Episode 38

Moving Your Medical Practice Online with Dr. Hailey Arnold

Welcome, Dr. Hailey Arnold to Saturday Soundbites! Dr. Arnold is a chiropractor and functional medicine practitioner; however, she is best described as an entrepreneur.

Constantly finding solutions to problems, Dr. Arnold spends her days formulating nutritional products and genetic tests for children of all ages. 

She is an active clinician, educator, public speaker, and published author.  With a passion for neurosensory differences and autoimmunity, Dr. Arnold has created multiple businesses that allow children to get healthy naturally. 

She believes long-term health truly starts in childhood, and she seeks to educate children (and their parents) in ways that help them make the best decisions about wellness. 

Veronica and Dr. Arnold will discuss the challenges and benefits of moving from a brick-and-mortar model of doing business to the online space. She has created a fabulous business and has taken advantage of the flexibility of running an online business. 

Be sure to tune in and learn from this innovative entrepreneur!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Veronica: Hello. Hello and welcome to Saturday soundbites. I'm your host, Veronica Sofer. And I am thrilled to be here with you for another fantastic episode of Saturday soundbites, where we talk all things, visibility, strategy, public relations, marketing, advertising, branding, networking, all of those components that are going to really help you grow your business.

[00:00:20] Whether it's a brick and mortar business, or it's an online business, we are here. Experts to you that are going to share their experiences and give you some tips and strategies that they've learned along the way to help grow their businesses and be successful. So today I have another phenomenal guest I'm going to invite up in just a second.

[00:00:38] Dr. Haley Arnold, she's going to share how she and her. Actually ran a very successful medical clinic and moved to the online space. And so I've got some great questions to ask her that I know will be really helpful to you as you grow your business. And before we really get started and have her up, I'm going to make sure I take seriously, take care of some housekeeping.

[00:00:58] And part of that means if you are. But we want to know you're here. So join us in the comments so that if you've got any questions we can respond and so that we can get back to you, especially if you're watching on the replay, all you have to do is hit hashtag replay, and we'll know you were visiting with us.

[00:01:13] Now, if you're listening on the podcast, make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you can get notified. Anytime we've got a new episode that download. So with that, I'm going to invite Dr. Hayley Arnold from neutral tots up on the screen with us. Hello.

[00:01:28] Hailey: Hi, thanks for having me so

[00:01:31] Veronica: excited to have you here.

[00:01:32] I have been wanting to have this conversation with you and share it with folks for a long time. So I'm glad we're doing it. So, first of all, tell people a little bit about what a functional medical doctor is and what all that means. And I, I'm just I love the fact that you guys had a successful business and were able to transition online.

[00:01:54] But before we talk about that, I want people to understand what that traditional brick and mortar clinic looked like. What, what were you doing before? All of that? You're sure.

[00:02:03] Hailey: So I am a chiropractor and functional nutrition practitioner. So. We had a brick and mortar clinic for gosh, at least 11 years, no, sorry.

[00:02:15] A decade. And then the pandemic hit and we were in our last space was in one of those big office towers and the building itself didn't really want a whole bunch of foot trucks. During COVID times, right in the beginning. And most of our patients were virtual anyways. So we took the opportunity to actually move out of the physical space and into the online world and just continue what we were doing.

[00:02:46] Cause we just did nutrition consultations across Texas. And it was actually a really easy transition for us. The chiropractic aspect, not so much because you can't really adjust anyone over. But from a functional medicine perspective, it was just awesome. Worry about the, the physical space being something that actually.

[00:03:09] Kind of hindered people to get help.

[00:03:12] Veronica: Yeah. Yeah. And share with us a little bit about what, what functional medicine is when I've described it to people I'm describing it just as a, from a user's perspective from a, from a, a parent who has gone to you was very specific needs. You know, I have two neural neurodiverse kids very talented, very amazing and understanding.

[00:03:32] What functional medicine is and how it can help in that space was just you open our eyes to so much. So tell folks what that is because a lot of people don't really know

[00:03:42] Hailey: the, the biggest explanation that most practitioners are going to say. It's its root cause medicine. So it is using natural actually depending on your field of expertise, whether you're an MD, a DC, whatever.

[00:03:57] It's using your field of expertise to get to the root of what might be going on with someone. So for us specifically, we're chiropractors, we're all about neurology. We're all about biochemistry. So we take care specifically of pediatric patients for the most part and some of their parents. And we're working with those neuro-diverse kiddos and we look at genetics, we look at.

[00:04:22] Do you have any nutrient deficiencies? Do you have something going on in your gut? So we do stool tests, those kinds of things. It's a lot of labs. Most of which you can do at home, sometimes we have to send you to an actual, like a blood draw place, and we're really trying to balance the neurology and biochemistry.

[00:04:42] For those kiddos and their parents to make them as healthy as possible.

[00:04:47] Veronica: Yeah. Oh, that's a, that's a much better way of saying it. I try to, so that makes most of the most sense, but also like auto-immune type patients and people struggling. I know I sent someone over who was struggling with a new lupus diagnosis.

[00:05:02] So anything kind of auto-immune is what I generally thought. Yeah.

[00:05:07] Hailey: So Dr. Megan always said she was the spectrum kid that grew up and I'm the auto-immune hot mess. So that's kind of who we take care of. And quite frankly, most of our spectrum kiddos have parents with auto-immune issues. It's kind of a hand in hand thing.

[00:05:23] So we, we take care of the whole family, but those are definitely our big key points that we

[00:05:28] Veronica: look at. So when you were designing your, your business you guys had some fantastic products that you developed as clinicians, right? I mean, as chiropractors and doctors in this field, you develop some products.

[00:05:42] What was your model to grow that business before.

[00:05:47] Hailey: Before COVID a lot of, it was just, we use them clinically. So everyone knows me as Dr. Haley, you know, I was always doing Facebook lives and speaking in front of other. Physicians actually. And we would end up getting the patients that my colleagues really couldn't figure out.

[00:06:06] So it was kind of the, we were the 20th doctor they may have gone to. But our methods of working with them really was awesome. So we created testing and we created a supplement process. That we just couldn't find in the market ourselves. It was things we knew we wanted to do for our patients, our clientele, but it didn't exist.

[00:06:28] So it was I always joke around, I'm like, I'm a Leo, I'm very much the. If I can't find it, I'm going to make it myself. I'll I'll I kind of have the ego aspect of that if you will. And what we couldn't find, we decided let's, let's go for it. Let's create these products. Let's create these tests and we used them on our clinic.

[00:06:49] And then eventually the general public that's kind of the. The thing that took us off into the online

[00:06:58] Veronica: sphere. Yeah. That's perfect. And I love that. Number one, you know, you've got that entrepreneurial spirit there, there wasn't anything in the market, so let's just go create it. Right. I mean, problem solved.

[00:07:08] We'll just create it. And then two that you knew there was a way to incorporate Facebook lives and connecting and engaging with folks. Probably not always necessarily in your market. Right? I mean, were you getting comments and views from people outside the Houston?

[00:07:24] Hailey: Yeah, actually, I would say the bulk of our clientele does not live in the Houston Metro.

[00:07:30] So in person, yeah, we had a lot of people from the suburbs, but now it's all.

[00:07:38] Veronica: Yeah. So tell us what you're doing now. So COVID hits peak. The building doesn't want as much traffic, other than physical adjustments that you can't do on patients. You're still able to do consult what all of a sudden got you to, Hey, let's just relaunch our entire business model and try something different.

[00:07:54] Hailey: So we decided that we really Dr. Megan and I really wanted to be able to have our methods be Mass produced basically. So, you know, we have not yet released a book or a podcast yet that's on the to-do list, but we want it to be able to help as many people as possible. And we're only two people. We only have so many hours in the day to sit down and take care of patients.

[00:08:20] So we decided why don't we release our genetic test and why don't we. These supplements that we know work for our personal kiddos and for the patients that we've been taken care of. Why don't we make those mass produced? So we came up with nutria tops. And so it's basically our clinical brain.

[00:08:41] There for you.

[00:08:44] Veronica: I love it. I love it. And I, and I love that the pediatric space now has two highly qualified and experienced doctors and moms who are creating. Not only supplements, but creating a brand that speaks to us. Right. Because as a, as a mom who wasn't sure, I mean, I didn't know the difference between a supplement I bought at Walmart, the, from what I bought from your office, I mean, it took, it took a lot of research and I think a lot of parents get really overwhelmed with all the material that we have to sift through to understand what's right for our kids.

[00:09:17] And you guys have done

[00:09:17] Hailey: that and knowing. You can't just Google something and know that you're getting the correct response. So we've tried to take all of the science and researching off your shoulders to say here's a product that meets Dr. Standard. Quite frankly, on our products, you always say like trusted by doctors and, you know, made with real ingredients, that kind of stuff.

[00:09:43] So we made it really easy to just say you know, I'm just going to stick to the new struts brand and I know I'll have

[00:09:48] Veronica: what I need. Yeah, no, and I love it. And your branding is very succinct. You know, on, on, especially on this podcast, we talk a lot about the importance of branding and consistency. You go to neutral tots.com.

[00:09:59] I'm going to put that up so people can take a look at it and go check it. The colors, the design it's consistent from the recipe cards you put out, which by the way are amazing. Thank you to, you know, the blog articles to your packaging. All that branding is really consistent and I've got it. You know how that process was for you guys?

[00:10:22] Because it seemed like it was a blast.

[00:10:25] Hailey: I, that that's our most fun that we ever have is when we're building and we've built several businesses at this point, but when we're building businesses coming up with, what do we want it to look like? What are our colors? This time I do think that we did it correctly.

[00:10:40] Some have in the past, we've kind of hurried and made things just. Stuff moving. Cause we were moving quickly, but we really want a neutral thoughts to be that business. If it's going to be in everyone's pantry, it's, you know, people, we want it to be a household name. So we actually, we hired a brand designer.

[00:11:01] We've hired copywriters. We work with y'all. We, you know, we're really trying to build the team behind nutrients. To make it a cohesive. And

[00:11:13] Veronica: I love that. And what I think the branding really says is that at least to me, as, as, again, as a mom, the branding says this. Authentic and it's professional, but it, your kids are gonna like it.

[00:11:25] Right. Because I've tried to give my kids supplements and it's not, doesn't always work out so well. And I'm like crushing it and jelly, which probably isn't very nutritious. And I probably shouldn't admit to the doctor, but you know, like how do I get it down their throat sometimes

[00:11:43] Hailey: being in. For 10 years.

[00:11:45] And it was like, you have the products that kids are just not going to take. And you do have to tell the parents, Hey, hide this. I like. Patient hide something in Sprite. And I'm like, well, that kind of goes against what I'm telling you, but whatever, get it in them. Whatever. No, our products now I'm super excited because they taste great.

[00:12:04] Like our, currently our ABCs and one, two threes, which are, is our, our kid multivitamin. It tastes like sweet tarts. So, but it's not bad for you. So it tastes like candy has asked, like my kids literally say I want candy. And it's like, okay. Yeah, definitely. So everything, the taste, the amounts everything we're creating, we really are keeping those kiddos in mind, as far as their pallets go.

[00:12:29] So diverse kids, they don't like.

[00:12:33] Veronica: Right because are sensitivities, whether it's like texture or, you know, so many of us we struggle with no, it tastes fine. Just the biggest complaint I get is the aftertaste mom. And I'm like, it's gone and half a second, but I guess some kids who are neurodiverse that aftertaste is a legit thing, for sure.

[00:12:51] Yeah. It's taken me a long time to get used to that, but it's true. And I know in talking with a lot of moms and some of these groups, especially in some of our online entrepreneurs, These moms have gone to an online business because their family needs at home, especially with their kids are such that they have to be really hands-on maybe they're homeschooling or maybe they're neuro diverse.

[00:13:13] Kids just aren't getting the supports they could get in, in a traditional school setting. So it's, we're talking to the right people.

[00:13:20] Hailey: Yeah. That's what we do.

[00:13:22] Veronica: Yeah. I love it. I love it. So you got the, you got the branding down, you've got the infrastructure in place. COVID is, we've got kind of used to it.

[00:13:31] Where are you now with the business? Like what? I just love the fact that a couple of doctors were like, we're going to close our clinic. We're just going to go online. And I was like, wow, people can do that. How did y'all

[00:13:42] Hailey: do that? It, you know, it's a transition that is for everyone. I will say that. And I will, I will be honest.

[00:13:50] There are days I'm like, man, I just wish I had a place people could walk into. I actually want more of a retail space than a clinic space, but we're not there yet. So, and probably won't be Because we had already transitioned to doing a lot of things virtually. It wasn't that big of a deal, honestly.

[00:14:06] And the functional medicine side of our practice grew faster than the chiropractic side. So we do the ladder. We refer our Cairo people here locally to other. And then, you know, people who call me from like South Carolina, I'm like, you need to find a chiropractor. So we're still constantly finding the physical medicine practitioners for our patients, but everything else.

[00:14:28] The nutrition side to the neurosensory integration. We can do all that from home. So, you know, we have our warehouse, our shipping center which is where I currently am. And so we, we do have a little space that holds all our products and we're shipping our team, but everything else clinically from that perspective is done virtually and it's just easy.

[00:14:52] So it was. It was not as big of a transition for us simply because we were already doing it. Now, if we had not had that expertise, I probably would be lost. But right now in the functional medicine world, most practitioners are practicing virtually because it's a lab that you do at home or. More supplement care.

[00:15:16] It's it's things that you're doing with your diet and your lifestyle. So it's actually a lot easier to just say, okay, the practitioner doesn't have to have the overhead of a clinic. We can move our expertise online. And quite frankly, everyone from the DEMEC is at home. They're searching for that online ask.

[00:15:33] Veronica: Yeah. Yeah. And your reach is greater. I mean, I've heard you say several times you've got patients from all over the country are you're. Are you, do you feel like there are parts of, of social media that you're not quite there yet? Cause I know for some of us who were not native digital, native users, we've had to learn things like to talk and Snapchat, or are there others where you feel like you're you're, you've got a really strong presence because like you said, you've been doing Facebook lives for years

[00:16:00] Hailey: now.

[00:16:00] Facebook. Quite a few followers. But it's I'm, I'm a Facebook pro at this point. Instagram, I love, especially now that we're, our branding is so on point, we're able to make that pretty. I am learning Tik TOK. I don't think I'm good at it. I guess the idea I, you know, I like editing and all that kind of stuff.

[00:16:22] I'm a techie kind of girl anyways. I, I'm not naturally one that likes to be on video. So it took a long time for me to get comfortable with lives. Like even doing a podcast on videos is not my usual method, but I'm, I'm super comfortable now, but it's a whole other ball game. I want to be good at it though.

[00:16:43] Yeah.

[00:16:44] Veronica: I'm, I'm trying. I'm trying really hard, but I've got some bandwidth and I've got really smart people that I team up with who are really good at it. And so I kinda just feel like I should sit on the right seat on the bus that I'm really comfortable in sitting in.

[00:16:59] Hailey: I'm I'm all for hiring, you know, a 16 year old that knows how to do Tik TOK videos for me.

[00:17:04] You will not see me

[00:17:04] Veronica: dancing. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, no, that's okay. I'm okay with that too. I'm a I'm with ya. I'm with you on that. So the the social media part seems to be working really well. And I know that you had a strong Facebook presence as a traditional what people might think of as a traditional professional.

[00:17:24] Professional like a doctor, you know, they'll always say, oh, the lawyer and a doctor, well now lawyers and doctors are having to change the way they do business. And now lawyers and doctors are doing business, like stay at home. Moms are, who are generating six figures. So do you, do you get to do you get to enjoy the benefits of working from home and then having your kids, or do you still find yourself managing that corporate kind of mindset of, of a working

[00:17:48] Hailey: professional?

[00:17:48] Both. I think I've never been a huge corporate mindset kind of practitioner to begin with. So our biggest thing with Megan and I we've always been super authentic. We're open books. We, I mean, I'm people text me I've always, maybe been a little too accessible at

[00:18:05] Veronica: times guilty.

[00:18:06] Hailey: But it's one of the things we've always wanted is to have that authentic relationship with our clients.

[00:18:12] And I feel like we're even continuing that over into the online space. So, you know, I'm, I'm very much an open book. I, you eventually you'll get to see my kids. People know I'm a dog person and people know I love coffee, you know, there's, there's no. There's no line of Dr. Haley versus Hailey. I just I'm I'm open.

[00:18:35] And I always have been when it comes to clinic, you know, in person, it's where they're providing a service. And when we're on virtual calls where they're providing a service, but we still want to be personable. So social media allows us to show our personalities. And then people can be more comfortable knowing that we are the doctor.

[00:18:58] Veronica: Yeah. And I, and I think that's probably part of your secret sauce and being successful as your authentic I've actually sent people, referred you out to people before you were doing this part of your business, just because I had read something, a part of your auto-immune journey yourself. And I think people want to connect and say, oh, Maybe what I'm dealing with.

[00:19:18] Isn't as bad as I think, because there's someone who's shared the similar experience,

[00:19:24] Hailey: more people than I can count say, you know, I actually called you because of your bio. So they'll call wanting Dr. Megan. And then they'll call me because I've been diagnosed with every autoimmune disease under the sun.

[00:19:35] And it's just, it's kinda cool because then you can use your own personal experience when helping connect with patients as well. Yeah. And our, our whole goal is to empower people, to take care of their themselves and take control.

[00:19:50] Veronica: Absolutely. And it's about storytelling. I think, you know, again, I have, that's a lot of the focus of what we talk about here on this particular podcast is the power of words, the power of storytelling.

[00:20:02] And yeah, we want to generate business for folks and yes, we want to sell our product. But at the end of the day, there's a why behind what we're doing it. And oftentimes it is at its core. The, the issue that we're dealing with as a, as a

[00:20:15] Hailey: person neutral talk to launch, because we were trying to figure out how.

[00:20:22] You know, we were foster moms. We're about to adopt our kiddos. We've been doing this for a year now. They're toddlers. And literally last year, Megan was. Th there's nothing for our children, ethics store. There is no protein there, you know, everything was sugar and too much protein and yada yada, and we're like, well, let's just make it, we're already doing it for our patients.

[00:20:47] Let's just formulate the thing that we want. So there's always a story.

[00:20:53] Veronica: Yeah, I love it. And I love your story and I love that we've been able to be a part of the journey for the Arnold family and getting to neutral thoughts. Cause that's just so super fun. My kiddos are a little bit older, but they're still very particular about taste and texture.

[00:21:10] So I have a feeling that, that new protein that you're releasing is going to be next on our list. I can't wait. I can't wait. Well, before we wrap up, tell folks how they can work with you. Tell them a little bit about the products, because the story was great and that's important for people to connect to, but then, but the reality is there are a lot of folks dealing with COVID issues, auto immune issues and neuro-diversity issues, and you've got a solution to help them.

[00:21:38] And I want them to hear about how they can get.

[00:21:40] Hailey: So easy we have, well, we have a couple of businesses. Our clinic is actually neuro works wellness center which you can always find me at, but neutral tops.com is our that's that's our settlement and genetic tests. So the things we do in the. You can actually just go online and purchase, so, and do it from the comfort of your home.

[00:22:00] So we do genetic testing, which looks at nutrition-based genes of what you might need. And then again, we're creating products for kids and sorta for parents, we're doing a maternity. Paternity and maternity lines with prenatals and stuff like that. Coming up. That's exciting men too. We have a prenatal for men.

[00:22:16] That's what's going to be a thing. It's not, we're making it a thing. Nutrition too. So the trying to conceive community, the pregnancy community all the way through adulthood, we have products for you@nutriatops.com.

[00:22:33] Veronica: That's fantastic. I love it. Well, I love that Dr. Megan and Dr. Haley are on a mission and I love that their new business was based on the fact that their kids needed something, because how many of us have we

[00:22:45] Hailey: wanted to take some of the stress out of parenting?

[00:22:47] And so when it comes to supplements and. Pro high protein snacks, that's where we're going to play.

[00:22:52] Veronica: So, yeah, for sure, for sure. It was a parent who's struggled with learning all of the challenges. I can tell you that I appreciate it because taking that stress off of how to feed them and how to get them to eat right.

[00:23:06] Has been a challenge, but with your guys's help we've been able to do it. So for that.

[00:23:11] Hailey: Oh, you're quite welcome. I'm glad to have helped.

[00:23:14] Veronica: That's awesome. Great. Okay, folks before we let Dr. Haley go, I want to make sure you got that website. It's neat. Your tots.com. What I love about this website is there's also some fantastic articles and blogs, and you guys put those out pretty regularly.

[00:23:26] Hailey: We do at least one blog a week. Try to do some more when we can. But yeah, recipes all about why you need certain nutrients, all that kind of stuff. And right now we're of course. Our false spooky mood. So I think next week we're doing one on healthy Halloween treats.

[00:23:41] Veronica: Love it. Okay. That's what, that's what we need.

[00:23:44] All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate the conversation. All right guys, Nicha tots.com. You need to go there. I can tell you from experience that working with Dr. Haley and Dr. Megan has been very transformational for our family's health. And what I love about their story is that there was a why behind it, and they shared it with folks.

[00:24:05] And if that's what you're doing with your business, you are going to be successful. Got to share your message. Your origin story is so important and it will connect with people. So don't be afraid of it. Make sure that you tap into those resources whenever you can, because they will definitely pay off.

[00:24:20] With that, I'm going to wrap up this episode of Saturday soundbites. Make sure you hit subscribe if you're listening on the podcast so that you don't miss any episodes. And if you're watching on Facebook, we appreciate all the comments you gave us. If you catch the replay, just hashtag replay and Dr.

[00:24:34] Haley, and I can go back and reconnect with you. So with that, I'm ending this show and I am sending you lots of positive energy and light.