You win some... You lose some...

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But I hate losing...

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I actually hate losing more than I love winning. Weird. Anyway, there's a giant pile of news in this one, and I think it may actually be fairly important.

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We are open in Bossier City, which...

 

brings up a lot of good points.

 

First, we opened Sunday the 7th, and as per usual haven't seen a single patient. It's actually pretty funny the way this works. You get all these emails, Facebook messages, phone calls, and webchats, and people are like "Oh I wish you'd open in _____", or "I'd love to try it. Let me know when you open up/down/around here," and you do, and the place is a ghost town. What're ya gonna do? It'll come around.

 

Second, please be a little patient with the system, until it gets smooth. Sometimes new offices close early, or there isn't art on the walls, or the nurse doesn't know how to work the checkout system, or whatever. It's medically sound, with the same Policies and Procedures and meds and everything, and it's not like it's grabasstic or anything, but occasionally we'll realize something like "oh crap. We forgot the mints."

 

Oh well. I'm pretty convinced this was a good idea so I'm not panicking yet. At the very least, be on the lookout for our Grand Opening party. We have a tendency to piss away a lot of money on good food and booze for these things. People are always taking home the extra food and bottles of hooch, on top of the swag we give away. So you've got that going for you. ;-)

 

It's at:

 

1000 Chinaberry | Suite 501

Bossier City, Louisiana 71111

 

 

 

Starting to feel like this cat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gentleman pictured above is one Marshall McLuhan. I'd never heard of him before about 8 minutes ago when I googled "I may be wrong" to get a picture for this section. He had a lot of fairly famous quotes according to the innerwebs, and one was "I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt."

 

There you have it.

 

I may have been wrong. I wasn't in doubt, but I was CLEARLY wrong. Talking about Sunnyvale again. Did a little simple math the other day and it turns out that if we didn't have to pay for ANY of our medicine, any of our supplies, any of our utilities like internet or electricity, nothing for advertising, and the rent were completely free... we'd still be losing money there. Wow... It's like trying to waterski with an anchor.

 

We added the Spectracell micronutrient testing. Super cool lab test. Tells you every vitamin and mineral in your body, what's high, what's low, what you need... the whole 9 yards. It's sitting on the shelf because nobody has gotten it. Not a single one.

 

We started paying $1,500 a month to offer Reviv treatments and be on their website as the ONLY provider in the Dallas area. Not one single call. I was positive that one was going to be a winner. Signed a one year deal and burning a smooth 18 grand on that. Could've gotten a new roof.

 

I'm still going to consider Forney as a move for that location, but I'm not sure about that. It appears that everyone who owns commercial property in Forney thinks they're leasing something in Midtown Manhattan. They want 5 grand a month for a closet, and if you want a bathroom in the closet it's going to cost you six grand. We may just go full-bore corporate and try to move right into Dallas proper. I'm not afraid. I just know this location ain't working.

 

If you're in Shreveport, you probably know Johnny's Pizza House. They have almost 50 now. Wow. FIFTY.

 

They opened one in Longview, Texas, and within a year it crapped out. I have no idea if it was a bad location, different tastes in Longview than the rest of the world, or what, but they closed. Hard to believe.

 

I've decided that if we have to close Sunnyvale I'm not going to let it beat me down, because if Johnny's can be all over Hell and half of Georgia, and close in a town like Longview, then closing one location doesn't make you a complete loser... though I'll probably still feel like a complete loser. ;-)

 

That said, if you know anyone with a cool office in Forney or Dallas that's for lease at a reasonable price, I've got to do something with all this furniture and equipment. We're still praying for a miracle, and doing everything we can, but I may have been wrong with that pick...

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On another SERIOUS note

 

I just had to make a supplier of ours sign an NDA.

 

Why? I had to send them our Policies and Procedures. All 39 pages of everything we've compiled in 7 years of doing this. Oh hell... I just realized that last week was the 7th anniversary of our first patient. Damn... Oh well...

 

Anyway, back to the story. I didn't want them distributing our P&P, so I made them sign an NDA before sending it to them. Know why I had to send it to them? They have decided to no longer sell to IV Therapy spas, specifically to IV places that do mobile treatments.

 

They made an exception for us because we already have four locations being serviced by them and they can see we do things the right way, but their policy is to not take any new IV places, and they're suspending and vetting all their current customers.

 

Turns out they're getting sued. Yep. Once again, some halfassed IV place that popped up because everyone thinks it's a get rich quick scheme, killed somebody. The family is suing the company that sold them the stuff (catheters, tubing, etc.) to be able to give the IV, among others. No, the tubing didn't kill anybody, but their argument is that this company shouldn't have been selling stuff to give IVs to every maroon who thinks it's their ticket to a Bentley.

 

I KNOW y'all get sick and tired of me telling you be super careful with who you let give you an IV, but seriously, people are dropping like flies because they're getting God knows what from who knows who.

 

DON'T.

 

If you want to use someone else because they have a pretty logo, or you know one of the nurses, or they're closer to your house, or you're out of town, fine. I'm not even going to try to talk you out of it. What I will do is ask you to PLEASE text me (903.720.4785) the name of the place and let me do some research on them before you get a needle stuck in your vein.

 

These places are EVERYWHERE, and I don't know squat about the quality of most of them. In Shreveport you have Sugar and Salt, Geaux Drip, Revive Me (or something like that, they're down the street), and a few others. In Tyler there's the Infusionist and 20 hair salons doing them. In Longview there's The Body Shop and the Lash Bar. I think Sunnyvale still has Wellness Code. I'm sure some of them are fine. If you want to go to one, let me know and I'll dig around to find out if they suck or not.

 

I will tell you that most use premixed bags, but as long as you don't have any medical issues or allergies, assuming the manufacturer shipped everything properly and the IV place stores everything properly, that's probably a good thing because it's less likely a giant pharmacy like Olympia will screw something up than it is that Margaret who thought she'd open an IV place would screw up something.

 

We don't do premixed because we don't think it's medically as sound, you'll either get stuff you don't need or won't get something you do need, and I'm skittish about the safety aspect of the shipping and the storage and everything else. It's just a lower quality than we want to be. That said, as disorganized as a lot of these places apparently are, maybe that's the better bet for most of them.

 

Anyway, let me know if you're going somewhere else (in town or out) and I'll give you a list of questions to ask them, and/or I'll ask them myself and let you know if they're any good.

 

 

To finish up...

 

 

Just thought I'd share where your 40 bucks are going, aside from down the toilet in Sunnyvale. ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The way we price our IVs, if we get 8 patients a day at a location we gross right at 40 bucks on each one. After rent, etc., any leftover money (on months there is any) goes mostly into our little cabin in northwest Arkansas, that Rachel and I are building, by hand. A few hundred bucks at a time at Home Depot, and one day, it'll be glorious. Lots of bruises, and some mistakes have been made, but University of YouTube is guiding us along.

 

You may think I'm kidding, though by now I'd think you'd know better, but once it's done we'll be happy to have you up to hang out. Same rules as everything else in life, as long as nobody can tell you were there once you're gone, we're happy to let you come enjoy it too... after all, it was your money that built it in the first place.

 

That was a lot, and there's more so I'll actually do this again next month!

 

Until then, PLEASE stay hydrated. We live in a country with abundant, basically free, clean water. There's no good excuse for coming to see us because "I haven't been drinking enough water". Mix in some healthy food, take your vitamins, get outside for a little exercise, and call an old friend.

 

Thanks for all your support and for being part of our little thing. We love helping people feel better and we appreciate you being on the team.

 

Stay happy, healthy, and hydrated, and we'll see you next month!