13 Things You Would Do Differently

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald, joined always by my trusty cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, what's going on today?

Good morning, Big Jim. I love the trusty part. Be better than you saying, welcome with my untrusty cohost, Tyson Franklin.

Would that would be bad.

That'd be funny, though, if you hadn't said that, but I'm glad you didn't. How you been?

No. Things are good. Things are good. Love life in Canada, you know, in the springtime is is much better than winter, so no complaints over here.

No. Same here. I love this time of year. It's everything's cooler. If anyone's ever gonna visit the tropics, this is the time to do it.

Locals, we find it cold, but people down south when they come to Kansas, they just go, yeah. This is good time of the year. So let's get on to today's podcast. I'm excited about this one.

I I can tell. I mean, you're ready ready to go. So what are we gonna chat about today?

Okay. So this came about with a different group I was with about two years ago I did this. And I said to them and what was really funny, I posed this question. And when I posed the question, it was pretty much around exactly the same time this had actually happened in reality. So the question was, what would you do if your your opposition or a highly skilled podiatrist opened up directly across the road from you?

From your existing business. You get your business there, and another podiatrist could be someone you dislike, opens up directly across the road from you. They're highly skilled. They're yeah. I mean, pretty much you can see them from the front of your podiatrically, which means your patients can as well.

They might even have skills that you don't have, or they may have a a large marketing budget bigger than what you currently have. And the question I pose is, what would you do? And what was funny about it, where I had my old clinic and I sold it, somebody who was already an existing clinic in town, and I'm sure he probably listens to this podcast as well. Hell hello, Kyle, if you happen to be listening. He opened up a really nice clinic directly across the road from my old podiatry clinic.

So it was really good timing when this actually came about because I'm looking at that if you were an existing podiatry business and somebody opened up across from me bigger, better, better budget, whatever it was, and your budget's a little bit tighter, what are some things you could do? So I ended up coming up with 13 things that people can do, and this was with the group that I was working with. So we I threw out a few things, and then we sort of talked about it. So there's, 13 headings, but multiple things you can do under those 13 headings.

Phew. Lucky lucky number 13. That sounds like quite a list there. I think that's a interesting problem to bring up to bring up, and I think it's not only, you know, valuable to people that kind of are in that situation, but also helps maybe people, you know, kind of playing the what if game could sometimes be beneficial for, like, long term planning because if it happens to one person, it could happen to another. So why not just, you know, kind of walk, you know, walk us through this exercise as we kind of walk through these these 13 things that people could be aware of to, you know, you know, be ready for something like that to happen potentially.

Yeah. Well, what if questions, I reckon, are amazing questions because you can sit there and go, yep. What if this did happen? How would you respond to it? A lot of times, I think a lot of business owners don't think about things happening in their business.

They just wait until it happens. And when it happens, they go, oh. And then they start to panic and then make bad decisions. Whereas I think if you think of all the things that could possibly happen and you address them early, it's a lot better. That's a whole different podcast altogether.

So let's get on to 13 things here. First one is looking at your professional referrals. So somebody's opened up across from you and you go, okay. Let's go through some of the marketing pillars to start with. Your professional referrals, you could give them a gentle reminder that you're there, whether it's through an email, whether it was it was a letter.

You can use technology to connect with your professional referrers. Sending a video using Loom, and you you know what Loom is. Anyone listening to this, if you don't know what Loom is, go and look up Loom. It's a video program. Send a video to people, and it tells you when they watch it.

Have you used BrainToss, Jim?

I have not used BrainToss yet. I think you've talked about it a little bit previously, but I haven't I haven't gotten around to

it yet. Yeah. BrainToss is awesome. It's one of the it's a it's an app. It's $4 or something on your phone.

Everyone should have it. If you ever have an idea in your head, you can just quickly record something, and you can set it up so it sends an email to yourself. But you can also use it to record a message where you go, hey, Jim. How are doing? Just had this idea about something or I wanna talk to you about this particular problem.

Give it a bit of a spill. You got thirty seconds to actually record the message. When you stop, that voice message will get emailed to you, but then from there, you can then email on to a professional referrer. It could be a message to them, or you can set up that certain emails go to your receptionist, and your receptionist then forwards it on to the right person. So to me, it's just with your professional first, first thing is reminding them you're there and use technology if you can.

And then also, if you've read a a book, like, I really like this book called Be Our Guest, which is about Disney. Have you read that?

I haven't, but I've been to Disney a couple times while growing up.

Yeah. So I I read the book a couple of years ago, be our guest, one of my favorite books. And so if you've read it and it's a great book and you know another professional referrer who has a good yeah. You can tell the difference between you look at not all professional referrals are equal. You look at some, you know, their clinic's a bit dodgy.

And you look at others, you can tell they care. Sending them that book in the mail or just dropping it in with little posters saying, hey, I read this book. I think you will absolutely love it, is another way of just connecting and just a gentle reminder with your professional referrers that you're there.

That's excellent. I think, yeah, those kind of personal touches, whether it be through technology or through, like, a hardcover book, is definitely something that's gonna be appreciated by, you know, people within your circle. Given that little nudge that you are still there and kind of, you know, re centering them maybe on exactly the type of patients you wanna see can be a good way to kinda get ahead of the competition a little bit.

Yeah. Well, especially, I know myself, if a new physio opened up in town like where my old clinic is, there's one that's just opened down the road, if I knew that they were there and then all of a sudden I had a book dropped in to me with a post it note or a letter just saying, hey. I read this book. I noticed that, you know, looking at your clinic, you care about your patients and about, yeah, your visibility of your practice as well. I thought you'd find this really interesting, especially chapter four.

And they marked that for me. I would read that, and I would be calling them up straight away saying, hey. Thank you very much. Do you wanna go and grab a coffee? I'm now reaching out to them because it's the law of reciprocation.

I'm reaching out to them because they've done something for me. I wanna do something back. And all of a sudden, they're sitting there going, oh, yeah. That worked. So that and you know what?

It costs you nothing than other than a little bit of time and, yeah, $20.30 bucks for a book. So it's really simple. The second thing that's on this list is your non professional referrers. Do exactly the same thing. Try and connect with them.

But what it takes is for you to usually get off your bum and walk around town, go over to shopping centers, and just meet and greet. Say hello to people, shake their hand, remind them who you are. Because you gotta remember, if the person who's walked who's opened up across the road from you, they are fired up. They've just set up a new clinic. Everybody's enthusiastic, so is the team.

Nonprofessional referrers in the area have seen the building getting built or getting set up. They see the sign go up. They are now aware that they are there. So you have to get off your bum and go and reconnect with people in your area.

Now that makes total sense. I think you have to be visible to that local community. Right? And whether it's not professional refers maybe they're kinda used to their day to day business. They kinda get in certain habits or certain rhythms.

If you can kind of go in there, not to especially disrupt it, but just, you know, let them know that you are an option, that you do provide these, you know, foot and ankle care services, it gives them additional options, and a lot of them will be happy to kind of it's kind of that reciprocity as well on their side, right? If you send them a couple people get shoes or, you know, a couple you you work with a massage therapist or someone in that in that realm, you know, it's kind of a you're you're in there kind of they know who you are, and they might send patients back your way as well. So it's it's it's not asking for that, but just like, you know, when you do good things for other others, more likely, good things will happen for you as well.

It's like the book example. If somebody gave me a book with a note, I couldn't help but at least contact them and say thank you, unless the book was crap. Unless they gave me a book and I thought, this is obviously been sitting in bottom of You've been trying to get rid of this thing. It's awful. Then it's gotta be something that you read it and you really like it.

The third thing is just about street appeal. Just realize that they're opening up a new clinic. They're gonna have a new signage. So go outside and have a look at your your current signage. Does it look tired?

Does it need to be replaced? If there's vinyl lettering, is any of that peeling off? Yeah. Does it need to be cleaned? So because first impressions count.

They're gonna be bright and shiny in you. You've gotta make sure that your business doesn't look tired and outdated. It's like websites, Jim. You'd agree. You see a website that's five or seven years old compared to a brand new website, it's really obvious the the difference between them.

And your business looks exactly the same.

Well, it's like you said, you have to have kind of a a seamless transition from the kind of area where they make that first impression, whether it be in real life or online. And then that needs to transfer into a similar experience within your clinic. If there's a huge disparity between those two things and it doesn't feel the same, it doesn't look the same, it can be kind of jarring and kinda sets up people to feel, you know, not necessarily distrustful, but feel a little off. You you wanna try to make that as smooth as possible so people have a great experience when they come into your practice, see you online, have a great experience with you out in the community. All those things are really, really important.

Yeah. And and like we're saying, these are 13 things you can do because somebody has opened up across the road from you. Just remember, this is what we're talking about. You've opened up your doors, you walked out the front of you, and you go, oh, crap. There's a new podiatrist going across the road, and it's all bright and shiny.

And they're highly skilled. And that leads us on the fourth thing, which was update your website. It's have a look at your website. Is it tight? Does it need to be renewed or, yeah, a few areas tidied up?

Do you wanna offer some some free more free information on there? And make sure that you you have, like, a a media page even on your website so that if you are talking to people or someone wants to reach out to you, there's an area there where they can learn a little bit about you or some information that you can actually send out. So I think it's just remember, these are some of these things might cost a little bit of money, but a lot of these things just take you thinking about them and not just leaving, oh, yep. I will survive because I have an awesome reputation.

But I think it is important to get a, you know, a new set of eyes on that website. Right? I think

Yeah.

You know, whether whether it be you just kinda looking at some websites that you use outside of medicine and seeing some of the features they have or things that how they have changed over time. You know, if you're, you know, young in practice, you're probably used to these fully featured websites and chatbots and all those other things incorporated to the website. But if you're someone Tyson or my age, you know, websites used to be these things where they were basically like a digital business card. Right? And Yeah.

If it had your your name, your phone number, your location, that's really all you cared about on the website. But as technology advances and improves, people are expecting more of these websites. They wanna see authentic photos. They wanna see ways of making an appointment. They don't necessarily require phone calls.

So getting sometimes that outside opinion, it doesn't mean you need to, like, radically change it, but you need to have a plan to keep it up to date. And if you're just kind of building it and letting ten or fifteen years go by, that's when really people get into trouble when it comes to the websites.

I've seen some websites like that. So number five was I better be I better start moving along a bit quicker. Number five is community engagement, which you have mentioned before about just letting the community know that you're there. If there's expos on these events, can you volunteer? Can you just just get out and about because you need to be seen and you need to be heard because if you don't, the other people will get out there.

And that's exactly what happened with my old clinic is everything with that I used to do with the community, with sporting teams and all that, the new owners that took it over didn't care about community engagement. The new people who set up across the road did care about community engagement, and they now own that space. So it's important to connect there. Number six is if you have a niche in your business, make sure you're pushing that niche. Make sure that people know what your business actually stands for.

And you always repeat this, Jim. If if what you love to do in podiatry was illegal, if we went to your website and we looked through your clinic, could we find enough information to convict you? And, unfortunately, a lot of podiatrists would get off scot free. So work work on your niche. If you don't have a niche, think about what do I love doing more than anything else.

If I had the choice between tomorrow having 10 new patients coming in, what would it be? That's something that you love doing. You might wanna push into that area. Do you wanna comment before I go to number seven? Or you're right there?

No. I think I think you touched on it well. I do enjoy that that kind of that example of the person being convicted for what they wanna do in their clinic. You know, it is it is one of those things that if you don't put it out into the world and show people what you do, they're gonna think you're just a a general foot doctor. So Yeah.

And there's nothing wrong with being, you know, a general practitioner, but there's definitely different areas within the practice that people enjoy. So if you wanna do more of that, you have to show that to people. It has to be on your website, you have to promote it, you have to market in your practice, you have to be at those events locally. You know, if you love treating baseball players or softball players, you need to be, you know, treating those local high school athletes or those recreational athletes. You need to make connections in that area.

And and you're not gonna get that by just sitting back and doing nothing and just hoping it comes your way. You have to take action.

Yeah. And always say, yeah, no. I've never heard of anyone having a statue built built for them for the best generalist in the world. Well, there's John Parker. He was the best generalist I've ever met.

Usually, statues are built for people that have stand out, have done something. Even when you look within the podiatrist profession, those people that are up on the pedestals that are invited to events and doing things, they're usually known for one or two things within the profession. So if it works for them, it also will work with your your practice. Doesn't mean that's all you do. It's just that's what you're known for.

Number seven is touching base base with your patients. And I remember seeing a quote somewhere once, he said, when should you tell your wife you love her before somebody else does? Your patients work exactly the same way. You need to stay in touch with your patients. You can't just leave it up to them that, oh, well, when you're ready, just come back and and see me because I'm here because I'm awesome.

It's you other people will tell them about this new clinic. So you need to make sure you're reactivating patients that haven't been in for a while. You have emails going out. You have an email newsletter. You try and increase the touch points with your existing patients.

Let them know that you care about them. And people who know that you care about them will also care about you. They won't who will this way? Even in a relationship, no one leaves a relationship when if everything's awesome. There's usually a reason relationships fall down, and I think it's the same with patients and podiatrists in in health health profession is a really happy patient is not going to go somewhere else or play up behind your podiatry back if they are really happy.

Agreed.

Okay. Number eight is introduce yourself. So do a recon mission. I I think if a new competitor has opened up across the road and you do not know who they are, you should go over there and say hello. You should introduce yourself.

You should make them know that you you don't care that they're actually across across the road. Because when you actually look at their business, you might look inside and go, on the outside, it looks really good, but on the inside, it doesn't look as good as what yours is. Or you might see certain, you know, services they're offering. You go, oh, okay. Well, if they're offering that, it's good.

I can and you can send or if can I send my patients over here for that service? Because it might be something you don't want to do. And then my gut, well, what do you like doing? You go, oh, I like doing this. You might find instead of being competitive, you may actually be able to work closer together.

Number nine is just reflect on your own practice. Sit back and just look at your business and think about it. Are there are there parts of your business that you think need to be improved? Is it is there something that is worn out that needs to get replaced? Is does it need painting?

There's so many different parts about your business that if you really sit back and just reflect on your own practice, you may see things that you're not always seeing but your patients are. And they're gonna use that as a comparison to the guy across the road.

I think it's really important that you, you know, you review your actions, whether it be your marketing actions, your treatment, the treatment you provide, seeing what kind of impact that has, you know, with either in numbers or statistics or just kind of, you know, when you have that data, it's easier to reflect on and make good decisions. If you're just trying to grab stuff out of the air every once in a while, maybe you'll get a decent sense of what's happening, but you really need to have, you know, some of these things have numbers and stats around them to really make them more concrete, and then you're able to adjust and make better changes or better adjustments.

Yeah. Okay. So number 10 is know your ideal patient. You would have heard us talk about this multiple times before. We were talking about you need to know who your ideal patient is.

And once you know who they are, when you've really described who your ideal patient is, I can't remember the exact episode, but look through our long list of podcasts so far, and we will mention the ideal patient. Listen to that one. When you know who they are, it's just make sure you're talking to them, whether it's through any sort of marketing that you're doing, making sure you're always talking to your ideal patients. If you're writing a blog, there's no point writing a blog about treating an ulcer if you don't like ulcers, but you wanna do more MSK work or you wanna do more runners. Just make sure anything you're doing is targeted towards that ideal patient.

And many years ago, it used to be people who just write just the most ridiculous blog articles so they felt, oh, I've just gotta keep putting information out there. The more information I put out there, the more patients are gonna get. But 50% or 80% of what they wrote was just rubbish. No one's looking for it. No one cares about it.

And then when you ask them, what's your ideal patient? They tell you, well, eight out of 10 things you write. Could you just save yourself the time and not done it? So just give that some thought. Number 11, I think, is super important.

Just remember, someone's opened up across the road from you. You need to retrain your team with greeting your patients and answering the phone. Don't just assume they know how to do it. Sit there with them and go, okay. A patient walks in, what do you say?

What do you do? And you could even have what do they call them? Mystery shoppers. I did this with my podiatric clinic. I had someone that I knew and I said, hey, do wanna be a mystery shopper for me?

I mean, yeah, not a problem. Said, booking for an appointment, come in for this. This is what you wanna say to them. I said, just come in. I said, we'll just chat away for half an hour.

I said, I'll give you the money that you'll then pay at the front, and then I'll take it out later. Yep. Not a problem. So I I did that twice. And one, everything was super positive, and the other one, everything was terrible.

But both times, we learned from the one that was terrible was the one that we learned on learned from the most. So just remember, you might think they know how to greet a patient, but do they really know how they want how do they understand how you want them to greet the patient? And also when they're answering the phone, how do they answer the telephone? Are they giving the correct information? Throw some questions at them about some things, some odd questions that a patient might ask and can they answer it?

Do they know how to handle objections when they talk about pricing? Something like, oh, how much is an orthotic? Do they know what to say? Or do they go, oh. They they they get all panicky and they just throw out some ridiculous figure.

Super important to understand that. Number 12 is update your uniforms. And if you don't have a uniform, get a uniform. I don't know what what it's like in America, but but in Australia, there's some clinics that they don't have a uniform. Anyone can just rock up wearing whatever they want.

You know, it's it's like non uniform day. Or or they'll have a shirt on and it's got like a Nike tick. And I know that Nike is not paying them to wear that shirt. So they're promoting Nike in their own business and they're promoting Nike when they're out and about. Get yourself a decent uniform.

Look at your uniform. Does it look professional and is it on brand? Does it actually match the rest of the brand of your particular business? Any comments, Adrian, before we get on to number 13?

No. I think you're right on. I think you'd have to dress the part right, and you have an opportunity to really kind of when you're wearing something that is your clinic, it really helps kind of not only within your clinic make you look more professional, but when you're out and about in the community, it provides a little opportunity for visibility there as well. So I think, you know, by being on brand and it can pay out dividends more than just kind of looking professional in your own clinic.

Yeah. I I remember when I set up the MacKay clinic, and while it was getting built, it was everything was getting done over, a six week period. I was down there multiple times. I had my shirt on. I went around visiting, you know, professional referrals.

I went and set up an account at the news agency, went to the pharmacist, did all the stuff. I probably booked about 12 patients just because I had my shirt on, just talking to people at the local takeaway cafe. So the day we actually opened, we were pretty much booked out our first day of put of opening the doors purely because of being out and about, not just the people I spoke to and booked in, but then they spoke to other people. Now I could've walked into a takeaway just wearing any shirt, Reebok, Nike, and that wouldn't have sparked any conversation whatsoever. But by having my podiatry logo on it, said ProArch Podiatry, they go, oh, where about a year ago?

Oh, we took a new business setting up just down the road here, and that started a conversation. Number 13, this one's optional, but I would do it anyway, is create some form of merchandise or a welcome pack. For when your patients do come in and they see, what are you gonna give them something that they can at least take away. Every patient should be leaving with something. You may not put together a big pack, but even if it's just pens, just something that the patient can take away that's got your business name on there that when they get home, it's a it's a constant reminder that you exist.

Because when they get home, they're gonna talk to friends, and their friends might say, hey. There's a new podiatric clinic. Oh, yeah. That's that's not my podiatrist. My podiatrist is your business name.

Just put your business name in there. So like I said, there was 13 things that we sort of spoke about when I was talking with this other group, and there's so many more things that you can do if somebody opens up across from you. The main thing is get off your bum and don't sit back and just think, I know my business, I've been around for too long. My business is too big. I can't be touched because you will get touched.

Yeah. I think you you the nail on the head there. You can't really just, you know, depend on that reputation that you built up for ten or fifteen years or how long it's been and just kind of work from a reactive stance. You have to be proactive. Have to really be, you know, kind of a journey of consistently improving what you're doing, you know, your connections with the community.

It's really kind of, you know, these days and this day and age, at least in The US and North America, it's very, I would say, kinda like customer service based culture now. Even in even with healthcare now, people are used to having things on demand and having it their way. You know, as this kinda changes, you know, it's been doctor Google, what's changed this? You know, health care also has to and health care providers also have to adapt to these changes. And if you don't, you're most likely gonna be left behind.

So it's important to to kind of take these things into account and be proactive.

Yeah. And it's it if you think of when you first set your own business up and the professional refers, for example, who started referring to you, the reason I started referring to you is because you were new and fresh and you were enthusiastic. As the years go on, if you're sitting back there thinking, well, my reputation is now out there, they're gonna keep referring to me. Just remember, before they referred to you, they were referring to somebody else. So if a newer person comes in and they have more enthusiasm and they are more excited and they are more trained or perceived to be trained, then those professional referrers might drop you like a bad habit and start moving somewhere else.

So just I think, just always be aware of it and keep asking yourself though, like you said at the beginning, Jim, just all those if questions. What happens if this happens? It may never happen. But if it does happen, you've got a game plan basically ready for it.

Yeah. You've got a game plan or you've you've listened to this podcast and you thought about what we're talking about in your four or five steps ahead of the game. So I think that's an important component of just being proactive.

Yep. Okay. I think I'm done. And I look forward to talking again next week, Jim. I don't know what your topics are gonna be, but I'm looking forward to it.

No. It should be good. But if anyone has made it this far in the podcast, I'd highly recommend if you do Tyson and I a favor, go ahead and go on to Apple Podcasts, leave us a review, you know, preferably five stars and some some kind words would be appreciated. And if you wouldn't mind as well, if you're listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, go ahead and subscribe as well. At at least you know, if you've received some value or some good tips here, hopefully we've got 13 of them today.

So Mhmm. Hopefully, all works out for you, and we'll talk to you soon.

Yeah. And we may see some of you in Chicago in October. Just round it out there. Oh, no. No.

It's already out there that this is gonna happen, but whoever's listening to this now. Anyway, okay, Jim. Talk to you next week.

Sounds good, Tyson.

Okay. Bye.

For listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McAnnold. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.