Effective Networking and Word-of-Mouth Strategies

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 trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

I'm fantastic today. Big Jim, aka the host.

I'm not the host. I mean, we're co hosts.

Know? Co hosts.

We're equal we're equals.

We are. We are equals. It's no. No.

Are more equal than others.

No. No. Everything's good. We're still in winter in Australia, so it's perfect time of year to be out in the tropics. This is when everybody flocks up here.

Because summertime, it will kill them. Probably very similar to Florida. In summer, most of America stay yeah. In summer, rest of America stays away from Florida. And then during the winter, everyone goes there.

Same here. Which is a good segue into today's topic, which is, in case you're wondering, effective networking and word-of-mouth strategies. This topic came about because somebody asked me to do a presentation on this not so long ago. What I love about it what I like about this topic more than anything else is my podiatry clinic was built around networking. And when I first came to Kansas to set up my clinic, I had gone to a networking event, and I just happened to bump into this guy who owned a car dealership.

It was a family car dealership. They'd been part of Cairns community for decades or generations. We got on really well, and pretty much a week after that event, he came as a patient. His wife came in, his parents came in, his kids came in, friends that he worked with came in. And I said, wow.

That was all from just one networking. So I went back to it the following month, thanked him for all the referrals and for coming in himself. And he said, oh, he started introducing me to people. And then as he introduced me to the next person, they said they're coming in. And so I picked up really early the power of networking, just meeting the right people, making good connections.

When I sold my business twenty five years later, he was one of the patients who came in because he knew I was selling. He came in on my last week, and we were laughing about how long he had been a patient for, how many pairs of orthotics he'd gotten, how many people he'd referred. And so, yeah, I've always been a fan of networking because of that. The friends I've made, the the people in the closest within Cairns have usually been people I've connected with over the years.

That's cool. I think that yeah. It's amazing how one connection can kinda, like, change your life or, you know, send you off in the right trajectory. So you never know that next person you have a conversation with or get to know at a either a networking event or some community event could be someone to make a big difference with your future.

Well, that's on the back of my wall. The next connection will be the one that changes your life. That's why I say that.

There you go.

And and I always say even, like, effective networking and word-of-mouth. The reason it's it really matters, especially in the digital world because so many younger people are just used to, I will just connect with them online. Yeah. That's fine. But nothing beats that face to face connection, which is why people go to conferences.

They go there. You can do a lot of learning online, but you go to a conference, especially the smaller group ones where you actually get to spend some time with people and not meet as many people, you usually take more away from it. So they reckon that in a survey, 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know. Especially in the allied health industry, your reputation is your your currency. So the more you can meet people and the more referrals you can get from other people that are quite positive, the better it's actually gonna be for your business.

And the other benefit of when you get referrals through networking is usually those referrals, the quality is up here. It's so much better than just some rando that just comes in off the street. You may have seen some of your advertising, may go on your website. But I I have a quote that I posted recently on Facebook, and it said, Google gives you choices. Websites educate, but personal connections are the things that will close the deal.

So somebody will go. They might be, you know, in Google searching. Oh, I've got sore heel. So they're looking around. And from that, they figure out, oh, I have plantarus fasciitis they can't they can never say it.

Because they're just watching a movie recently and they were trying to say it. They figured they got plantar fasciitis, heel pain. So then they realized, I need to see a podiatrist. So then they look at all these different websites. There might be three or four podiatrists in the area.

They check out the websites to get more education and yep. This is definitely where I need to go. I need to see a podiatrist. Now while they're choosing, even if they said to a friend, I've gotta see a podiatrist, they go, well, my podiatrist, Big Jim Mac, awesome bloke, helped me out, same problem. Straight away, wouldn't matter what else is said on those websites.

That referral from that friend is gonna be more powerful than than anything else.

I think in medicine especially, trust is everything. And you wanna make sure that, you know, you don't have there's not a lot of redos when it comes to surgery or, you know, you wanna get back to being as healthy as you can as quickly as you can. So when you can get a referral from a trusted individual, whether it's a friend, a coworker, a family member, it means a lot more. And, like you said, in this kind of the word-of-mouth, the trust, you can get those quality patients through those those channels definitely.

And it's and just think about when you've had a recommendation to even go to a restaurant, you're tossing up between, oh, where do we go for dinner? I in February, we went down to Mission Beach. Before we went down there, a friend said, if you ever go to Mission Beach, you need to go to Charlie's Beach House, the best smoked brisket you'll get anywhere. Okay. We're going down there, and Chris and I were thinking, we're gonna go out for dinner tonight, Charlie's Beach House.

We went there, and it lived up to the reputation. We all do it. We do it every day. So that's why you need to be aware why you need to be networking and meeting people. So if you're an awesome dude or dudette, if you're a female, then but if people need to know you, they need to get to see you in the flesh so that they can talk about you later on.

Always say when you're in a networking event, there's there's some reason why networking will fail for some people. Other than they might go, oh, I'm really shy. Don't like to do it. Get over it. It's not that hard.

Just talk to you're just talking to people. But there's two types of networking. One is what I call passive networking. This way, you'll go to an event, you'll collect all these business cards from people, and you'll do nothing with them. And you end up with a and I've done this in the past.

You'll end up with a pile of business cards that just keeps stacking up, and you're meant to do something, but you never actually do it. Active networking is where you're purpose driven. So you're making connections because you want there to be mutual value between you and them. So when you're actually talking to someone, they may not need a podiatrist right now, but get to know who they are. They will and if they're curious about who you are, once you meet them multiple times, you'll find that they will refer people to you and that all they will come to you themselves.

They won't they won't go somewhere else. So I always say quality is better than quantity. So when you go to a networking event, don't try and meet everybody. Just try and be remembered by two or three people. If you can walk away knowing two or three people, that your job is done.

That's a great point. I think, like you said, sometimes you'll see networking as a way to, like, almost speed dating speed dating in a way. Like, I'm gonna go spend, like, two minutes with that person. I'm gonna go to give this person my card. It's, like, bouncing around the room is not the way to go.

If you can get into conversation with someone for fifteen minutes or twenty minutes, have an interesting you know, ask them about themselves, let them talk. You know, it it really build it really builds trust and a rapport with someone that, you know, maybe the time next time you see them or maybe at the end of the conversation, they'll ask about what you're up to and who you are. So it's it's one of those things if you the more you give, the kind of the more you get. And when when I say giving, giving your attention to someone, actually listening, asking them questions about themselves, and not trying to like you know, I think sometimes networking gets a bad reputation because people feel like it's a way to weasel in or sell people on what you do. But when it when it comes to it, you know, you're you're a member of a community, you wanna hear about, you know, what, you know, what people are up to.

And I think by showing that attention and having that curiosity about them, they can help. But actually, most people that are, you know, in the know or are reasonable will kinda shower some of that attention back onto you in the future.

Yeah. And and networking isn't just going to a networking event. Some people might be thinking, oh, does that mean I have to go to, yeah, like a BNI? I think it's a business networking international. That's what BNI stands for.

Something like that. Maybe. I know it's a big I know here in Cairns, we got BNI chapters all over the place. And some people look at them and they go, oh, I can't stand that sort of stuff. That's fine.

I'm not a fan of that either. It's just I I never have been, but I do enjoy going to local business lunches because you then know this when when you look at your patient, yeah, the patients you see, your ideal patient, and when you've got them in your clinic, you talk to them. What do they do? Do they go to certain lunches? Because if if that's one of your ideal patients, there's a big chance that they hang around other people that are very similar to themselves.

Even when I was at that business event where I was doing this talk, how we did it, we did roundtables. So I wasn't up at today's talk, and we'd sit at a table. There were seven different topics, and the people at the event could rotate around to each of those table, but they could only pick three. So when I got to this topic about don't try and meet everyone, just be remembered by a few, at the table, there were eight people at my table or nine people because there's 10 people at the table. There were nine people that joined my table three times.

And I said to them, I said, this is the fourth time I've been here and talked on different things. And I said, I know you, when I pointed someone at the top, and I know you. I met you the first time I was here. And there was somebody else at the that said, I met you the third time I was here, and they said, you and they said, you, I've never met you before, But by the end of today, we're gonna know each other a lot better. And two of them, I've got organized to come on my other podcast, Podiatry Legends.

Nice. And I just do this each time I go there. I I see a lot of people, I say hello to a lot of people, but I only focus in on usually about two to try and get to know them a little bit better and find out more about what what they do as well.

That's a great point. Like you said, it's it's the quality of the connections you make, not the quantity.

So they bring this four levels of business networking. The first one is visibility. You'll go to an event, you'll talk to a few people, and people will know you exist. Say, for you, I'll use my old podotic. Pro arch podotic.

I'm like, oh, yeah. Pro arch podotic. Sort of heard of that. Then there's what they call credibility. This is where they've heard about you for a little while.

They've they've seen you around. They trust you, and they once they get to meet you, they go, okay. You're you're quite a professional person, which is great. The third level is what they call profitability, and this is where the people at Networking are starting to refer people to you, and you may be referring people back to them depending on the industry. But what you wanna get to is what they call the fourth level, and this is where you this is legacy.

This is where you are top of mind and where you become the go to podiatry business in town. When I had ProArch Podiatry, we could go to any event, and even if the people were seeing another podiatrist for whatever reason bad choices, I suppose. But if I was seeing if I was seeing another podiatrist, even if I said, hey. How are doing? And I said, oh, I am ProHeads podiatry.

They went, oh, I know exactly where that is. And then I would actually ask them out of curiosity. Why did you go to another podiatry clinic? And usually, was always, they were just around the corner from where I worked or the near where I lived or my mom was going to this one. It was a lot of word-of-mouth.

They they were referred to the to those other clinics.

Absolutely. I think it it's it's really, really important to kinda go through those steps, and you can't rush them. Right? If you're trying to you know, I think that's what I see when people sometimes network. They're trying to get to level two, three, or four on the first visit or the first time to meet somebody.

And maybe you can, but you shouldn't be pushy. I think sometimes people, they get too excited, and you just gotta take your time and, you know, just kind of work your way to build that trust.

Yeah. It's like you don't ask your wife to marry marry them on the first date. And that's what some people do at networking events. They they pretty much walking up here going, will you marry me? And they're like, woah.

Can imagine when you met your wife, if the first night she said, I want you to marry me, you'd be going, woah, fruitcake. You just back

Yeah.

You'd back away. I was planning how good they look, I suppose. Eventually, you'd back away. But I could just picture that. If I'd walked up to my wife the first time we'd met and said, will you marry me?

She would've just run for the hills. And that's what happens at networking events. If you come on too strong, it actually repels people. If you wanna build strong networking habits, the first thing you need to do is become a connector. Introduce others without anything for yourself.

So you might be talking to someone at networking event, that might be a builder. And you might be talking to someone else who is in real estate, or the other person might be a plumber. When you're talking to that real estate person, they might go, oh, you had a lot of plumbing, you know, plumbing problems. And you go, oh, have you met John over here? He's a plumber.

He seems like a really nice guy. I was talking to somebody else. They've used him. I reckon he's really reliable. Hang on.

I'll I'll introduce you. And then introduce the people. And I found out a lot of events I went to in Cairns, I would connect a lot of people. I'd I do that now on the podiatry legends podcast. I'll have somebody on who's a guest.

And while we're talking, I'll go, actually, I know somebody else who has an interest in that. Do you want me to introduce you to them? They go, that'd be fantastic. I connect so many people through the podiatry profession with each other, and then they run off and, yeah, have a magical life together doing different things. But it makes me feel good.

Matchmaker.

Yeah. But I I feel so good when I can connect two different podiatrists with a similar interest where I know they're gonna benefit by knowing each other.

Yeah. That's great.

I've had people go overseas and go, where are you going? They tell me, oh, I know someone who lives in that town who's been on the podcast. So I'll send them an email, and I connect them that way. And next thing, they've caught up, had dinner together. Another thing to do is if, like I said, if you are meeting people, just make sure if you do collect their card for a bit, just follow them up the next twenty four hours.

Even if you just say, hey. It was really nice to meet you at the event. It was it was I hope I hope to see you at the next one. That never goes astray. Bring value to every conversation.

So if you are talking to someone and they do mention something about particular problem that you've got advice on, give them some tips or give them some insights that might help them, but don't necessarily just say, oh, you should come and see me. Have you tried this? Have you tried that? They go, no, haven't. Give that a shot.

See how it goes. If that helps, do this. If that doesn't help, do this. And they go walk away and go, that was really that was good advice. Thank you for that.

And then they will talk to you next time.

No. I think that's a great point because I think a lot of people If you showed that generosity and you're not, like, just trying to charge, you know, like, charge for the consult or, hey. I can I can help you out if you come into my clinic? You know, it's like, who is this guy? Right?

So I think I think it's a great point is that if you just you're kinda generous with information, I think that's what we do on this podcast as well. You know, we just we give away everything for free Yeah. In a way. So it just it just builds good rapport with people. You're helping people live their best lives.

And if it if it makes sense for them to come in and see you, they know they know they can do that without you having to specifically say it. So

Oh, it says a 180 something that we're up to with this

+1 88, I think.

+1 88. So we we do. We give a lot of information for free. We don't ask for anything in return. But however, if you'd like to leave an awesome review for us on your podcast platform, we will not say no.

But we know by by giving this information out, one day, someone's gonna go, you know what? I need this done. I'm gonna contact Jim. Or they might go, oh, I need get some coaching and mentoring in this particular area of my business. I might call Tyson.

But they might be looking at another coaching group or something and go, oh, should I do that? But at least, I think by giving that information, it gives people they get to know you a little bit better as well.

Absolutely.

One thing I have done at different times, I used you know, you'd have a a business card or something like that, and I have two different business cards. So one business card I have, which is just my Tyson Franklin card, for example, that I use now. If I'm at a podiatry event and I hand it out, I'll give it to people when we're talking. But I have another one that is just to do with the podiatry legends podcast. But if I was talking to someone who is a potential sponsor, I'll be given that card, and I say nothing else.

But then on the back, there's a QR code that says sponsorship opportunities that they could go to, and I have a specific page that's designed for that event that I happen to be going to. And you can do the same thing. If there's a certain area of your business that you're going to a specific networking event and you might know there might be a lot of runners there, then maybe you've got a page set up that you want them to go to that page. Then create a card that doesn't cost that much with a specific QR code, and make sure that's the card you're handing out to people when you're talking to them.

That makes a lot of sense. I think when it's more relevant to them, they're gonna feel more connected to you and more likely to engage when you're kinda kinda going that extra mile to make yourself kind of available to them.

And the other thing I think, if you wanna generate more word-of-mouth and you wanna be, like, a bit more purposeful with that is voice. We've said in the past, delivering wow moments to your patients whenever you can is really important. But when you meet somebody, sending them a a handwritten thank you note. Hey. It was really nice to meet you.

I I thank you, Kat. It was fantastic meeting you at that event. Write it by hand. Yeah. You can get a pen and you can write it onto something, a card, and post it onto them.

I'll tell you right now, when they get that, they will not throw it away. I've got a drawer here where I put cards that people have sent to me where they've got, oh, I was gonna leave podiatry and I listened to you on the podcast or I saw you at an event. I just wanted to let you know. I keep them all. And whenever I'm You have days where you don't you're not feeling like you're mean, you know, that you matter.

I can look through them, and I go, goddamn. This is why I do what I do. There's been times I'll admit this podcast, Podography Legends podcast, where I'm like, why do we keep doing this? You must have that moment sometimes every now and then.

Now I look forward to every Tuesday when we record, hasn't it? It brightens brightens my week up.

I do it. Like, I enjoy doing this part. I do enjoy recording. But sometimes you just why are we doing this? But then I'll be at the foot and ankle show, and someone walk up and say, absolutely love the podcast with you and Jim.

We get so much out of it. You sort of go, and that is why we do it. It's for that Absolutely. It's for that reason. It's not for the money.

But I think if you wanna turn people that you meet, whether it's your patients or people you meet at networking events, you wanna turn them into raving fans, you you've got to stay top of mind. So that's why you've gotta be connected with these people and make sure that they're getting social media updates or even email tips. If you want more people talking about you, not just networking, but your current patients already see you and you want them talking about you word-of-mouth, is you've got to stay in touch with them. Local sponsorship is a great way of people who have already used you to see that, and then that gets them talking to other people.

I think it's a huge opportunity. Right? Like, you wanna show how do you build that trust at scale. Right? Like, you can build trust one on one and network and such, but there's other ways to to get out there, be present in the community, and really kinda show that that that you do care about the those local patients and stay top of mind with them.

So they're looking for that foot and ankle specialist that you're the one they think of.

And I'm gonna give you an example of this. There were two businesses in Cairns that I've used a lot where I've referred a lot of podiatrists to do business with. One is a graphic artist, Leticia, that anyone listening to this may have used her. Whenever I refer people to Leticia, she always thanks me. She sends me an email, she'll phone me up, and then she gives me progress reports on where they're at.

And then when their logo's all completed and might be, whether they're using it in some particular spot on their website or something, she'll let me know that it's up there, and I'll go and have a look at it. Always thanks. Whenever I see her, it gives me a hug. Just she's a great person. And this is all about the gratitude.

When when you do something for somebody, they expect at least a thank you, and you should you should be always making sure that you're doing that. And when you're referring people, you probably expect to get it back as well. There's another person, Cairns, that I use that I've used in the past for doing I'm not even gonna mention what it's for because then it'll say who it is. Not once I've probably sent 15 podiatrists, and not once I've even got a thank you. Nothing.

Nada. Zero. I saw her at an event not too long ago, and I went up and said, hey. I was talking to Thinghu two days ago. They said they came and saw you, and you're doing all this stuff on.

And she went and she pretty much reached, turned around, oh, yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that. And went back to the conversation. She was the group that she's on.

And I went, you I will never, under any circumstances, ever refer anyone to you again. I've refused to do it. Be aware of that. Show gratitude. If people if someone is referring someone to you, whether it's existing patients, someone you met in a networking event, let it go out of your way to make sure that they know that they that you received the referral and you appreciate the referral and thank them.

And that's where a little just a simple little card can be helpful. So have some reward program or an appreciation program.

That's little things that matter. And when people go out of their way to thank you, it definitely it means a lot.

Oh, I I think of these two people. Just I just shake my head. I really do. I I think when it comes back to the networking side of things, it's just be looking. Looking for opportunities in your town, block out two hours in your day once a month and go to a networking event.

There's so many networking opportunities in most towns whether it's a chamber of commerce. I've been told when I went to Power River for a for a holiday, and I contacted the chamber of commerce. She said, hey. Can I come along and can I do a talk? And they said, yes.

And it had 50 people there that the mayor came to meet me because I was an international speaker. It was quite funny. Even networking through, like, different Facebook groups. Yeah. Getting on the people's radar in those Facebook groups, it might be a running group.

You get in there, people are commenting yourself. Just make intelligent comments. You don't need to rave and start screaming. Look at me. I'm a podiatrist.

Come and see me. It's somebody has a problem, you give some advice. That will chase you up to find out who you are, especially if the advice is always good, and then they'll figure out that you're a podiatrist. But I think the thing I wanna finish on most is just people don't always refer to the best business, but they refer to the one they remember and trust. That's a quote that I want to finish on.

And, yeah, that's all I need to say on this particular topic. Jim?

And I think you brought up a lot of great ideas and the the fact around kind of how network can be powerful, but it is about building relationships. And you gotta let them grow over time. It's not something that's gonna just, you know, happen all of a sudden. So great great great advice for our listeners and something that I think can really help them, especially, I would say, folks just getting into practice. Obviously, you can do it anytime.

But, you know, when you have more time than money getting out to these events and showing face and and kinda showing appreciation for those those referrers can make a huge difference in what a successful practice can be. So I I definitely this is very timely and kind of an evergreen topic that I I love when we get get into these conversations.

Just one last thing I'll say because it's popped in my head now is when you do go to a networking event, believe, if you haven't done it before, you're gonna be nervous. Just accept it. It's just part of anything. It gets easier the the more you do it. But just expect when you go to a networking event, someone is gonna come up to you and they're gonna say, hi.

I'm John. You will say your name, and they're say, what do you do? Be prepared that people will ask you what you do, and don't say, I do podiatry. Tell them what it is that you actually do. Yeah.

Oh, my name is Tyson. I help people with foot problems get out of pain. I help just talk about what you do. And yeah. And then you say, I own a podiatry clinic, and I help people do this.

So that's more yeah. That was the last thing. Just pop in my head then, so I'm finish on that.

No. It's a great way to frame it because know, what are you doing for other people and not kind of what you are or, you know, will it's it's kind of when you frame it and how you help others, I think that's where people will connect with you better.

Well, the best one I heard was somewhere this is how I decide how we came across this. Met someone one day. Said, hi. I'm Tyson. He goes, hi.

I'm David. So what do you do, David? David says, I help people pay less tax. You've won me

over lot of friends at that time.

I said, you won me over, David? How do you how do you do that? And he says, well, I've got the system set up in my accounting firm. Okay. So I I pretty much figured he was an accountant.

Didn't mention the name of his accountant his accounting business. Sucked me in right from where I go. And yeah. And then later, oh, what's your account? Goes, oh, I'll give you a card.

So it was that simple. So if you if you connect with people that way and get them interested, but if you're talking to someone, they're looking over your shoulder constantly going, oh, They're making eye contact with you. Yeah. You've lost them.

Absolutely.

More on that later. Okay, Jim. We better we better go. We don't wanna hold people up all day.

Alright. Well, we'll we'll talk to you on the next one, Tyson.

Yeah. I look forward to seeing you next week. See you later. Bye.

Bye. Bye now.

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