How Miracle Pain Relief Got 50 Google Reviews in a Week and Turned Off Its Ads

How did Forrest Hoekstra go from selling rain gutters to running a pain relief practice?

His own injuries led him there. Forrest grew up in Michigan around natural health, ran from sixth grade through his college years, and described himself as accident prone. By 24, he said, he was in severe pain and could not walk around a house to take the measurements his job required.

That job was in the family business, selling rain gutters, where he spent four and a half years after finishing his bachelor’s degree. A friend who had dislocated a knee introduced him to myofascial therapy. A year into treatment for his legs and ankles, Forrest broke his clavicle and ended up with a plate and 11 screws. That was the push to become a licensed massage therapist himself. “I need to go and fulfill my purpose,” he recalled thinking.

He chose Florida’s Space Coast because of a necklace his mother had bought at the Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach when he was in high school. He arrived knowing nobody.

How did Miracle Pain Relief find clients in a town where he knew no one?

Slowly, and by hand. Forrest said the practice was bootstrapped the whole way. He knew a little about Google: post photos and events to your profile regularly. He admitted he managed it roughly every other week.

For reviews, he asked friends, family and everyone else he could, and got to about 45. From there it was a grind to the high 60s. “It was like, you go for a mile and you get an inch,” he said.

What happened when the reviews finally came in?

Fifty arrived in a week. A friend had kept pushing him to call Review Harvest. When he finally reached out, setup took 15 minutes, and the practice went from about 69 reviews past 100.

The effect on the business was immediate, by his account:

• People stopped him at church to apologize for not having left a review yet, because the requests read as if he had written them personally.
• A man who had first contacted him in April finally booked after reading the reviews, and mentioned them three times during his visit.
• Bookings and calls rose enough that he turned off his Instagram and Google ads. He said the phone was ringing and he had missed a few calls that day.

Miracle Pain Relief has also grown from Forrest alone at the start of the year to three or four therapists, with a new suite being built out. He expects to be at 200 reviews or more by the end of the year.

Why do clients write such strong reviews?

Because he listens. Forrest said many clients tell him their doctors said the pain was in their head, and that he hears it every week. He lets them tell the whole story, looks for the old accident or surgery that might still be causing trouble, and explains what he plans to do.

He learned that selling gutters. The family business taught him to contact every lead as soon as possible, and his father always focused on the customer’s primary concern and addressing it first. “I’m just listening,” he said. “People tell me it hurts here, this is the trauma I had, and then just reiterating that back to them, making sure that they feel understood.”

One client he described is a woman in her early 70s who came in six months earlier at a pain level of eight, taking Advil every day to get by. She told him in her review that she is now at a three at most and off painkillers. “Some days she’s literally dancing walking out of the therapy room,” he said.

Why do people travel to Cocoa Beach for an appointment?

They are searching for help and the reviews are what they find. Forrest said most new clients start with a Google search, and that ChatGPT has recommended him to someone 40 miles away. After that, families pass his name along. One client asked him to hold a spot for a daughter coming in from Amsterdam.

When the conversation turned to AI receptionists and automation, Forrest’s answer was: “What people need most and what they want most is just someone to talk to.”

What would he tell an owner who feels stuck?

Have tenacity, and build an online presence that works when your personal network runs out. “An entrepreneur has to have that one quality of tenacity, always going forward regardless of the barrier, the cost,” he said.

On the practical side, he recommends keeping your Google page updated and getting new reviews in quickly. Once you have told every friend what you do, he said, that online presence is what you rely on.