Create Your Own Speaking Opportunities

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 by my cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

I'm fantastic. Hey, big Jim. I hope you're keeping well.

Yeah. Things are going well. Yeah. What are we gonna chat about today?

Today, I wanna talk about creating your own speaking opportunities. And I know public speaking is not for everybody, and I'll touch on that at the end. But this came about in 02/2018, I went to went to Vancouver. And then we went and caught up with some friends, went to Vancouver for a family holiday, and then we're catching up with some friends in Power River, and then I was off down to Phoenix for business black ops. And and what had happened and I end up speaking at the Power River Chamber of Commerce luncheon, which they usually held every month.

And it didn't happen by accident. It it came about it was something that I actually created for nothing. And how it actually came about was I was back in the day, I was reading when newspapers were still around. I don't know if we even have a local newspaper, but when the newspaper was there. I remember flicking through it one day, and there was this ad, and it was promoting the speaker from out of town who was gonna be speaking at the Cairns Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

And it had the topic there, and I looked at them went, I could have spoken on that. It was a really simple topic. And I you know, I could probably name 10 people in Kansas that could have spoke on that exact same topic. And and then it may have reminded me of a of a quote I saw somewhere once that said, even Jesus had to leave town for people to listen to him. And it made me realize that by them inviting someone out of town who was speaking on a subject we all could have spoken on, but it created this intriguing mystery about, oh, who is this guy?

And all of a sudden, it was a it was a booked out event. And I thought, well, okay. If they could do that in Cairns with somebody and I went along to the talk, the talk was great. But once again, nothing I couldn't have probably done myself or somebody else in Cairns could have sort of presented. I thought, well, if that person created that excitement in Cairns, could I do the same thing in Powell River?

I thought, I know they're at chamber of commerce, gonna be there for a week catching up with some family friends. So I sent an email to Powerweb, and all of sudden, this and I just said, oh, how are doing? I've written a couple of books. I'm an author. I'm coming over from Australia.

I happen to be passing through there. If you happen to have a luncheon on that week, I'd love to speak. And I got an email back that same day going, yes, please. Pretty much. Okay.

I went, oh, okay. That that was very quick. And the next thing, I found out later, they didn't have a luncheon that week, but they put it on one especially because there was this famous Australian author coming to town. There was a write up about me in the paper. There was my photo.

There was the books I'd written. And next thing but they normally had 10 or 12 people at their luncheons when they had them on. There were 50 people there. I was met by the mayor when I arrived. He came to meet me.

The the mayor wanted a photo with this famous Australian author, then there was a write up in the paper with me after the event. I was like a celebrity in that town for a week. And my my wife and daughter just shaking their heads going, this this is so funny. My friends that I was staying with, they just shake it there. If for some reason, everyone in town thinks you're my brother, that they're my famous brother who's come back to town.

And I go, they do realize I'm not Canadian. I'm Australian. And what it made me realize, the biggest lesson from it was if you want to you can't wait for opportunities present themselves. You have to make things happen. And I I could've not sent that email, or I could've sent that email and they might have said no, which wouldn't have made any difference.

That was a long speech.

No. I mean, that that's a great example of when you take take the time to chase after an opportunity, how you're more likely to get it. Like, if you just sat around, not sent that email, kind of expected things, you know, have somebody find you on Amazon and in your book

Yeah.

And find out about you and invite you. That that's probably never gonna happen. But by taking the initiative and really taking action, you know, you made that happen. And I think it's it's pretty powerful example that, you know, can be used by people in our audience because we have things that are important to health and lives of people. Right?

And like you talked about, kind of when you get in front of an audience, you don't just have to be a great public speaker, but it's a great opportunity to kind of multiply your voice and your reach. And a lot of things we do in life has to be kind of one on one and you have to kind of push really hard just to do things on a one on one basis. But when you're in front of an audience, you know, you know, you like you said you had two newspaper articles, you're in front of 50 people. It can really not only it can really spread kind of the the word-of-mouth about who you are and what you're doing. And there's a lot of kind of okay.

It's a key thing key takeaways that can be beneficial to our to our listeners.

And it's one of those things, like I said, the worst thing that could've happened is that is they said no. But there was no way the chamber of commerce in Power River was ever gonna find me on Amazon and was ever gonna reach out to me and say, hey, Tyson. If you're ever in Power River, would you please like to do a talk? It really was up to me to do it. My only regret from that trip was that I should've done the same thing with the chamber of commerce in Vancouver, and I should've done the same thing with the chamber of commerce in Phoenix where I was going.

I never thought about that. I just thought, oh, I'll do this Power River 1 because I wasn't expecting them to say yes. And when they did, I got so excited about it that my focus went on to that, and I forgot about the other two places I was visiting. So to me, I think it's yeah. If you if you have a message yeah.

If you have a podiatry message that is worth sharing, then I think you should be out there sharing it. And there might just be, like, locally, might be to rotary groups or or different, yeah, other, like, local organizations in Australia lines and Apex to other big organizations. There's one in Kansas. I used to do the Cairns Independent Independent Retirees Association. I used to come and do a talk for them once a year.

They'd have about 50 people there. I'd turn up, do the talk, and every single time, about 10 to 15 of them would become patients. Because these were people who were retired but had too much money that they couldn't get any money off the government. So they used to get together and work out better ways of actually maximizing the the funds that they had. So a room full of people who have too much money.

And and I just chat I did I did a different talk with them each year. I'd sort of just mix it up a little bit. But if you got a a broader message, then I think you should share it with the profession. It's no different what you and I do, Jim. But with this podcast, we have an interest in marketing.

I think we're both quite good when it comes to actually marketing podiatry businesses. So we put this podcast together so we can share our message. So this is like our way of public speaking every week.

Yeah. I'll be honest. I don't always think I'm the best talker or best speaker, and there's lots of ums and ahs. Hopefully, if you're not counting them on the podcast and you're listening. But I think it is an opportunity, like you talked about, when you have a message and you have a a goal to help out either your community or your profession, taking that initiative, putting yourself out there, trying to improve and get better.

There's no substitute for just doing the work. Right? You can talk about how you wanna have a huge podcast or you wanna have a huge audience or you wanna make an impact, but until you're willing to kind of push publish on that first episode, you know, find somebody to do a, you know, a cohost with you, do it, you know, most every, you know, week. Get it behind the mic, turn on the lights, and and and kinda get out there and put yourself kind of out there. That that's the first step.

Yeah. And it's like you said, it's it's making it's taking that first step of of actually doing it. And there's no way that if someone had told me, like, when I was in my late twenties, oh, one day, Tyson, you'll be standing in front on a stage in Liverpool in front of a thousand people and and doing this talk, I would have said, there is no way on earth that will ever happen. I said, unless I'm wearing brown pants because that's what'll happen when I get up on stage. I said, I won't be able to talk.

And the first first, I was able to get through primary school, high school, university without ever giving a public presentation. I just just didn't do it. I said, did give me zero? I don't care. I'm not doing it.

And I didn't do my first one. I think I was 26, and the doctor invited me to speak somewhere. And for some reason, I said, yes. I don't know why. And it was the worst presentation I've ever seen in my life.

Anybody anyone who thinks they're no good at public speaking, if I had a video of that that day, they would just go, my god. That was atrocious. I turned a forty five minute talk into four and a half minutes. And I I couldn't get words out. I I probably passed wind as well.

I don't know. It was it was awful. And I walked out, and and the doctor came out, put his hand on my shoulder. And I thought he was gonna say to me, hey, Tyson. It wasn't as bad as what you think.

You still got the message across. He put his hand on my shoulder, and he said to me, Tyson, that was the worst presentation I've ever seen in my life. He said, it was embarrassing. He goes, if anyone ever asks you to do public speaking again, please say no. Never never put anybody through that again.

And it was really funny. I got my car and went, well, it can only get better from here, I suppose. For some reason, I just kept doing it. And then I'd read somewhere that when you learn to do public speaking, even poorly, if you just even though you most people, when you're nervous, the audience doesn't know you're nervous. They think you're excited.

But I read somewhere, the day you decided to do public speaking or you get better at it or or you put yourself out there, the more opportunities will actually open up for you. Like, I know, I was probably even in my it wasn't to my thirties that I really that I started to get better at it. I knew I was the president of my rugby union club, and I didn't get the presentation not because I didn't wanna have to get him to a talk. I'd won the trophy for best back, you know, won won the positions. And I knew I'd won it that year.

I think I was 32, and I didn't turn up to get the trophy because I knew I would've had to give a speech. I said, I'd just give it to me next year when it come when I turn up to play. So I missed out on so many things in life because of nerves because I was too scared to do it. But once I did it, things just started to improve.

Yeah. It's not so bad. I I was one of those people that, you know, as a student or resident where I'm just sitting at conferences thinking that, oh, I would never want to get up on stage. I could not I couldn't imagine doing that. And, yeah, it's amazing when you have a message or something you believe strongly in, how it gives you that confidence to go ahead and put yourself out there.

Right? I think that's Mhmm. Like you talked about taking that first step. There's gonna be some fear. You could prepare, you know, that's one way to help to kind of like limit, you know, how how scary it feels.

But, you know, at the very worst, you know, you fail and like you said, someone puts an arm around you, said that was horrible. And you, you know, you get up and you, you know, you fall down once and you get up again and you keep on getting up. And before you know it, you're you're decent and you're getting a message out there. You're helping people and you're you're making a difference. So I think I think, yeah, just everyone's got that fear.

Anyone who says that they're natural from the first talk they ever gave is, you know, full of it. So just yeah. There's different ways to address it.

Well, that's what Mark Twain says. There's two types of speakers. Those who get nervous and liars.

Exactly. Damn liars, I think.

So Yeah. And it and it's funny that I remember reading something about, and it said, in Australia, number one fear in Australia, public speaking. Number two, death by fire. So people would rather die in a fire than actually do public speaking. And what's funny, I think, in New Zealand or in Ireland or something, the number one fear is snakes, and they don't have snakes.

So isn't it crazy that we're we're afraid of things that probably will never happen? Something I wanna touch on because there's a few things I got a few ideas on how people can get into public speaking to sort of overcome some these fears. But one thing I just wanted to touch on too, whenever you're doing a speaking event anywhere, even if it's in front of two people, get someone to try and encourage them to take photos of you while you're talking. And and make sure you tell them what what you're trying to do with those photos. So you don't want every photo of just a big close-up of your head, and you don't want a photo where you're that far away.

You're not sure whether it's it's you or a yeah. Some stranger walking down the street. So I wanna I wanna photo, like, me here and the screen in this position so I can use it for, say, a quote. Or then I wanna close-up one that I can use for something else. Or I want one from the side if you can that may show the crowd.

So if they have the ability to do that, do it. The reason it's good if you can get some photos taken, even if they are bad ones, is you can then use them in your social media. And when I had one of the talks that I had done, somebody or the Power River 1, when I did that, I had my wife took some photos of me. I then posted it on their Facebook page and their social media when I got home. Somebody from the Australian Practice Managers Association saw that photo and saw the topic that I spoke on.

They then approached me and said, hey. We're gonna be run doing an annual conference in Cairns. Would you like to speak? Well, yeah. And they paid me, which was even better.

So that wasn't too and then from that one, somebody that was there who was a practice manager invited me to be the emcee at a four wheeler convention.

There you go.

Yeah. I've been on a four wheeler probably twice in my life, and here I am being the emcee, bringing guests up and asking them questions about four four wheeler safety. And but it it's surprising just as your confidence build, these opportunities actually open up to you.

Very cool.

So we should talk about overcoming the fear, though.

Yeah. What are those steps? What what what actions can people take to kinda inch towards public speaking, you know, getting in front of a thousand people like you did in Liverpool?

Yeah. Well, it's not easy. No. It's not. Okay.

So I've written down some steps here that I wanna go through with your thing report. One is we all know that not everyone likes public speaking. It's so if look at the yeah. If you're wherever you are right now, look around you, whoever's around you, majority of people do not like public speaking. So you're you're in the majority.

So you're not you're not weird that public speaking frightens you. I'm always impressed with my daughter. She's 19 now. And always been impressed even from a little kid. She's never had a fear about public speaking.

Just never bothered her. And I and I mentioned something to her one day. She said, why does it frighten you? Or why did it frighten you? Or I don't know.

I just get nervous. Get me. She goes, but why? You're just getting up there talking. And I think this is this is the one I was talking to, like, a seven year old who's pepping me up.

The seven year old's trying to figure out why was I nervous getting up in front of people. And the hurt was just just natural. And even this day, I feel still don't think it bothers her, but she also did dancing. So she performed every year in concerts and dance competitions. So I think just the presence of being on stage and being in front of people, I think if you do that from an early age, it it just seems to come natural.

So but for the majority, it was not natural. Obviously, Jim, you didn't dance.

I was not a dancer. No. No. I made some weddings on occasion when I was a kid, but

Yeah.

Not on stages.

Yeah. Even speaking at weddings, you know, like, I'm speaking at my wedding. Frightened the hell out of me. It's anyway, so I think the first thing you should do is start small and talk about something you know extremely well. Just start really small, a really small group.

So you might hold an information evening in your clinic, and it could just be for a handpicked group of patients or patients who got a certain problem. Pick a particular topic. You might do a, you know, a ten or fifteen minute talk, and you know that you know a hundred times more than anybody in that room when it comes to that particular topic on on podiatry. Nobody knows it better than what you do. And if you're not sure, next time you have a patient room, ask them questions.

Oh, can you tell me what this is? Can you tell me what that is? Explain they might know it. And to me, all you're really doing is what you would do when you're with a patient, you're explaining a problem, you're just expanding on a little bit more. You might pick a couple of problems, and you're doing it in front of a few patients.

And like I said, it starts small. And once you get your confidence up, then you can start building out the numbers. But when you get, you know, more organized and you're feeling better, then you can pick a particular subject that you've done numerous times with your patients, and then you might go and talk to a group of physios or doctors on that particular subject knowing you know more about that topic than anybody else. It's a it's a really simple one. It's a simple way to get started.

Now that makes sense.

And yeah. Because I one of the talks that I did here, wrote it down the title. It was orthotics and different materials. That was that was the title of the talk that I did for every rotary group when I went and visited I did it for patients when I went and visited doctors and physios. That was my topic.

Orthotics and different orthotic materials and why we use them. There was no way they were gonna know anything about that or more than what I did. It's impossible for that to happen. You can grab the the 10 best physios in the world, put them in a room. I'll tell you right now, you'll know more about orthotics and more about orthotic materials than anyone.

So it's a simple talk to do. You should be able to talk about it for ten or fifteen minutes. You can have demos there and wave them about. It it's a no brainer, that one.

But like you talked about, the more you do it, the better you're gonna get at it, the more you can kinda, like, find your own personality within the talk. Right? So maybe the first two or three times you're doing it, it feels kind of like you're not necessarily memorizing it, but it's kind of more dry and not as interesting. But as, you know, you get older, more experienced with the talk, more experienced in practice, then you can really add some examples, add a little flare to the talk. Mhmm.

You know, actually maybe what parts of the talk people engage with. Right? So if, you know, people are interested to hear more about how they're made or how they're customized or the way you fit them, then you can kind of build more of that story into your talk. So I think, you know, kind of being receptive to to who your audience is, number one. And then, you know, what they kind of like in the story or or the talk can be helpful for us, you know, the kind of feedback you receive.

Yeah. But when I do the twelve week reboot after each session, and even when I'm going to do the like, a two day live version of it, at the end of each session, I will normally always ask, what was your biggest takeaway from this? Because in my head, I know what the point the biggest points was that I wanted them to take away. So when I asked them, oh, what was your biggest takeaway? If they mentioned the points that I wanted to really, you know, point out, then I know I've done my job.

But if they start mentioning a few things, they're like, wow. Okay. I need to probably put more emphasis on the things that I wanted to talk about or because it was sometimes you'll do a talk and someone will find something that you said, oh, when you said this, that was the most interesting thing. You go, really? Was it?

And then other people, yeah. Yeah. It was. That was really interesting. So whenever I used to do a talk, I'd do it the reboot, anytime I did a public speaking.

Afterwards, I would sit down as soon as I could and get, if I did that talk again tomorrow, what would I change? And I'd note down what changes I make. Sometimes you walk away, know, I would change nothing. That went so well. And I would just leave the talk as it was.

But I I think it's good to reflect on it as well.

For sure.

And the bottom line, at the end of all this, the more public speaking you do, especially in your local area, the more patient referrals you will get. It just works that way because you're in a room of

magic.

You're a room of 50 people, and you're doing a talk whether it's, yeah, at a business women's group or a chamber of commerce. Anything locally where you've got numbers there and you're doing a talk, talking to 50 people at once is better than talking to 50 people one at a time. It's a lot faster, and it it just has more impact for for your business. So I found once I overcame the fear, and it took years. It didn't happen like I was good in three months.

It took a number of years to get better at, but it was something I kept working on that I saw my business grow the same way the more talks I was doing.

Yeah. Just getting that that local awareness is huge. And like you said, maybe those 50 people, maybe none of them had a foot problem at that time, but maybe as you know, maybe one of their member of their family, a friend, maybe in three months after that, they remembered your name because you gave a talk about something foot related. So there's kind of a compounding effect. If you do, you know, all you know, we do five talks with 50 people at them, that's 250 people Mhmm.

And then their entire network, and it can really kind of help, you know, get that local awareness for who you are and what your expertise is.

Yeah. And I think public speaking even almost comes back to part of marketing pillar number five, verbal marketing, which and networking is part of public speaking. I'm always surprised when you're at a networking event and somebody will you'll say to someone, ask, what do you do? And it's almost like they've never been asked that question before. I guess, seriously, you had a networking event.

People are going to ask you. So, Tyson, what do you do? Or or, well no. You should already have a work debt. When somebody says, what do you do?

Have a very well rehearsed fifteen or twenty second little micro bite that you just throw it straight away. Oh, I am ProArch podiatry, and our clinic focuses on keeping active feet healthy. That was what what he say to people. Yeah. We we focus a lot on sports people.

Prefer actually, prefer weekend warriors, make a lot of inserts for shoes, and it was very clear on what I was actually gonna say. I haven't thought about it in seven years, so that was a bit

That was good. That was pretty good recall considering it was seven years ago.

So to me, that's how natural know, you go to a networking event. You go to a party. People are gonna say, hey. So, Jim, what do you do? Bang.

And you just gotta bolt it out. So Jim, what do you do?

I own podiatry growth where I help podiatrists with digital marketing and finding more of their ideal patients. So that's that's what I do.

Oh, okay. Well well, I'm a physiotherapist. Would you be able to help me?

Depends on how big your budget is.

Do you work with other other health professionals or other businesses or mostly just podiatry? I've never asked you this

before. Mostly just podiatrists. Right? Like, I'd say, like, 90% of my clients have been podiatrists, but I you know, I've helped a few physios and a few, like, health coaches and stuff with some websites and things in the past.

Yeah. It's funny. Like, I predominantly just say, I only work with podiatrists, but I have done a little coaching last year for a swim school, an IT company, attrition business. And it's surprising it has similar business as business, but I prefer podiatry because I speak the language. Just easier.

Me too. I I I think it can be helpful to see how other professions and other trades, like, kind of what they're trying to achieve with their marketing so you can kinda, like, dial in on what's working for clinics and people in private practice. So but, yeah, it's it's good to have a a diverse skill set, but me too. Right? Like, I everything I write on people's websites, everything write in their blogs, things I I just know little things about the profession that other people just not that they take for granted, just don't see it because they've not been in, you know, through residency or through school or in practice like we have.

So.

Yeah. Well, like I said, I've mentioned it before where, you know, I spent two and a half, three years coaching dentists, work working with a dental company because I was working for them. And that was fine. And probably 95% of everything I spoke about was really easy, except there's that 5% of dental talk, and probably three out of the 5% I could get away with because my brother's a dentist. So I understood the language a bit better, but there were some things I I I don't know what it's like to pull a tooth out of someone's head.

Yeah.

But I do know what it's like to remove an ingrown toenail. So it's a it's a little bit Me too. Yeah. Yeah. That crunchy feeling.

Anyway, Jim, I think we've covered this. If people are if if you're nervous about public speaking, that's all I wanna fish on. If you're nervous, it's natural for most people. So just realize, start small, and just gradually work your way up, and it will it will it will change your life if you can overcome that fear big time.

I couldn't agree more. I think, you know, being nervous just means you care. Yeah. Sometimes the nerves because you wanna either you wanna sound like, you know, you're talking about, which is important to have a good image. You know, you wanna make sure you're helping people and not, you know, saying things or sounding like you're you're you wouldn't sound like the expert.

Right? So it's normal to have these nerves. You're human. So but the only way to kinda get past them or to kind of push them down a little bit is by putting in the work in and taking those opportunities. So I really think this has been a great topic today, Tyson.

And hopefully, we'll get some more public speakers from that'll be following your advice in the profession.

Yep. No. That'd be fantastic. Okay, Jim. Talk to you next week.

Sounds great.

Okay. See you. Bye.

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