By Deb Johnson
Aching back, neck pain, headaches: These are some of many reasons why you’d want to consider going to a medical professional who specializes in resolving issues related to spinal health. And for those of us in the Lynnville-Sully area, we have Fikse Chiropractic owned by Dr. Chad Fikse, D.C., which means we don’t have far to travel to search for relief from these types of maladies.
Fikse Chiropractic has been a local fixture on the south side of the Sully square for 20 years. Having set up his business in the Sully Health and Professional Center in the fall of 2003, Dr. Fikse offers a variety of hours throughout the week Monday through Friday to accommodate potential patients and their schedules. Evening hours are available on Tuesdays and by appointment on Saturday. His is a one-person office, where he handles both his chiropractic activities as well as the day-to-day business of scheduling patients and financial tasks.
Dr. Fikse’s academic journey to establishing his business began with obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Biology at Northwestern College in Orange City and wrapped up with graduating from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport in 2003. His interest in studying chiropractic was rooted in experiences from his youth, while growing up on a farm in northwest Iowa and working with livestock. These activities from his youth led Dr. Fikse to being a frequent visitor himself to his local chiropractor. And the rest, so they say, is history.
Why Sully? The former Lynnette Van Gorp of Sully, now Mrs. Fikse, was also a student at Northwestern, where she met her undergraduate future husband. The two married while they were still students at Northwestern, and a few years later, they knew there was a business potential for a new chiropractor in Sully.
There had been a chiropractor in town before, but the doctor had closed his business, leaving an opening for the Fikses to establish themselves in Lynnette’s former hometown area. All that the new Dr. Fikse needed to set up Fikse Chiropractic was his license from the State of Iowa and find a place to share his skills.
How does one prepare for opening and maintaining a professional chiropractic business in a small town? Not only did Dr. Fikse have to be prepared to develop and hone his skills as a chiropractor, but he also had to look at the administrative side of the practice—that of setting up a new business from scratch.
Chad and Lynnette Fikse announce the coming of their new chiropractic clinic in 2003, 20 years ago.
Although he had taken some accounting and marketing classes in college to help with this, he found that there was still a lot to learn, as every business and potential client base is unique. Putting together a business plan, ordering equipment, creating customer forms for day-to-day operation, and every other business task had to be taken care of to get the business off the ground. Lynnette helped a lot with the initial stages of the business. With some fine tuning all along the way, Fikse Chiropractic has been a successful business in Sully for 20 years.
Building a customer base from scratch, and maintaining it, is always a challenge for any business. Word of mouth and direct referral from family and friends of his patients, as well as advertising, have helped boost the number of people searching out Fikse Chiropractic. Because of close proximity and convenience, most of Dr. Fikse’s patients are from the local area, but he does have some patients from some of the larger nearby cities as well as even people who live as far away as the Missouri border. Most of his patients come to him with a specific problem, and once that is resolved, Dr. Fikse generally doesn’t see them again until they have a new problem down the road. People seeking his help range in age from students in middle school all the way to people in their eighties. To keep the business name in front of the public, ads for Fikse Chiropractic are printed in the local Hometown Press newspaper, as well as in the printed programs of school sporting events. Dr. Fikse has advertised his business on a banner at the Killduff ball park and occasionally on T-shirts.
Being a chiropractor in a small town can be very rewarding. Dr. Fikse also lives in Sully, and he and Lynnette have two children in college, Evan and Kendra, and a daughter Laura who is a sophomore at Lynnville-Sully High School. Dr. Fikse shares his favorite part of his job is interacting with his patients and being able to help them with their problems. On the flip side, it is disheartening to him when he finds that he cannot help someone due to another health issue that can’t be resolved by chiropractic adjustments or manipulation. There is a lot to learn about starting up a new business, and one must be willing to find out and respond to what works and what doesn’t.
During a recent open house, Dr. Fikse was looking at his appointment book for the coming week. He shared, “I was looking through my schedule for that week, and I realized that I had three of the same patients that I had the first week I was in practice.” That in itself speaks volumes for the community’s appreciation for the existence of Fikse Chiropractic in Sully for 20 years!
