Choosing A Marketing Service Provider

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

So welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. I'm Tyson Franklin, and my cohost is big, Jim McDannald. Jim, how are you doing today?

Tyson, I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I still chuckle every time you call me big Jim, but, you know, being 59, 1 40 5, you know, like, I guess I guess I did earn that title, but You did. Thanks for

I was gonna do it almost like like the wrestling. I was gonna lean right into the microphone and and try and get the really echoey voice happening, try to do some sound effects, but didn't worry about it. So, Jim, what are we talking about today?

So today, we're gonna talk about different ways of delivering podiatry marketing and like who like how do you get started? Once you decide it's something that you think is viable for your practice, just like really breaking down kind of some pros and cons as far as different options you have to move forward with your podiatry marketing efforts.

So this is like when people say, oh, I want to do marketing, but I don't have time. So they're not sure where to start, or do they do it themselves, or do they outsource it? What what do they do?

Yeah. Exactly. I think that's that's kinda where people run to, and they, know, they finally see that, okay, this is something that I should be doing, but, like, what is what what are my options? And, like, kinda, like, what are the pros and cons of those? So I'd say the first one, like you said, is, you know, can you do it yourself?

Right? Like, do you have time? Do you have some kind of either marketing background or digital knowledge? You know, like, obviously, if you're part of a large practice, maybe this stuff is already taken care of for you. But if you're in a small practice, you got more time than money, you know, maybe at least learning some of the basics can be a beneficial thing.

And then, you know, if you've done some more digital stuff, you know, building out your own website or looking into some of these other digital channels is an option. But that's kinda where most people start is that, should I do it myself? Or, you know, as they run out of time and they have more money than time, it's like, okay, like, I don't really wanna do it myself anymore. Like, who can I bring on or what are my options at that point?

But it's and it also come down to what you like doing. So it'd be like if you sort of go, I don't like marketing. I really just the whole thought of having to do it, I just don't enjoy it. Not that it's cringey and I don't believe in marketing, but I just don't want to do it and I don't wanna learn how to do it. So that's perfect for that person because they may have the time to do it.

They might have the money to do it, but they just don't wanna do it.

Yeah. If they don't have the passion for it or the passion to really, like, you know, know how to kind of drive ROI and really just make sure that it's a profitable enterprise for themselves, you know, then it's then it's that kinda at that crossroads where, you know, what am I gonna do and what is that kind of, like, path that you wanna walk down after that?

So if somebody was thinking, should they just get a one company and just get it all done by that one company or that person? So like, you're an individual person. Me, personally I I if I was going to get somebody to look after all my marketing for me, me personally, I would rather talk to just one person. None of them might have a team behind them, but I just wanna talk to the one person.

Yeah. There's definitely a couple of different ways, you know, different layers as far as kinda when you start walking down that path. I think the first step is that, you know, do you feel you know, do you wanna outsource it? Is it something you wanna hire on, you know, to have someone on staff? And each one of those has definitely some some benefits and, you know, some upsides and downsides.

Yeah.

I'd say for an outsourcing standpoint, you know, the first thing is like, hey. I hear it a lot, and sometimes, like, how how do I knew how like, who to trust and where to go? Right? Like, you know, who's done it in the past as far as in podiatry marketing for other clinics, who other people worked with? You know, should I work with somebody locally if I outsource it?

That's the kind of the first step is this kinda like, what is the outsource opportunities? And then also it's like, well, maybe it would make sense. We're either a big enough practice now where we could hire somebody in, but then, like, it's the same kind of thing. Who has a skill set? How much are you gonna have to teach them about podiatry if they don't know about the profession?

You know, what what is you know, what have they done previously, and how well does that translate to kind of the nuances of medicine. Obviously, you're marketing medicine and health care, it's a different kind of you know, the rules are a little bit different than they are for products or for other types of services. So it is just kinda like, if you're gonna go down the outsource or the hiring route, like, knowing kinda what you're getting yourselves into in those two realms.

Yeah. I think it's I think it's really important too because, like, I enjoyed marketing, so I never had a problem doing it myself. As I got busier and the clinic got bigger, I then employed somebody to help me. So I employed them in house, and we actually worked together doing things. And while I was then, say, seeing patients, they were looking after certain things for me, making sure stuff was done, boxes were ticked, dots crossed, dotted, t's crossed, doing all that doing all that sort of yeah.

My grandma they just showed my grandma then, didn't I? But I do know other people that they Yeah. They found someone and they just prefer to to outsource it and not take care of it themselves at all.

Yeah. And I think they're the I don't think either one of those is like necessarily like better than the other. It's kind of what's more comfortable for the person in charge and kind of what they what they wanna what they wanna do and what they wanna oversee within their practice. Right? If they had the bandwidth to kind of manage it or just to to have it in house, if that's more efficient for their time.

It's just kinda one of those things too. Right? Like, you have to know what that level of that person you're bringing in if you do hire somebody. Right? And you you probably don't wanna try to do all the things at once.

It's one of those things where, like, you have maybe it's email marketing or website stuff, and then the the person can kinda scale up as you're working with them. But also, like you talked about, like, you know, if you're gonna you know, outsourcing is also a great opportunity because maybe someone doesn't have to be brought up to speed. Yeah. There may be, like, a monthly check-in after a period of time or maybe there's an onboarding process for a couple weeks where there's a lot of close collaboration. But after you get the kind of rhythm and flow of what's working, you know, developing an active plan together doesn't necessarily mean that the practice owner or the podiatrist has to be, like, in the weeds every day talking to, like, the outsourced person.

It's just like maybe it's like a monthly check-in, you know, that this kinda sees where things are on a monthly basis or something really in-depth on a quarterly basis to make sure that, you know, those targets you're shooting for together are being met. And if not, how do you change course to make sure that, you know, as the practice evolves, the marketing plan around the practice evolves as well.

How how does somebody identify someone who's dodgy? Because that's that's one thing where I've had people say, oh, I I've worked with somebody and I worked for him for six months, got no results, and and then I found out they closed up shop, and they they were no good. I saw a I saw someone on Facebook a couple weeks ago now, and they said, oh, for $99 a month, we will do so many Facebook posts for you, and we'll do this, and we'll give you a monthly report. And I'm like, seven posts of what? There was nothing there about we will talk to you and and work out a strategy and what is it you're trying to achieve with your business.

So I know you could quite easily sign up for these different companies who yeah. They'll do seven Facebook posts for you a month or a week, but are they posting the same stuff on your Facebook page as they are on another 50 podiatry clinics? There's no consultation with you, what your strategy is, or where you wanna take your business, which would completely change how they would deliver the content.

Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some, like, some red flags that get raised. If you're getting, like, you know, cold called out of the blue or, you know, there's just certain, you know, aspects. If someone's not you know, has never worked with a podiatrist before but claims that they're gonna, like, you know, generate, like, an extraordinary amount of new patients, you know, say, like, we're gonna get you 50 new patients this month. Like, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

You know, there's different ways to kind of, like, filter some folks. You know, if if someone's, like, spoken at, you know, like, a state or local association, it doesn't necessarily mean they're, like, automatically great. But, you know, maybe you're they'd speak at an association and they, you know, they provide some references. Right? Or or if you go to their website and you see that they've been working with some different podiatric clinics and you reach out to those podiatric clinics, it is definitely worthwhile, I think, to get some, to do some due diligence on the backgrounds of some of these folks.

Because, you know, like, even if some people work with a lot of podiatry clinics, that doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna get, like, a custom plan or something personalized. And it's also where you're at in your practice. Right? Maybe you're just getting started off and you have zero money, like, someone's gonna charge you $500 a month just for a website and for a little bit of stuff, that's enough maybe. But, like, you need to know that, like, it's not always the most expensive is the best because I'm sure there's some charlatans out there that just wanna, like, charge you ridiculous amounts of money.

But, you know, there is, you know, you have to know whether you're, like, kind of in a situation where it's more like, let's say, like, a boutique or more of a customized and personal situation. So that's, like, people that are onboarding you, asking you a question about your practice, really helping you build out a website that's very feels very custom and not as cookie cutter.

Yeah.

And some templated some some templates compared to other ones are okay, but it's pretty easy to tell, like, unfortunately, it's pretty easy to tell, like, three to six months into a contract, like, how somebody operates as opposed to, like, the kind of dog and pony show they give you at the beginning. Right? Like, we've worked for if if they said they've worked with over, like, 50 to a hundred clinics, it's probably a sign that you're just kind of another number and another person they're gonna hand off to, like, their kind of, like, customer service manager. And you'll really not never have kind of a close contact with anybody that really I don't know, like truly understands the profession or the person that's building or writing the stuff on your website.

So it's like two two extremes. You can go to a company that's really big, who says, we work with a hundred clients, so you know you're just one of a hundred, and the person who's looking after your stuff could be anywhere around the world, and they're probably chopping and changing all the time. And then you got the other extreme where and I think I told you a story when I was at a a networking breakfast, and we're all there. Most of us are adults. And this dude turns up on a skateboard because that's how I usually arrive to my networking breakfast for business.

So he rocks up on a skateboard, and so I said, told him, so what do you do? And he goes, I do online marketing for people. Fair enough. I said, how long have you been doing that for? He says, six months.

And I said, so you any good? He goes, not really. But I'm getting better with the more clients I get, the better I'm getting. He says, don't tell anyone. He said, by actually just learning off of their off of their coin.

And I wonder if hit him over the head with a skateboard because I thought that is what is wrong with that. Yeah. Because anybody can just yeah, need any qualifications to say, I can help you with your online marketing. Anyone

can. No. For sure. No. The a %.

And I think one thing you made me think of too is a red flag is that you need to make sure that the the purpose you're working with is willing to, like, basically have a non compete, meaning that they're not working with the same clinic just down the road or their platform doesn't allow for people that are basically gonna have almost an identical website, identical functionality, exact identical marketing as you, you know, advertising on the same keywords as you just because you're using the same service provider. So I think that's another thing always to ask is like, do you, you know, does your service or do you are you the provider for any of the kind of like local other local podiatry clinics? Because like it or not, there's gonna be a conflict of interest there.

Oh, definitely.

But it's not this is not an illegal thing. It's more of a a trust in a moral or a issue than it is, you know, from a business perspective.

Well, coaching is exactly the same thing. I know some of these, like, larger coaching organizations where if they've got a hundred or a 50 clients that they're looking after, I almost guarantee there's gonna be clients that are very close to each other, and there could be a a slight conflict. Whereas, I know when I do coaching, if I'm dealing with someone in a particular area and somebody else approached me from that area, I'd say, can't. I can't do it because I just can't do it. But that's just me.

No. I mean, that totally makes sense. Right? Like, it just yeah. You you have that kind of like the moral certainty that like you're providing the best service for this one person in this area, you're just doing the best you can for them.

I think it just keeps everyone aligned with the same incentives. And you're not kinda like wondering, okay, like, which Google ad is gonna get shown? Like, what am I bidding? Because, like, sometimes you can actually physically bid up a keyword in a local area against yourself or against the two clients you're working with, you are in that if you put yourself in that predicament. So I would definitely ask if they have any other local clients.

That's another red flag.

Yeah. But and it is true because if you're working with somebody with this marketing or with coaching, you put your hat on and I want them to be the best in their area. How can I help two people be the best in their area at the same time? So if I was working with someone and they left, then somebody else came on board, then my focus would be on them. And I think it works exactly the same as finding a provider to help you with your marketing.

No. For sure. That definitely is makes a big difference.

So somebody's listening to this and they're going, okay, Jim, where do I start? Wait. How do I find this right other than yourself, of course.

Yeah. Well, I just wanna touch base real quickly on the kinda all in one versus multiple providers. I think that we touched it on a little bit. But it's like one of these situations where, like, you know, if you do sign up with a big company, like, yes, there are definitely value adds to having kind of a a big company that can kind of do repetitive processes that have worked for them with other clients, but you're also kinda losing that direct human human contact. And, you know, you're probably gonna have a salesperson that's gonna sell you the package.

You're gonna have maybe, like, a content team, like a writer, a website designer. But there'll be probably a project manager that'll be the person you work with, and then they'll hand you off to a customer service rep probably at the end. So if you have problems or issues, your site goes down, or you get a horrible Google review, you probably get, like, one person, then we'll have to talk to, like, three to five other people, which is if that's what you want, that's totally fine. But, like, that's what you're getting when you probably pay a little bit less for one of these kind of multiple provider services. But if you're looking to have, you know, obviously, a consultant or expert that kind of like it's like a single point of coordination, I would say, you know, doing your email marketing, doing your Google Ads, and obviously, full full disclosure, this is what I do.

Yeah. But, like, when you have that person that you can just turn to once a month, that's the person that's writing this stuff on your website. That's the person maintaining it. You know, the turnaround and to be able to communicate like that, it's just a different level of customer service that obviously requires to be a bit more expensive. But at the same time, you know, you have to be feel it's right for you and for your practice.

And, you know, whether that's a podiatrist that now does marketing or, you know, a bigger, you know, conglomerate or a digital marketing provider that's more software based, that's less personalized, you've gotta figure out what's right for you.

Yeah. And and even when you're thinking old school marketing, like, up here where I live in Kansas, a number of, like, media companies they call themselves where they will do instead of you working with, say, newspaper rep, magazine rep, TV, radio, online marketing, you can do that individually, which is what I used to do. I used to work with everybody individually because I could screw them down to a really good deal, and I knew how to do it. It was an art form I had created over a number of years, or you could go to a agency, and they would deal with all these different people for you. And and I could see the advantage of some people wanting to do that because it saves them time dealing with one person.

They say, this is my budget for the month, and I would let them sort of dish it around everywhere. But dealing with individual people for different areas was beneficial for me, but I know are you some media agencies that really didn't know what they were doing? They provided all the services because that's what they had to do, but they really did not know what they were doing. And it really all it took was a bit of questioning to actually find out. It goes back to what you said before about asking them questions about who they're working with, what have they done in the past.

One thing I used to say to every sales rep that ever walked into my clinic, one, tell me, oh, hey. Nice to meet you. Say, tell me what you know about podiatry. Before you before you put that proposal in front of me, which I know you spent so much time doing putting together, what do you know about podiatry? And you'd be surprised how wrong their answers were.

But I'm just like, but they go, oh, but this proposal's perfect for you. And I go, but what you just told me is what I do. Oh, yeah. But this proposal's perfect.

And I think you nailed it. It's about, like, that tight focus on actually knowing what podiatry is and being able to shed a positive light on it in a yeah. In a personal way that really connects with those potential patients. So yeah. Everyone kinda finds their own way down this path of, you know, find the person to deliver their marketing services.

Well, I know I know for a fact that if someone wanted to say do a Google words, Google AdWords, and they want to put something together, if they come and spoke to you as a podiatrist and said, this is what I wanna do and how can I achieve it, it would make more sense talking to you than talking to a complete stranger in another company that's never dealt with a podiatrist? Even if they go, oh, but we've got all the tricks and the tactics. Well well, actually, Jim has all the tricks and the tactics and podiatry knowledge.

Well, you also have to speak you have to speak patient and you have to speak podiatrist. Right? And I think, you know, some and if you don't know the terminology that podiatrists use and you don't know the terminology that patients use, there can be a great disconnect. And I think that's where this kind of translating some of these things that we talk about as podiatrists into the the language patients use is hugely important. And, you know you know, sometimes these agencies or large organizations, they can kinda throw around some of terminology to make us feel comfortable.

But if they can't do the real translation of those two things, then it's just like it won't connect or it'll just fill off to potential patients.

Yeah. The person I know who not to talk to is don't talk to me because I don't wanna do it. It's like, I I love running my marketing workshops and putting together like, looking at marketing as an overall structure and strategy of putting it all together. But when it comes to the actual doing, that's where if it's anything to do online, I would just push them to you or somebody else that I know. I wouldn't do it.

Well, I appreciate that recommendation. I definitely this podcast is not meant to be a shill Jim McDaniel's Podiatry Growth Services, but it's a Oh, why not? I definitely

We may as well It's some it's something I Should blow your own trumpet occasionally. Just like, know when it comes to business coaching, when it comes to business coaches, I blatantly toot my own horn that I think I am one of the best business coaches going around for podiatrists. I don't don't shy away from them at all. But and when it comes to marketing, like online stuff, I would yeah. I think you are really good at what you do.

So you should blow your blow your own trumpet. I I should have a trumpet on here as my sound effects.

Well, I love doing it honestly. Like, I got into this because I had, you know, classmates and residents residency mates who, you know, kinda felt like they're having the wall, like, kinda pulled over their eyes. So to kind of at least give people, like, a straight a straight shooter, like, here's what to expect information that can be valuable to them. You know, that that brings me a lot of joy to be able to provide that to my, you know, fellow podiatrists out there, whether they're in The US, Canada, around the world, it definitely something that we all feel driven by something in my I I feel driven by the kind of intersection of podiatry and marketing. So I'm I'm always excited to get on these calls with you, Tyson, and and hash it out for around a half an hour and, you know, help out our podiatrists that are around the globe.

Yeah. And I will point out to everyone, Jim does not pay me a cent to blow his trumpet for him. Maybe maybe I should have set that up before. Jim, give me a cut. But it is.

It's sort of it's one of those things that, like you said, you love doing what you're doing. I love doing what I'm doing. This podcast, the podiatry legends podcast, doing the coaching, I just get such a kick out of it. And it's not just the work that you do and the people you work with, it's the end result that you see other people get. And you don't know where that is gonna go in the future.

The person you help, who are they gonna help next and what are they gonna achieve in the world? So, Jim, have you got anything else to say? Any final comments before we wrap up?

No. Think there's just there's a lot of different ways that podiatry marketing services can be delivered. Obviously, you know, you know, rewind, listen back to this podcast as far as what I think are some different options, what the pros and cons are. And then if you ever have questions about these topics, you know, Tyson and I are available. So feel free to check out, you know, podiatry.marketing and get in touch with us.

Okay, Jim. Talk to you next week. Look forward to it.

Sounds great, Tyson. Bye now.

Okay. Bye.

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