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Welcome to The Main Street Minute, your shortcut to small business buying and scaling.
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Now, onto today’s story.
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Around 2020, Zach Bundy and his wife Shannon began the process of acquiring a chiropractic clinic.
At first, they muscled their way through and saw solid growth.
“We’re like two blue-collar rednecks,” Zach jokes. “We ‘rednecked’ it as high as we could possibly go, to over a million dollars.”
But without systems or structure, growth maxed out.
The clinic stalled. Revenue slipped. Stress climbed. That’s when they began looking to the Contrarian Academy and Growth Boardroom for insight and guidance.
What followed were real improvements across critical metrics. According to Zach:
Most importantly, after learning some brutally tough lessons, Zach and Shannon gained the confidence and systems to scale again, this time a better way.
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This is the story of what happened along the way: the missteps, breakthroughs, critical lessons, and the quantifiable improvements that followed.
THE PROBLEM
The Bundys entered the chiropractic industry by taking over an existing clinic that had lost key provider talent and staff. They weren’t experts, but they managed to grow it quickly.
“We built up to a million-dollar top line, but it slowly started to decline. We knew we weren’t getting enough patients in the door, and what we’d built wasn’t functioning well enough.”
At one point, the couple began to explore buying an additional business as a way to expand. Like many buyers, though, they approached their acquisition wanting to “go small” to reduce risk.
That’s understandable, but “small” often turns out to be surprisingly risky. The deal advisors in the Contrarian Academy warned them about this.
“They told me the deal was just too small. That the cash flow couldn’t sustain the problems that might arise. I wish I would have listened in hindsight.”
Zach and Shannon moved forward despite this, but when that small deal eventually ran into operational headwinds, they turned the lessons they learned into insight and renewed action.
THE PIVOT
One of the most valuable shifts for Zach and Shannon was understanding that buying and operating businesses doesn’t have to be a solo pursuit. Successful builders often lean heavily on a network of experts.
“The level of experience in the Academy is off the charts… Being able to bring your deal and say, ‘Does this work?’ — that’s a game changer. If you take the counsel they give, they’re going to save you so much time and effort.”
For this couple, 3 lessons have stood out:
1. Larger deals can be safer. More cash flow means more room for solving problems.
2. Don’t fall in love with deals. Experienced operators can provide an important filter here.
3. Build your deal team early. Operators, accountants, lenders, and advisors don’t just help with deals. They reduce mistakes and shorten learning curves.
As Zach put it, “Take advice from people doing things bigger than you.”
GROWTH LEVERS
When Zach and Shannon entered the Growth Boardroom, their clinic was facing a convergence of operational challenges:
They knew the business wasn’t healthy, but they lacked the clarity to fix it.
They were guided to start with something that felt counterintuitive: rapidly rework their Vision, Mission, and Culture plan.
“That seemed super fluffy to me. It was like, okay, hey, I get the vision, I get the mission. But I need more clients tomorrow.”
But once they actually clarified expectations for their team and raised standards, the impact felt immediate.
Underperformance became obvious. Two people were let go, and four self-selected out. It felt like a setback, but the leaner team actually performed better. Payroll dropped. Remaining staff got raises. Margins increased.
“Not only did we stop declining and start growing, but our cash flow improved… Our net margins increased by around 10%.”
KEY RESULTS
With a stronger team and clearer structure, they finally had room to work with the Boardroom team to identify the levers that mattered most.
They began measuring ROI on every channel. They doubled down on what worked and cut what didn’t. “We were generating about 25 new clients a month, and we saw around a 75% increase in new client acquisition.”
“Now I’m understanding the levers that move my business forward with greater consistency and greater predictability.”
Better client acquisition led to better consistency and service delivery. Retention, Zach told us, is now up from 80% to around 90%, a meaningful jump.
This retention and client growth created the first relatively stable foundation the business has had to build off of in a while.
Perhaps the most significant shift was moving from an “I have to do this” mentality to “Who can help me do this?”
“So much of business building can feel isolating. I used to feel like every problem in my business was my problem to solve. Now I talk to two or three members a week. It’s one of my favorite parts of the community.”
For Zach and Shannon, the right network meant vetted, trusted access to high-integrity operators they could plug into.
“I’m hiring an accountant from the community. Someone else is doing CRM. Someone is helping with SEO. Now I can stack value and solve problems that used to be mine alone. That makes my job so much easier.”
Combined, Zach says, all these tactical improvements helped drive up their SDE by roughly 20%.
“We were burning cash. But we bottomed out, and now we have five months of steady growth. And more importantly, we understand why.”
THE FUTURE
With their flagship clinic stabilizing, the Bundys have returned to their initial goal around expansion: Acquisition.
But this time, they aren’t doing it alone, and they aren’t ignoring the advice of expert advisors. They’re now actively looking to acquire another location within the next 6 to 12 months.
“But our goal isn’t just to buy a business,” Zach told us. “We want to have a larger impact, and we believe acquisition is the way to do that.”
“When we joined the community, they went step by step to help us build something stronger and better. Now my business runs much smoother, and there’s so much more peace of mind.”
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The information contained here is educational, may not be typical, and does not guarantee returns. Background, education, effort, and application will affect your experience and the profitability of any business. Individual results may vary.
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