15 Ways to Become Known for Your Niched Service

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 as always with my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

I'm fantastic today. Big Jim, that was a fantastic introduction. And it was better than your first one.

Yeah. The first one is a little dim. So hopefully this that's not a a sign of things to come for this episode.

I like it when we start an episode where we have a bit of a chuckle beforehand because it it does I I think every time we laugh beforehand, the whole episode seems to be slightly funnier. I agree. Totally. That's my point of view. Anyway, people listening to it might beg to differ.

So should we just dive straight into today's topic?

Yeah. Let's do it. What is today's topic?

This is 15 ways to become known for your niched service or niched. What do you we say niche. You say niche.

Niche or niche. Yeah. I I usually say Yeah. Niche, but yeah.

I suppose yeah. Because like in America, there's there's riches and niches, which sounds better than riches and niches. But anyway and we have spoken about not exactly what I'm gonna talk about today, but episode four was developing expertise in your niche, and episode one sixty two was how to define your niche in three easy steps. So we have touched on it before, but this just coming at it from a slightly different angle. And I'm sure everyone that's listened to episodes.

I'm sure everybody's listening to this one has listened to all 240 something before.

Yeah. You would think so, but just for those couple of people that haven't listened all the episodes, this this would be a good introduction. And for those who have listened, it'll be a good kind of a refresher.

Okay. So number one, choose one problem to own. Pick a condition or maybe patient group, heel pain, might be running injuries, it could be children's feet, it might be ingrown toenails, or it might even be diabetic foot care. The idea of it is don't try to own everything and don't try to be an expert in every single area. As what some people try to do, and that's how you become the world's best unknown generalist.

It's like a master of none. Right? Like so you you do everything a little bit, you're not gonna have that expertise and that in-depth knowledge. I mean, obviously, nothing against some general podiatrist but if you can really focus on a niche, I think it's gonna be not only great for your practice but better for patients.

Yeah. Remember someone saying was, they'll never build a statue for the world's greatest generalist. True. Point number two is create a simple message. People should instantly know what you do based on that message you put out there.

Examples would be helping runners stay injury free. Makes sense? When I had my clinic in Cairns, one of our main slogans we sort of used to run with was keeping active feet healthy. So I pretty much told people that was the niche that we were actually headed in is keeping active feet healthy. Not keeping diabetic feet healthy, it was active feet.

But you might call yourself the heel pain clinic. I don't think patients have to wonder, I wonder what that clinic actually treats at the heel pain clinic, or keeping children's feet healthy and pain free, or ingrown toenail centre of excellence. So they reckon the simpler something is, the better it is. Sometimes trying to be really clever can confuse people. And I've seen some business names where you see the name of the actual business, and it gives no explanation whatsoever of what the business even does.

No, the vagueness is where you lose a lot of people, right? So if you can be specific about that specific type of thing you wanna do, whether it's the name of your business or it's like a slogan that you use in your marketing, just communicating clearly with patients is gonna make a world of difference. I think we I brought up this topic before. There was a clinic in Iowa called the Fungal Nail Clinic. Yes.

No no question what that What do they do? Do. Right? Exactly. So so if you can really, you know, niche down, not necessarily always the name of your clinic, but just, you know, it's a slogan, maybe just what you talk about, it's what you show on your website, it's what's on your Google business profile.

If you're communicating that that specific message about who you are and what you do consistently then there's no confusion and like what you said, when something's vague or the confused mind will say no. So just don't be vague.

Yeah. And like said when we had the clinic in Cairns we were pro arch podiatry. So I made up the word pro arch because of professional and arch supports, and then underneath, keeping active feet healthy. So when you put the business name together with what we said that it is that we actually did, to me, it made more sense. Which leads on to point number three.

Educate constantly. Become the teacher that your patients are actually searching for. Create videos, whether they're long form or short form videos. Write blog articles about the niche that you want to be known for. Appear on podcasts.

And then if you do appear on a podcast talking about a specific area, you might be talking about running shoes if you're into that. If you're on a podcast talking about running shoes, take that podcast and put it on your website. Don't it's I'm surprised the amount of guests I've had on the Podiatry Legends podcast who have come on, and we've spoken about, say, them, their business, what makes them fantastic. They haven't blown their own trumpet. They've come across super professional.

I'm thinking, if their patients heard this interview, they would love them even more. None of them put it on their website. They just don't put it on their website, and I'm thinking, they don't share it on their social media. They do the interview, and then they walk away from it. It's a missed opportunity.

Have a newsletter, and I know ninety percent of podiatrists don't. Don't bother about having one. And be social media. Just pick a channel and become really good at that particular channel. I don't think you can use every single channel extremely well.

Or I can pick one or two and just really dive into them with the message. And education builds trust. And once you build trust with your patients, that's when they'll actually start calling your clinic.

Yeah, they'll call your clinic and then also by educating your patients in some of these different formats whether it be a podcast or newsletter. Then they're gonna learn about all the different types of care you provide. One of the concerns is that you know, somebody comes in for orthotics, they don't know you do an ingrown toenail or that you do. Yeah. You know, forefoot or rear foot surgery.

So the more you can educate your patients not only will they call in and will you build trust with them, but they'll also be able to refer you to their family, their friends, their neighbors because they know that you do more than just that one thing.

Yeah. And when we're talking about you're creating some form of niche that was like ingrown toenails. If you want more ingrown toenails, then that's something that should be easily found on your website. Should be something that's in your newsletters. It should be something that you use in your other marketing, on your social media.

Do people just get you are a podiatrist that does everything, but you're specifically talking about one particular area a little bit more than others, which leads on the point four, make your website about the patient problems. The patients are searching for symptoms. We've said this so many times, don't talk about shockwave therapy and other treatments. Instead, just talk about heel pain, if that's what you're aware of, Achilles problems, plantar fasciitis, growing pains, and I know growing pains technically is not a growing pain, but use that terminology if you need to because that's what patients are searching for. They still have doctors telling them, I don't worry about your kids, they're just growing pains.

So unfortunately, you sometimes have to use the terminology that they're searching for, and then you can educate them later and give them the real information. It might be you wanna talk about fungal toner. Talk about the the problems first, not necessarily how you treat them, which we have mentioned on other episodes.

Yeah. Like you talked about just writing your the copy on your website on these pages in patient voice. Right? How are people searching for that online? If you're using a lot of medical terminology or jargon that kind of the lay lay person doesn't know anything about, like they're not gonna be able to find you.

So you didn't have ways to describe, you know, even if it's not perfectly the medical terminology learned in school, by speaking to patients in the way that they're used to be spoken to or the terminology they use, you're much more likely to surface on things like Google or ChatGPT or these places that are looking for answers to the questions that patients are asking.

It's funny when people used to come in with heel pain, I used say, oh, do you suffer? Are you suffering from what I call the oh shit phenomena? They go, what? I said, when you get out of bed, the morning you stand, go, oh shit, oh shit, oh it hurts. That's exactly it.

It was like two years later, I had a patient come in one day, I I've got this problem, but I think they call it the oh shit phenomena. And I just got a bit of a smirk on my face and went, okay. I know exactly what you're talking about. And yeah. So anyway, number number five.

I think you'll like this, Jim. Next one. Build the signature process. So give your approach a name if you need to. It makes things more memorable and easier for people to tell other people.

You might have the five step heel pain recovery plan, or the runner's return system, or foot function formula. When I did my business program, the twelve week podiatry business reboot, it's so much easier to give something a name like that, and then all the information is within that. It's easy for people to sort of connect with, and it's easier to to explain it. Named systems are actually easier to remember. And and think about some of ones that you may have taken part in yourself.

If you've done some form of system or taken up some form of program, I'll guarantee there's usually a name attached to it. And if you're talking to somebody else, you could probably tell them what that name was.

No. I love that. I think it like you said, if you just give someone a list of like the six or seven things, they're gonna forget those things on the list. But if you can, you know, create like a mnemonic or like the naming of that that approach and that process, I think it definitely is a bit more memorable. Know, that's why we, you know, we do that practice visibility scorecard.

You know, it's like we don't want to we don't want to describe every single detail into it. But if we say practice visibility scorecard to people, they they know what that is. Or when I do the online business x-ray for people, like I know what that is and it's maybe something that's gonna stick out and stand out a little bit. So yeah, I'm all about the the this kind of signature processes or or naming things that will show people the benefit. There's obviously steps beyond that, but it just helps kind of solidify the ideas in in the mind of the patient.

Yeah. It's and things like that are easy to remember. Like if you did the practice visibility scorecard with somebody and they had that done, they were talking another podiatrist and they said, oh, I I had the practice visibility scorecard done with Jim. Easy to remember this. Oh, I was talking to Jim and he did this and he did this and you don't need to worry about the details.

You just need to actually remember that name. So number six, collect success stories. Nothing beats proof. Testimonials. Now, I know they can't be used in every country.

And I'll admit, I'm not a fan of testimonials myself because I've never seen a negative testimonial. You never say, hey, can you do a testimonial for me? Yeah. Not a problem. Like, well, saw Tyson.

He was pretty average. I've I've had better. And yeah. But, yeah, if you're in the area and you can't get into anybody else, then go and see Tyson. Now, that's that's not a testimony you're gonna hear, so I'm not a huge fan of testimonials.

But reviews, I'm a big fan of reviews because a review can go anyway. Any business I look at, I really focus on reviews. But case studies, before and after stories and photos are fantastic, especially if it's got to do with the area or a niche that you wanna be known for. Video testimonials, once again, if allowed. And social proof reduces uncertainty and patients feel that they actually get to know you before they've even met you, especially if you're watching a lot of videos.

I tend to watch a lot of barbecue videos. And I've watched some of these for so long now that, yeah, my wife will come and say, what are doing? And I don't mention the show anymore. I mention the host's name. Oh, Duncan and I are just cooking a roast.

Because you just and people patients will do exactly the same with you. It's no different to a podiatrist hearing us every week. They get to know, like, and hopefully trust us. And I was talking to a podiatrist the other day, John the Podiatry, we'll call him. And his name was John, he was a podiatrist.

He contacted me to ask me some questions on a few things. I went through it with him. He says, I've got a he says, this is he says, this feels weird talking to you. And I said, why? I didn't say anything too strange.

And he said, oh, no. He says, I've listened to you on the podcast for so many years now that to talk to you in person just seems strange because I know the voice. I know you, but I know we don't really know each other. That is what you want with your patience.

Yeah. It's just building trust. Right? I think, you know, it's great that you can describe a diagnosis or treatment or those things on a website, but, you know, how do you kind of bridge that gap when it comes to getting someone to trust you? And like you said, by by showing instead of telling, you know, through photos or testimonials or reviews, it's a great way to kind of kind of build that bridge so the patient, when they come in, they feel like they they know you a little bit or they know they've had a family member that's seen you or they a neighbor recommended you or referred you.

So, yeah, finding those different ways to collect those success stories is a great way to to build that trust and to to get patients that could benefit from your services in the door.

Absolutely. So point number seven, speak everywhere. Look for speaking opportunities. Become visible at local branding clubs, at sporting groups, at schools. Go out to medical centers if you can and do talks there.

Business networking groups or even rotary. The more often you speak, definitely the better you get at it. And I know some people will sort of go, oh, I don't like public speaking. Just get over it. Whatever topic you're gonna talk about, you know better than anybody else.

Just get out there and do it if you can. And the more people that hear you speak, the more authority you will actually gain over a period of time. But I will admit, I totally understand the fear of public speaking. I was I was one of those people.

Was one of those people when all the conferences were in Las Vegas or in New Orleans. I'd be sitting in the very back with my, you know, podiatry school friends and just kinda hanging out there never thinking in the future that I would be up on stage and you weren't giving talks. But it's one of those things where you if you find the topic, I think it's a good way to determine, you know, what is your niche, your right niche. If it's a if it's a topic that you you would never want to talk on, maybe that's not the right niche for you. You're always gonna be a little bit nervous when it comes to public speaking.

That's normal. But usually, if there's a niche that you really, really like and you're very interested in and have that kind of, like, intellectual curiosity, you know, that usually kind of you're so interested in it, it sometimes can lead to you wanting to speak on the topic. And that's how it's been for me when it comes to, you know, Podiatry Marketing and to the online things where I can help out my colleagues. You know, I never saw myself as someone going on stage. Obviously, still get a few butterflies.

I still get a little bit nervous, but I know what I'm doing.

I'd say you should.

It's what I love doing and I know it's helping my colleagues. It's not I'm not as nervous as I as I once was, but just you get better by doing not just by thinking about it.

I was like, same. Someone had told me years ago that I'd stand in front of fifty, hundred, thousand people. No way was that ever going to happen in my lifetime. And I'll admit, when I'm going up on stage, I don't care how big the group is, I'm still so nervous before I go up there. But once you get through the first few minutes, then you just start start to settle in.

I think nerves are a good thing. To me, it that you actually I think it shows that you care about the topic because you want you want to do a good job. Number eight, build referral relationship. Tell referrers exactly who you help. Instead of just just send me anyone, say, if you see someone struggling with say chronic heel pain, tell them, that is my sweet spot.

That's the thing that I love treating more than anything else. All your professional referrers should know, or your whole referral network should know what it is that you wanna see more of. And if they know that, as soon as they see it, you're gonna actually be top of mind. Specificity creates referrals and keeping and you need to keep reminding them. If there's a video on something that's in your area that you thought was really interesting, you might send it off to your referral network and say, saw this, thought you might find it interesting, and that will remind them, oh, he sent us that because we know that's an area that he is extremely interested in.

I'm move straight onto number nine, Jim. Brand everything around your niche. So consistency matters. If you say you want more runners, then your website and your website screams toenails, you gotta ask yourself, what the what are you what are you doing? I had a a coaching client once, and he said, I want more marathon runners.

I love marathon runners. Just love every aspect of it. When I get a marathon runner, I come to the clinic, I get so involved with them that if I had a clinic that just had 15% more marathon runners, I'd be extremely happy. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about a niche service. Not your whole business, it's just part of it that is what keeps you really interested in what you're doing.

I go to his website and all there was was this big dirty foot, big chunky toner, and this dirty big hair clippers cutting it. And I went, if I was a marathon runner, that is not gonna make me walk through your front door. In fact, was terrifying. Use your website, your social posts, brochures that you do, your waiting room, your email signature. Just keep repeating the message everywhere that you want people to Especially if you wanted more runners or more marathon runners.

I totally agree. You have to be consistent with the the imagery and the the type of things you're putting out there because like I said, people don't know what you do. So you have to tell them. The way you do it is by authentic photos, building your website, building your online presence in a way that attracts those people to you.

Once you get an orthopedic surgeon, you get his website and every photo is on shoulders, but you've got a knee that needs to get operated on. He Yeah. Said, oh, yeah. I want more knee operations. Okay.

But you only do shoulders. I'm not really too comfortable about this. Or he only has knee photos, you can better get your neck operated on. Would you be you wouldn't be comfortable. And I think people are the same, mate.

Number 10 is create helpful resources. Become the obvious expert. You might create free guides. You might have checklists. There might be stretching sheets that have that people can get hold of.

Of course, videos, frequently asked questions. Give people something worth sharing with their family and friends. So if you have this information there, even though they may not use it themselves, if they know that the resources are there, if they have a friend that mentions something, they'll say, hey, go to this person's website and you can download this. Or they'll go, I'll download it for you and I'll actually give it to you. So that's why you need to do it.

Number 11, be seen where your patients are. Don't mark it everywhere. Go where your ideal patients already gather. Like if you're after sports people, you're to be around gyms, sporting clubs. It might be dance schools.

If you want if you want more dancers, you need to be seen or your message needs to be seen where dancers are gonna be hanging out. If you want more older people, then your message might be, okay, where do people who live in retirement villages, where do they hang when they're out and about socially talking with other people? Specific Facebook groups is another one. And if there isn't a group, just go and start one. That if you want more runners, it might be a good idea to be part of running groups on Facebook.

If you wanna help the elderly, maybe there's groups there that you can actually be be involved in. And let's say, fish where the fish are, or as we said in episode two thirty one, go where the buffalo are.

Yeah. Think you have to be be in front of your ideal audience, right, and your ideal patients. So that's that's the way you do it, right, is by kind of being present there, being valuable resource to them, be seen as that local expert by them, by some of the other ways like you talked about by speaking, by, you know, showing them on the website, by getting in front of those people and where they gather, you're gonna be a step ahead of the competition.

Yeah. And this is perfect. Lead into point number 12, stay consistent. Not just in your branding that I mentioned in point number nine, because authority isn't built in a month. Keep repeating your message, your content, your videos, your your presentations.

Just keep going out there and doing it. And eventually, people people will hear hear that message. And people often need to hear something, and I'm pretty sure do you remember marketing terms used to say, was it seven or 11 times that people need to hear or see your message before they will actually start taking any action on it? I know. I'm like that, I see something first.

Sometimes I need to see something five times before my brain even clicks of what they're even talking about.

No. Absolutely. I think you we get more bored or we feel like we're being repetitive much more when we think about ourselves. Know, oh, I put out a Facebook post similar to that or I put out a LinkedIn comment or something previously similar to that. But most people aren't we're we're paying much more attention to ourselves than other people are paying attention to us.

So it is important to, you know, repeat key messages, who you are, what you do, so people can find you in the future. Because even if there's a slight tweak to the message, keep putting it out there. Because if you're saying a bunch of different messages, you're gonna kind of it's gonna be white noise to people. But if you're very specific about a topic or a message, finding ways to put it out there to be helpful for people is super important.

Definitely. Point number 13, deliver an outstanding patient experience. Marketing gets patients in your clinic, obviously. Experience gets them talking. Every patient should be leaving thinking, you know, when they're in your practice, why that was different?

Or that was the best advice I've ever received or the clearest explanation I've ever received on that particular topic. And word-of-mouth grows niches faster than any form of advertising. If you do a great job on somebody so for example, I'll use marathon runner as another as example again. If you help a marathon runner because you want more marathon runners, that marathon runner probably hangs with other marathon runners because they're a strange little group. They sort of they all know each other.

They might know the half marathon group as well, but people will actually talk. So which leads on the point 14, own your local area first. You don't need to be the expert in your country. Initially, that's not where you should be starting. You might one day be the expert.

You might be the person that the TV stations are calling you up to to come on and talk. You should be the expert in your local area. Become like, saying Cairns, the Cairns, the heel pain expert in your town first. Or Brisbane's running injury podiatry, Sydney's children's foot expert. Local authority is easier to achieve and it is a lot more profitable when you're in your hometown.

Absolutely. Even your online visibility starts with kind of where you're located at. Right? So you can get that additional visibility then you can you can grow it in the future if you want to, but you gotta own your home territory before you expand.

And the last point is pretty much just never stop learning. Most experts or the people that are seeing it as experts or the leaders in a particular niche, they become leaders in that field because they are students of that field. They don't just learn it and go, hey, look at me, I know everything, and never learn anything else. They attend probably more conferences on that topic than anybody else. They are reading the research papers.

They network with other leaders that have that are in the similar niches because they actually talk and and they learn from each other. They they're constantly trying and testing out their own experiments, and they're trying to improve the systems on on the way that they actually do things. So the moment you stop learning, someone else will actually start catching up to your expertise and they will then become the expert like in your in your local area.

Yeah. It's all about lifelong learning and that intellectual curiosity. And once you find that niche that you really care about, I think it becomes easier to to, you know, want to attend or speak in conferences, read, or do the research yourself. The thing that you're drawn to should be your niche, and, hopefully, you'll it'll it'll drive you to a level of professional satisfaction and excitement to get out of out of bed every day to perform great care for the patients in your local area.

And just to finish up on, yeah, like a quote, people don't remember clinics that do everything. They remember clinics that are known for something. So when someone in your community says, you've got heel pain, you need to see, and they'll say to the podiatrist, exactly where to go because they'll know that that particular podiatry clinic is the best place to go for that particular problem. That's when your marketing is working, even when you're not the one that's actually pushing it. The goal isn't to become famous, it's to become the obvious choice for your patients who are looking for the help.

That's pretty much all you want. That's what niching is, just to be known for that that thing that you want to be known for.

And the goal is to be known for that thing and then that kind of flywheel of patients and a positive, you know, reputation and trust and online reviews and all these things are kind of working to spin that wheel to make your your clinic whatever definition of a success is to make your clinic more successful.

Okay, Big Jim. I think I've said enough on this topic. We will not talk about niching again for at least another 50 episodes.

That's a promise.

Maybe 45. We'll see what happens. Maybe next week. You don't know.

You never know, Tyson.

Okay, Big Jim. I look forward to talking again next week.

Sounds great, Tyson. Okay. Bye. Bye now. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

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