After starting off their family based chiropractic clinic three years ago with a staff of four people, Life Force Chiropractic in Vancouver has continued to see steady growth and growth in the size of their team.
“We started with a staff of four people and currently have a staff of six,” said Dr. Kyle Kurscheidt, chiropractor/co-owner of Life Force. “As far as revenue growth is concerned our largest percent growth was from year one to year two, which saw a 107% increase. With all of the challenges of 2020 our growth was small, but thankfully steady throughout the year.”
Life Force Chiropractic is owned and operated by Dr. Kyle Kurscheidt, Dr. Cody Kurscheidt (Kyle’s brother) and Dr. Tiffany Thorne (Cody’s fiancé). All three are chiropractors at the clinic.
As a family owned business, Kyle said one of the advantages is the trust and reliability of the people they work with.
“You know rain or shine your family is going to be there day in and day out to help push the business forward,” he said.
Being a family owned business – just like any business – does come with it’s challenges, of course. One challenge that Kyle pointed out is clear communication of the individuals’ desires, goals and intentions.
“We have found at points in growing our business that although our end goal may have been the same between all of us our vision on how to achieve it was different,” he said. “Clear communication at the beginning and throughout the process can help keep things moving forward smoothly.”
Stemming from this, Kyle said if he could offer one piece of advice to other new family owned businesses or to anyone thinking of starting a family owned business, it would be to clearly communicate from day one what the goals, aspirations and dreams of everyone involved are. After that, derive a detailed plan as to how this will be accomplished. He said this will allow everyone to be heard and provide a map as to how the business will be steered moving forward.
After deciding to start the chiropractic business, Kyle said they looked at various cities to open the clinic, from Bend, Ore., all the way north to Seattle, and they settled on Vancouver/Clark County for a few reasons. He said these include but are not limited to plentiful marketing opportunities in the way of community events, lack of income tax, close proximity to various landscapes (mountains, forest, desert and the coast), and last but not least the small-town feel that Vancouver maintains while having a population of more than 180,000 people.
As a family owned business, one of the biggest things that Kyle said helps them stand apart is that they strive to make their patients feel like part of their immediate family.
“We not only care about what physically ails them, but also what is going on in their personal lives,” he said. “We send get-well cards, sympathy packages, birthday cards and congratulations cards for numerous big life events that our patients go through.”
Some of the other personal touches that Life Force utilizes to let their patients know that they care about them include Bad Day mugs (a coffee mug of treats that is given to those who are having a bad day), Patient Appreciation days (a special day/week that is filled with treats, giveaways and an overall celebration of their patients), and Donation Drives (four to six times a year they partner with their patients to support local nonprofits by collecting and dropping off donations).
Looking forward, Kyle said they are pushing to steadily grow their business and eventually hope to expand their office into one of the neighboring spaces in the building that they currently occupy.
“Over the next five years, our goal is to streamline our current systems and procedures,” Kyle said. “This will allow us to continue to provide great service and free up more of our time. As far as business metrics go our goal would be to double our current business over the next five years.”
Life Force Chiropractic is located at 1825 SE 164th Ave., Suite 118, in Vancouver.
