how did you go from wow, this is a really cool system, to I really want to teach this to people? How tell us about that journey?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah, I mean, at the time when I read it, I was in I was in a group coaching program and we read it sort of like as a book club and we read it together, and it's just it instantly clicked for me, but then I felt like it didn't click instantly for other people. And so then people are coming to me asking me for help just within that community, and so it's like I started creating resources at that time. Um, and then I just like I just, you know, was just, I don't know, pathologically curious about it. And I find it very easy to pull reports and look at numbers and just like kind of cut through the BS of everything and like just some find some clarity. Like, what is this report telling you? And if it's not ultimately clear just by reading the words on the page, then let's make the report more intuitive to you. So that's where I got a little bit more into diving into the actual financial reports of it. Um, join the accounting firm and you know, restus history there.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I love, you know, you could be sitting on the couch. You could just sit this one out and decide maybe I'll do it next time. But you jumped in and you jumped in because it was a passion of yours, because because of the coincidence around, like, oh, they're asking. So tell us more about what triggers you to say yes to leaning into it. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Um, I think for me it's just that transformation of like what I saw, and you know, having, you know, all of us like to think maybe that we're having a unique experience in this profession, but we're not. Like a lot of us are having very, you know, seeing very universal trends when it comes to the economy or just with our career trajectory. Like, I mean, I'm very passionate in the early days. I was very passionate because the group that I was working with was exclusively for women in chiropractic. And so a lot of us have a lot of the same story. Maybe we're first-time college graduates and first-time small business owners, and that financial literacy piece really wasn't there for a lot of people. So I think that's what do you like.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

What would you say are this the common threads that you see over and over, not just kairos, but also all of the wellness practice owners? What do you see happen? What are the subluxations? Where do they get stuck?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Um, I think they get stuck in like, you know, knowing what they should be monitoring, you know, so like having a quick pulse of like just what am I even doing? How often am I supposed to be looking at things? And then again, like that looking at it and saying, okay, well, now what do I do about it? So, I mean, the profit first system, inherently it is a system, right? So it gives you a time frame to follow to be accountable to you know, looking at your own money and numbers and those sorts of things. Um, because there's like there's inherent, not blocks in it, but there's inherent triggers within the system. And it's like, well, you have to pay attention to me right now so that you can continue to operate. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Okay, this is a um left field question. How do you specific to chiropractic, how do you think it would change things for us as a profession if they taught the profit first system in chiropractic school?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

I mean, I definitely think that there's a lot of room to grow on uh just transparency within like what does you know being a small business owner look like? Um, I think that you know, there's there's a lot of things that are a lot of numbers that are thrown out when you're you know doing an admissions tour or when you're early on, and you know, things are you know, there's nothing but the sky is the limit. And it's like, well, there aren't big fancy jobs out there for every single graduate. We are still largely an entrepreneurial profession, and you need to understand what that means, whether or not you're interviewing for a job when you graduate, or if ultimately you have to end up going, you know, into business ownership for yourself and running and running your own practice. So I think that it starts from, yeah, if if there were just more transparency and real life examples of here's what it means to be a small business owner, you know, from the from the get-go.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

I feel like a lot of that is just having chiropractors or whatever kind of school you're in, having people who are already doing what you're going to school for, come and do talks. And I always say to new grads, go spend time with people who are miserable in practice, go watch what they do, people who are just dreading it and their walls have mold on them. Like, go watch what they do and do the opposite of what they're doing. And that's true for money too. You know, I um have you studied Janine Roth at all? No, Janine Roth wrote a book called Money, Food and God or Women, Women, Food and God, and then something I'm I'm bastardizing it, but there's something her next book was looking at how the patterns around money for women are very similar to the patterns around food for money. And if you're very conservative with your spend financially, generally speaking, you're very conservative with the way that you eat, with the way that you consume food. So there are some of us that our cut is I want more of everything. I was born 13 pounds with my thumb in my mouth. Like, give me more yesterday, and I wasn't even born yet. So I've always been like more, more, more spend, spend, spend, eat, eat, eat, move, move, move, right? Whereas other people are very um reserved and like every dollar is accounted for. So where do you, where do you find, how do you find people where they're at in their different spending styles and relationships with money?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Sure, sure. It was definitely a spectrum. I mean, some people are very much in the corner of like self-sacrifice, you know, till it's extremely a problem. Um, or they're really pressing and looking for this business to absolutely, you know, where they're almost sacrificing the business to then take their cut of it. So it's like, you know, sometimes I, you know, in my role as a coach, it's like, okay, I need you to trust the process and let's let's make this plan and stick with it. And then let's see what revelations come on the back end of that. Um, and and a lot of the a lot of those things, you know, tend to work themselves out in the short term where they realize, like, oh, maybe I really was holding myself back because I I was not financially rewarding myself like I should have been, or I really was holding back my growth because of what I'm demanding from this business when maybe it actually needs some more work put into it.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

So Right. I I have so many questions. So, you know, one of the things that um is different in 2026 in this conversation than if we were having it 10 years ago is we can look at the spend that we have, our average monthly spend, and probably upwards of 60 to 70 percent of it can be replaced by AI. We can look at the systems that we're spending money on, we can look at the people that we're spending money on, and we can probably take most of it and replace it with systems. However, the thing that we cannot replace is the connection, the true human connection. And some of our practice owners need a person at the front desk to connect with their practice members, make them feel welcome, make sure that they're nurtured into the adjusting room or the treatment room. And other people, that is the last thing that they want. So, my next question for you is where do they start? Let's say we're talking to somebody who has a practice and they've got a hundred bucks in the bank and they are really trying to make ends meet. How can we possibly talk to them about being smart with money when every penny they make is accounted for? And I'm gonna double that with a second question. The second thing is, what about people who are crushing it financially and have just never gotten their act together when it comes to organizing their money? My guess is that the answer is gonna be very similar. You're listening to the Staffless Practice podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Just search Staffless Practice. If you see a like button or a follow button where you're watching or listening, tap it so you never miss a beat. Visit us at www.gostaffless.com for resources to help you run your practice with less grass and more freedom. Now, back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah, I mean, you know, by the book, the Profit First Method is based off of the foundation of setting up five bank accounts, you know, just you know, where you don't have just one big business bank account and checking and everything's coming and going, you know, and you don't really know, like if you go to login, you don't really know like, is that a good number, is that a bad number? I mean, obviously if it's in the negative, we can all agree because that's probably a bad number. Um, but setting up the foundation of the profit for system literally starts with we're looking at all of your revenue and we're going to base it out just one percentage point at a time towards your goals. So for that person who literally has$100 in the bank, okay, well, how much different is it to have$99 in the bank? And that's where we challenge and we say, okay, I literally want you to set aside 1%, even if that's just one dollar. 1%, and we're gonna forget about it, and that's gonna force you to demand that profit, even if it's, you know, a very small dollar amount by the time all the math is done. Um, so you know, my process looks like, you know, of course, going back on historical, if we have that historical data, sometimes I'm working with more of a startup and they haven't really, they don't really have a lot of data to go off of. So we know we can still start those basic things. So just as a review, those five bank accounts that we talked about in the profit for system. Number one, there's a separation of your incoming money versus all of your outgoing accounts. So one account dedicated to all of your money comes into that. And at least on a you know, on a regular basis, I'd say my preferred preference is once a week that you're going into that account and then you're funding your own account. I do, Holly.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

And I'm just like, this is way too much, Tony. Chill out. But I'm like, if I go, if I go more than a week, I disconnect from it.

unknown 12:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Sorry, I so one account, all the money comes in, and then the other four, well, again, once a week you fund the other four, and those are based on percentages. And this goes back to the profit first method. So literally one percent goes to profit, we're done. Owners pay, we kind of have to talk about, right? I have to know what your basic needs are, and that comes through, you know, our discovery and our time working together. So I don't really assign a percentage to that. What I love to say at least 10% for some people that's a stretch, and some people are like, no way, I pay myself way more than that. Okay, cool. Again, we're gonna figure out those numbers together. Five percent goes to a tax account. Um, well, five percent is my base. By the book, the goal is 15%. I will tell you in years of working with people, if you're in a high tax jurisdiction like New York City or California, we might have to go north on that 15%. But again, we're gonna find that out in discovery. So I always say just to get the ball rolling and get the juices flowing, throw five percent into a savings account for your taxes. And then the one that's left is your operating expenses. So we have to get real on our next, you know, next sort of phase of working together is let's sit down and I'm gonna hold you accountable to explaining every single one of these expenses to me. And if you don't know what it's for, then why don't we pause it or cut it off for right now? Because again, depending on is it feast or famine, you know, you might be missing things that you don't even know you're paying for, or you know, you might just not be in a place where you can actually afford to be paying for that. So yeah, we go line by line.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I I really envy your certainty. It's remarkable. And it I think that it's one of the um there are things that I know that I know that I know, right? So I I guess let me rephrase, I envy your certainty around money stuff because I think it's very unique and it's contagious. And it like that is the one thing that I look for in a coach. Actually, there are a couple. One is, are you are you sure that you know that you know that you know? If someone comes to me to adjust their baby and I'm like, I think I know what to do, but I'm not really positive, they're probably not gonna trust me and hand me their baby. The same is true when it comes to my money or my nutrition or uh the welfare of my kids or whatever it might be. Um where do people start? So let's say today is Monday, April 27th. Um, we're let's talk to a naturopath who is opening their practice, or maybe they're even 10 years in. What do they do today? What's the first thing that they need to do?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

If they're wanting to implement profit first, I mean, I would like to say go hire a coach, but you also might not be that might not be within your wheelhouse. But listening to the book, I think is the first step because in the book, um, I mean, I'm a listener, I'm an I'm an audiobook junkie. I I love listening to books. Mike, I think is in his um third recording of the book. So he brings in so many fun and engaging stories. And again, these are all across different professions, different industries. But what you will find is that that money mindset or your, you know, your ability to talk about money or have confidence about money is universal. Like we all can deal with the same things no matter what our quote day job is, right? So listening to the book so that you can see that, like, oh, yes, this does apply to me or this can apply to me. And you um you may come to understand a little bit more about yourself and how you even became an entrepreneur. Um, but yeah, I mean, if you're serious about wanting to find clarity within your numbers, it's we have to look at those reports. And if if you hit a block or a barrier there, then that is you need somebody trusted to help you cut through the mud and read through these reports. And you know, by the end of the week or by the end of the month, you're actually gonna have a plan moving forward because if you just get paralyzed by looking at reports, you're not gonna you're not gonna go anywhere because obviously it's a blocker, it's a problem for you.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

I hate reports more than anything, but I also appreciate how important they are, and I'm very into who not how and how I I get that I hate reports and I'm not gonna fit a square peg into a round hole on that. However, how important is it that I have people in my life who love reports who I can trust? Yeah, where do you kind of dance with the bookkeeper and the accountant? How does your role fit into that?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah, sure. So with the firm that I currently consult with, which is Beyond Your Books, um, is a full service um remote bookkeeping firm. So we have a team of bookkeepers across the US. And when a new client or new business comes to us, they have one dedicated bookkeeper. And then if they, you know, show interest and profit first, I'm also tapped in on their team so that once they're onboarded, I can go in and fully, you know, be engaged in their account and be able to do my assessment before really even I get on the phone with them. Um, sometimes it's flipped though. Sometimes people do just come in strictly for coaching and they already have the bookkeeping stuff that's set up. And so then I am more of your first count contact point, and I need you to then send me any report to get me any sort of access and how we're gonna start this process together. Um, so but every single one of our clients, if if you're an in-house bookkeeping client, every single one of my meetings with you, your bookkeeper is also on the call because they're also seeing the day-to-day transactions. I'm really only flying in maybe once a month. Every other week, you know, if we're in an implementation stage with a client, I'm gonna be much more hands-on and be checking in on their account and seeing how balances are doing and you know, whoever's doing those transfers. Sometimes I'm never doing the transfers. Sometimes it is the business owner that's doing those um transfers at the bank or online banking, or sometimes our bookkeepers are doing it, or sometimes we have an automation like Relay Bank has an official partnership with Prover First, and there's things we can go in and set up their account to where boom, it's all doing it on an automated basis.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Why can you tell me about let's tell me my kid was asking me about this this weekend? Yeah, why would somebody want relay as opposed to investing in the stock market, or why put your money in relay?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I mean, relay is just a bank, they just don't have a brick and mortar, but they are backed by a brick and mortar bank, so it's not investing. Um, it is just a bank account where you can have up to 20 um different sub-accounts within that bank account. They can all have a virtual card or a physical debit card associated with them. Um, and they have those automations where you can go in, we can tell it exactly what we want it to do for the profit first method, how often you want your distributions or your transfers to happen. Um, and it's all operating in the background for you. They do have some advanced features that'll do like bill pay and invoicing and things like that. Um, and there are some maybe high yield savings account options at a certain level, but they're not a stock market or anything like that for investing.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

If if you could stand on the rooftops, if I could stand on the rooftops right now, I would stand up on the rooftops and I would scream every everybody needs a chiropractor. That would be my my birth song. Everybody needs a chiropractor, whether you have back pain or headaches or your baby's breach or whatever it is, you still need a chiropractor, just like you have a dentist and you probably have a primary. You need a chiropractor too if you want to live optimal expression on the planet during your lifetime. What would you scream on the top of your lungs? What would your bird song be if you were standing on the same roof?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Um that's that's a hard question. Because I am a chiropractor, but I am very passionate about saving money and being you know, being a good steward of your money and your future, your financial future. So I I think it would have to be something like live a sustainable life, and that comes from financial stewardship and the health of how you treat your body.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

What is a sustainable? What is that? Can you give us give us like a day-to-day example of what a sustainable life looks like? I love that saying.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that it's uh knowing your your true values and doing things that are you know, living out your expression every single day. You know, for me, it's helping people. I have two kids. Uh, we talk about this a lot within our family, is like, hey, when there's something that comes up, maybe a behavior that we want to redirect, or something like that. I'm like, I remind them like remember we're we're helpers, like we go out into the world and we help people. It doesn't mean you have to be a chiropractor to do that, but uh ultimately that's that's a defining thing in our family is that we use this to help people and to put it out into the world.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

I love that. And how old are they?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Oh, 10 and almost 13. That's the one we're having trouble with.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Would you however, and 13's tricky, right? There's a lot going on. Would you say that that that they're a helper is what their teachers would say about them?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Uh it does, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

If we say it every day to them and it becomes normalized to them, they'll they'll they'll experience it at such a deep level. I'm I'm so sure about that. We can do so much wrong as moms and dads and whoever's listening to this, but if we do that right, if we have, if we have this kind of like the thing that's scrolling across the bottom of the screen, like it is what it is, what it is, right? If if the same thing is said over and over from the time that they're babies until the time that they leave, they're going to know that they know that they know that at least that is true. Whether it's a God thing or a health thing or a love thing or a be helpful. I love that you tell your kids to be helpful, if nothing else. Like I think that's beautiful. Um, what what are you positive of?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Um I mean I'm I'm positive that was what your influences are, who you surround yourself with, you know, has a very big impact on your life and your outlook. And if sometimes it means it means unplugging or turning the TV off or whatever else, you know, like you can still put good out into the world, no matter what chaos is going around.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

And if you spend your time a lot of time around toxicity and toxic thinking, toxic talking, toxic languaging, it it really is it's either effective because you mirror it or it's effective because you resist it.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of that comes back to like money mindset and that sort of thing. I mean, like uh, you know, the whole idea of like scarcity versus abundance, like if you're continuing to look, you know, for the problems and not for opportunities, then you will it's such a vicious cycle. So so yeah, that can that can definitely manifest within your your money journey.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And on the same token, like if I spend time with a friend who challenges me if I say that I can't afford something, right? Like there are people in my life who look at their food on their plate and talk about how fattening it is. And I think that that's like a Jersey, Jersey mama thing, right? Like, but if I if I look at what's on my plate or I look at the money in my wallet and I have languaging around it that is positive and um energy positive oriented, it's gonna change something for me, right? And maybe it changes the three seconds before I make the decision to spend it or bite it or whatever it might be. And if I I feel like if I have people around me who that's normal, it's normal to be wise with the words that you choose. It's normal to get adjusted by your chiropractor on a regular basis, then that will become my norm, kind of like what you say to your kids. Go be helpful. If nothing else, be helpful, right? So um that's such a good thing to remember. And that's that was it. That was the moment that I was waiting for, Holly. Is there anything else that you want to tell our audience that you're like, oh, I really wanted to see this?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I don't know. I mean, I mean, I I aim to also just be a resource, you know. If anybody has any questions as far as you know, reaching out, you know, I'm happy to, you know, engage in a short dialogue if it's like if it's gonna be a good fit for not. I'm not a hard sell type of person. I'm like a, you know, take it or leave it. Here's directly what the results could be if we continue on working together. That's kind of how you know I treat my chiropractic practice as well, versus also how I, you know, treat my financial coaching clients is like, you know, this is our plan and this is this would be the ultimate goal, and we can continue to work together and we can hold each other accountable to that. Um, you know, moving forward. But yeah, I mean, be happy to answer any sort of questions or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

What happens if people come to you and they have a bookkeeper and an accountant that they love working with?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, then absolutely. Then it's just a you know, it's a it's a neutral third party. It's coming in. I'm doing an assessment and again making recommendations. And yes, if that's the only thing that's available to you or the only way that you want to engage, then for sure we don't need to work together in the long term. But I think that, you know, the the questions and the prompts that we ask and the plan that we make can definitely be, you know, a step in the right direction, even if you're wanting to more DIY it. I mean, I completely DIY'd it, you know, for my practice back in 2017. So it can be done, but it is also nice to like have somebody to talk through and be like, you know, yeah, I'll look at those spreadsheets with you and I'll help you pull those reports. Like I will I'll pull it out of you. But also, you know, like I'm I'm curious. I mean, I peek in all the time at prior clients, you know, reports just to see, like, oh, I'm curious, even if we're not working together anymore, you know, and I still have access and it's there's consent involved, right? Um, of like, yeah, I I want to be there cheering on your success, you know, and no matter the capacity.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

So, you guys, just to recap, if if you have your own business, whether you're a chiropractor or whatever your whatever your craft is, get the book Profit First, listen to it once, listen to it again, listen to it three times, get the paper back book of it and just read literally red pen and highlight it, and um lean on people who are experts in it, like Dr. Holly, you can reach out to her at beyondyourbooks.com. It's so funny. One of the communities that I really love in chiropractic mile high, um, the person who runs that community, his name is Danny Knowles, and he said, What's the number one book you would recommend someone in school or someone just starting out in practice reading? And I said profit first, because if if man, if someone had told me this 27 years ago when I started practice, um I I um I probably would have done a back flip.

unknown 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Well, Holly, thank you so much for your time today. And I'm grateful that you said yes and you came on the podcast. And um, you guys reach out to drholly beyond your books.com. And if you're listening to this, go make the world better with great care. And Holly, please stay in the podcast room and thank you for your time today. Okay, there it is, our amazing community. We are so pleased to bring you another great episode of the Stahless Practice Podcast. Now, go make the world better with great care.