From First Visit to Raving Fan: How to Wow Your Patients

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 cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are doing today?

I am fantastic today, big Jim. I am fit and healthy. That is the main thing.

There you go.

Oh, I feel like a machine at the moment. Going to Muay Thai every morning. I've joined the gym to start hitting the weights again. And, oh, yeah, I'm just feeling like an absolute machine.

Impressive.

And my wife used to me, yeah. Don't yeah. Yeah. Your age, you should maybe you shouldn't be doing that much. I I'm a machine, but this machine is in a lot of pain most of time.

Yeah. It needs some maintenance work on a consistent basis.

Oh, yeah. Some some days, you just sort of go, why? Why do you do it? But it's just one of those things. If I if I don't go to if I don't go to Muay Thai or don't go to the gym, if I missed a couple of days for whatever reason, I just I don't know.

I just I need to be burning up energy.

Yeah. Absolutely. Sometimes I know that if I don't burn up energy, it goes into yeah. It's not it's not a good thing.

Yeah. And you're a mad runner, aren't you? So you could just whack it in your shoes and just go out there.

Yeah. Go out for forty five minutes or an hour or something. So

Forty five minutes for an hour. Yeah. I don't run. Only run only run if I'm being chased. There you go.

There we go. Okay. Let's dive into this. So today, I wanna talk about creating fans, creating raving fans in your business, and and how to actually wow your patients. So we're gonna head down that that path today.

And as usual, I have a ton of notes written down that I can I am going to go through so I don't miss anything? And what I've got written down here first, though, is most podiatrists, they they'll do a lot of advertising, whether it's online or offline, because they always wanna get new patients, which is something we should all be doing. But your best marketing strategy could be sitting in your waiting room right now. You might be driving to work, there's already patients waiting there for you. Those people that are sitting there, whether they're new patients or existing patients, that should be your priority.

And that should actually think about them as part of your marketing because a happy patient will come back, but not only will they actually come back to your business, when they they will get their family to come and see you, and they will tell their friends, and they'll tell their work colleagues to actually come and see you as well. So when you create a raving fan, someone that just absolutely loves your business, they are pretty much a walking, talking billboard. They're out there constantly just telling everyone why they should actually be coming into your business.

That makes total sense. Do you know what the word fan what that's short for? No. So it's for fanatic. Right?

So someone who's fanatic about your practice.

Yeah.

Because the reason I know that is that every spring here in The US, they have the masters golf tournament, and they don't call people that attend the masters. They don't call them fans. They call them patrons because they don't wanna, you know, make people think that the the people that go to that event are, you know, fanatics. So Oh, yeah.

I think

having a raving fanatic or a raving fan is definitely a can be a huge bolster for your practice.

Yeah. So what are we gonna go over? Six six areas. I think if you can sort of work on these six areas, it's going to just take your average patient and turn them into, like, a marketing machine for you. That's what we're gonna attempt to do today.

I'm looking forward to it.

No. That's the goal anyway. And the first one I'm gonna go over, and I talk about this when I've done my marketing workshops, and I dig into it in a lot of detail, but I'm gonna give them a brief part of it in this one, is it's the first impression actually sets the tone with your patients. And like they always say, you only get one one chance at a first impression. So, basically, you've got one shot to to actually get this right.

And a lot of people are unaware that the patient journey starts way before they ever walk into a clinic or they're sitting in that chair in front of you. And somebody, just wonder why a patient's sitting in front of them, and they just go, I just get the feel the patient doesn't like me. And they might end thinking they can't figure out why. And it could be something that has happened in the whole lead up of them sitting in front of you, and they're only sitting in front of you now because they made the appointment, so they might as well go through the process. But something could have happened beforehand that could have been a bit of a problem.

So what you're think about is every single touch point that that patient is going to experience. And this is an opportunity where you can actually wow the patient, and by wowing the patient in multiple areas that they come away actually as a as a raving fan.

Absolutely. There's there's so many different ways that a patient will have a kind of a preconceived notion of who you are and what kind of how trustworthy is your clinic long, long before they set foot in the clinic. So I think those, you know, those kind of touch points are vital to kind of for the patient to have a great experience and to kind of be ready to receive the great care you can provide.

Yeah. And the first thing could start as simple as the phone call when they've telephoned your clinic or if you do use online bookings. Was it really easy? Was it very welcoming? Or was it cold?

Was it frustrating? Or was it very robotic? And there was something I was doing the other day. I went to book something online, and it was lucky I just happened to must have been in a bloody good mood the day that I was doing it. Because as I'm going through it, it was getting to a certain point, it kept asking for my phone number.

And it said, oh, make sure you use the country code, which was really weird that you had to put in the country code. But it actually said to you, to use the country code in Australia, Six One. Not a problem. But when you're adding a country code using anything, you're gonna put 61.

Right.

And you've gotta remove the first zero from the the mobile number. So there's no instructions about that. And I'm thinking, it's an Australian business I'm doing. Why do you need me to do this? And this was holding me up from actually making the booking or whatever it was trying to do.

And I was so tempted to just to stop. Just go, yeah, bugger this. I'm not even gonna worry about it. And all of sudden, went, oh, don't tell me it's it's this. So I put plus six one, removed the zero, and all of a sudden it worked.

I went, how was how would my mom know to do that? Absolutely. She she wouldn't. So that's that's one thing. Another thing I think is really important, first impression, car park.

If you control the car park where your business is or wherever your building is, you should just pay a lot of attention to making sure it is clean, it is tidy, there's no dead birds lying around near the doorway, there's no bodies. I've worked up at work one day, and there was a body in our back car park. Now it wasn't dead. It was just really, really drunk. But I got there quite early that morning.

Had to go, okay. Come on. Move along. Move along. This is not where you should be falling going to sleep at the neighbor's business, so it'd be much better.

But it's it's that area. If you control the car park, then even if you don't own the building, but if you control the car park, the patients just assume that you're actually looking after it, and that could be a first impression.

No. Absolutely. The parking lot, as we say in North America, is sometimes that first interaction they have when they step on your property. So I think having that look, you know, good and kind of be trustworthy is is super important.

Well, I and I think I might have spoken about this on previous podcasts when you walk into a business and there's a dead bird at the door, cigarette butts, and that all reflects on on the business. This is part of your your first impression. Right. And so another area is, like, your whole clinic reception area. When they walk in, are they greeted with a smile, or are they ignored by the receptionist that was weaned on vinegar?

And and they're so busy shuffling paperwork around or to putting data into the computer that you sort of go, the patient's right in front of you. And even though you might be wait him wait sixty seconds, sixty seconds when you're not being greeted feels like five minutes. And I and I've been in that situation, and this might surprise people, but I can get shitty really fast. Just especially in situations like that, when all I want is for you to look up from your computer, acknowledge me, give me a smile, and just say, take a seat. It's all I needed.

And then I don't mind sitting around for twenty minutes on my phone.

Now I had a recent experience at an urgent care clinic. I went with one of my children, and they were there's this one receptionist, and she was she said hi to begin with. But then and she told me that she had to do it, but then she had to spend about ten or fifteen minutes before I got to check-in to kinda have a pre authorization for an insurance carrier. I guess one of her colleagues needed her help, but just I knew that she needed to do her job, but to go to an urgent care clinic and then to sit there for another, like, twenty minutes before you get checked in was one of those experience where, like, I was having flashes of us talking about all the podcast because I was like, there's probably a better way they could do this. Definitely, it seemed like she's the one that could've kinda fixed the issue for them, but I I was trying to figure out a way that would reflect better on their clinic in a way.

And while I was patient and it wasn't, like, some super emergent thing that need to be taken care of, but it definitely could have improved the patient experience if there had been a little bit of a different workflow in place there. But these things happen, but just it's a little bit different on the other side of things, and you kind of see have a different perspective when you're the patient.

And I totally get it. You can walk into businesses and they're busy. But my wife works part time at Hand Clinic, and I just know the type of person she is, that it wouldn't matter how busy she was doing anything. She would stop, greet the person. Whatever she's doing wouldn't be as important as the person that's in front of her.

She would have that little bit of a chat to her, and then she'd excuse herself and go, oh, I just gotta finish doing this paperwork. It's it's it's not hard. So and and another part that's in that whole waiting room is the experience while you're sitting there. Is it clean? Is it comfortable?

Is it engaging, or is it just a cold clinic, yeah, clinic reception area? And you gotta remember, when patients are patiently waiting in your reception area, they're observing every little detail about your clinic. So they're looking at, what are the floor coverings like? Are the walls cleaned, are there handprints everywhere? The chairs that they're about to sit on, are all the chairs clean, or is that have they got these big stains on them that you wanna I hope that someone didn't soil himself on that part of the chair.

And it it yeah. Even just pictures on the wall, are they straight or are they crooked? Are there cobwebs around the place? The longer they sit there, the more they're gonna observe and pay attention to the things. I went to somewhere, a business the other day.

I had chewing gum in my mouth, and wanted to get rid of it. But the bin that they had there, they'd tied up the bin, taken the plastic bag out, but the plastic bag was still sitting next to the bin. They hadn't replaced the plastic bag. And I went, oh, where am supposed to put my chewing gum now? Now there were two people on reception, and they were just talking to each other.

I'm like, oh, some someone put a bag in there. I wanna get rid of this chewing gum. It's just it's lost all its flavor. Yeah. And yeah.

So I had to wait until I got into the when I was seeing the person. Said, can I get rid of it? I need to put this in the bin. They said, why don't you put in the bin outside? So then I told them what happened.

They go, oh, okay. I'll address that. So, anyway and you're greeting. This is the other part. When you're first seeing that patient, it's it's up to you to make them feel really special right from the start.

And if you can do that, you've won half the battle. Yeah. A big smile, a big yeah. It's great to see you come into the room, and and the patient is gonna feel like you're happy to actually see them. And then it's also and this is like a sign up.

Pay attention to your your own appearance. Yeah. If you look like hell, if you wake up morning looking very juicy, you look like hell. Make every effort to make sure the rest of your everything else is great. Uniform's ironed.

Shoes are clean. Because I think I spoke on the podcast about my orthopedic surgeon experience. Yep. Yeah. Walk in there, scruffy hair, need a haircut.

Just it was hard, you know, when the fluff is hanging out the back of the neck, where the neck hair is just joining onto the back hair. And everything about him just looked scruffy. Dirty shoes, wrinkled shirt, and so, yeah, come on in. And then kept my problem was his left shoulder. He kept saying my right shoulder.

And then he wanted me to actually go back and have surgery. That was never gonna happen. And but the good thing is he scared my shoulder in the helping the pain go away because the pain it's been pretty good since then. Not perfect, but anyway. So that's the first one is just to refresh just first impression sets the tone.

So be aware of that.

Yeah. Building trust with that first impression is is is really, really important.

So the second thing is communication that connects. A raving fan isn't someone who just enjoys great treatment. They want great treatment, but they also wanna feel that they're being heard, that you understand what they're saying, and that they're valued. When it comes to communication, it's really important that you, first of all, speak their language. Ditch all the podiatry terms.

They don't need to know what the gastrocnemius is. It's a calf. It's really simple. Dump anything that you know is is podiatry related and just talk in plain English and explain things that they understand. And have them even repeat things back to you so you know that they've actually understood it.

Because if they understand you and you can understand them, the communication is gonna be a hell of a lot better.

I mean, you wanna make sure you actively listen. Right? So you don't want to be talking past the patient. You need to like you said, they need to be heard, and and it's not necessarily you know, having all of their their questions addressed is super important. Because if they don't feel like they're heard and they can't kind of express themselves to you in a way that makes sense, then they're gonna leave that appointment feeling kind of unfulfilled or, like, they didn't tell you something or you weren't listening, and it's gonna lead to a negative interaction.

So, yeah, kinda closing the loop on that's super important.

Yeah. And we've probably all been to a practitioner who have been somewhere where we've told them something, and they've just bypassed that. And and I remember a podcast I was listening to once, and the person, obviously, the podcast host had their set questions that they were gonna ask the guest. So they were so focused on that's what they were gonna ask the guest, and they they already knew what the routine was gonna be. They asked them this question, and then the person says, oh, yeah.

But anyway, when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and almost died and they went through it all, and I'm sitting there, holy crap. And the guest went, so anyway, what do you think is more important? Doing this or doing that Nothing to do with what that person just said about having a brain tumour and always dying. And I went, so they they had not listened to what that person was even saying. They were focused on what they were gonna say next.

And the other part with communication is just following up. If you've given them information, if you've asked them to do something, there's no harm in a quick text message or call, or even just sending them an email with post treatment ideas or thoughts, but it lets them know that you actually care about them. And when patients feel that you genuinely care, they will talk about you to other people. It's always gonna happen. I remember seeing a dentist to get a dental implant once.

Got the implant. About 7PM that night, I'm at my brother's place. He rings my brother's place, and my brother goes, oh, it's for you. Okay. And it was the dentist.

Said, hey, Tyson. How are doing? You know, the anesthetic would've worn off. How's it actually all feeling? And I went, it's actually feeling really good.

He goes, okay. That's good to hear. Just wanted to know everything was fine. Yeah. I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

I hung up the phone, and I swear, how cool was that? That the actual dental surgeon who did the procedure has actually phoned me up personally to find out how I was doing.

It's kinda like they say sometimes they'll, you know, like they say, like, patients, you can kinda relate it to them, but it's it's not what's they won't remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And if they feel if someone's feeling like they're being taken care of and that they've received good care through good communication and and kinda listening skills. That goes a long, long way. Obviously, you wanna provide the best medical care possible, but the communication side and the listening side is is hugely important.

Yeah. And that actually moves on to point number three. Perfect segue into that. Mhmm. Well done, Jim.

And but it's if you want a patient to remember you, you're gonna make them feel like they're more than just a name that was in your schedule for the day. And and I have I have had podiatrist work for me in the past. When they could see the patient be there with them for half an hour. The patient walks out. Oh, they forgot something, walked back in the room, and the and the podiatrist doesn't even can't remember seeing them.

I go, what were you thinking? And I go, oh, I didn't realize. And and I've seen it happen, and I've pulled them aside and just said to them, that patient is never gonna like you. In fact, I'll be surprised if they don't ask to see another podiatrist or they just never come back. Yeah.

It's not just about remembering the name. If you do and use their name multiple times. People love to hear the name. I think it was in is it Think and Grow Rich? Or what's Dale Carnegie's book?

Nine ways to, what, win friends and influence people.

Oh, yeah. How to win friends and influence people. That's one of the things that's in his book. It's just about saying somebody's name back to them in part of a conversation naturally, Jim. And they said, people hear their own name, it's like music to Yeah.

That's fantastic, Jim. So, yeah, if you say it too many times, Jim, it could sound a bit funny. But if you use it in a natural way, Jim, that that is not so weird. Sorry. If anyone's listening to this, thought that was an overuse of the word.

Jim, it was. Perfect example how not to use it. But ask about their holidays. Ask about any hobbies that any upcoming events that they're going to be part of. I used to love learning about my patients.

I genuinely wanted to know what they're talking about because regardless of what I was doing in the consultation, I could only talk about feet for so long. So you're either gonna not be talking or you're gonna be talking about yourself and they don't care. So you're talking about them. That's that's what they that's what they wanna talk about. Would you agree?

Absolutely.

Jim?

No. Well, Tyson, people love people love not only they love the sound of their own voice, but they love to let people know what's going on with them most of the time. So, yeah, definitely opening them up and letting them have the chance to speak. Like it leads to that last point we had, they they wanna be heard, and that it's an important component of, you know, treating a patient is listening to them. So yeah.

Yeah. And the other part too is sometimes you can just offer yeah. Do things where it's unexpected sort of thing that they're they're not really expecting. So whether you give them a free sample of something, whether it's a thank you note that you send in the mail, or it could just be an unexpected email. Even if it's just following up, hey.

You said you were gonna go to this event or you were going in this competition. If it was you, Jim, I go, oh, you said you were gonna go in this 10 k run. How'd it go? Just curious.

Yeah. Exactly.

If you got that email from me a week after you did the event, and you're going, hell, it's really unexpected. My podiatrist just out of the belief sent me an email to find out how I went in that event. And if you emailed me back and said, oh, I came third, I go, oh, that's freaking awesome. Have you got a photo? I tell you, that connection is it's the small moments that create the big connections.

And when you when you connect with a patient, there's there's basically like a bond there between you. And when you have that bond this is the difference just be between being a podiatrist, the podiatrist, or patients saying, my podiatrist is big Jim Mac, if they were talking to someone. And that's how they basically become a big fan.

No. I mean, that's a perfect example of a fan. You know, once they kind of claim ownership over you, they they're they're happy to kind of, like, have you be their podiatrist. It's a huge sign of trust that they would you know, they're they're it speaks volumes to other people as well.

Yeah. Number four is all about making it easy for them to actually rave about you. So you might have someone that just thinks that, you know, the sun shines out of your bum. And do you use that term in the state of North America?

I know what it means, but I don't I don't use that on a on a consistent basis, or I didn't use it when I was in practice. So

Oh, okay. Well, if you want the patient to think the sun shines out of your bum. We used to have this politician. He used to have, like, daylight savings, and then we had this one politician who just opposed it, Joe Bialke Peterson. And the joke was always, Joe Bjelke Petersen thinks the sun shines out of his bum, so he's not getting up an hour earlier for anyone.

We still don't have it. Anyway, a bit of a side joke there. So a patient might come into your clinic, they might love you. They might be a raving fan, but it doesn't mean they're gonna automatically leave a review if it's not an easy process. It's one of those things you've gotta it's important that if you one, if you're gonna ask for a review, it's gotta be at the right time.

You can't ask for the review too early, and you can't ask for the review too late. You just go you get to that sweet spot when they've just told you, I am so happy that I came and saw you. Or, wow, I'm so glad that I'm able to run that. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be doing this. Everyone's had those moments when a patient has just almost made you almost embarrassed you because they've given you such a compliment.

Right at that time, that's the best time to actually ask for a review. You'll probably you'll probably always get it. So two easy ways. You can set up a QR code yourself and that links straight through to your to Google review page. But the other thing, and I've seen it in a lot of businesses lately, is the Google review stands.

And I just looked them up. They're available on Amazon, and you can get them in packs of three and five. So it makes sense to actually have multiple have them have them all around your clinic so that you've always got that opportunity to ask for a review.

No. It's you know, that kind of digital word-of-mouth with reviews is is super huge. It's a matter, like you said, the timing being right and the kind of finding the right platform to have the time to write out good written Google reviews is super important.

So the fifth thing that I just wanted to touch on was train your team to create raving fans as well. You can't just all rely on the business owner. And I've had a number of coaching clients where we've spoken about something. They go, and we've done this training, and they go, yeah. I've done it.

Everything is working fantastic. I've got these extra reviews. I've got this. Again, how's the rest of your team go? Oh, no.

They're they're crap. I go, do you mean? Oh, what do you mean they're crap? No. They just they're not interested.

Don't they don't do it. And I've gone, hang on. Who pays the wages? Just go I just wanna reflect on who actually pays their wage. And then, well, yeah.

Of course, I do. Okay. So it's it's not optional. This is how the patient should be treated. So the people that are at your front desk, any assistants, the podiatrists, they should all be part of that patient experience.

And if they're not, if they're stuffing up somewhere along their journey, all the hard work you're doing, you could be doing everything right from the person coming in and everything else, then they go out the front to the receptionist, and the receptionist is weaned on vinegar. If if that's happening, sometimes you just don't employ unpleasant people. You know, some people just have a really unpleasant mannerism. You meet them and they just and there's just something about this. It's like off milk.

Yeah. You can drink it, you probably shouldn't. So a couple of things. I think it's empower your staff to give them permission to go the extra mile. If there if there's a a patient who having difficulty walking or the balance or something, give your team permission to walk them all the way out to the car or whatever and make sure that they get in safely.

Don't and and should always be looking for other opportunities on how can we weigh our patients. And this is something we picked up when we went and visited Zappos in Las Vegas. Anyone who doesn't know, Zappos is the biggest online shoe retailer in The United States, And that's that's all they do is just they don't send it out overseas anyway. When I read their book and when we did the tour, they just their staff was given permission to pretty much do whatever they wanted as long as it's gonna wow the patient or wow the customer. And when somebody came up with an idea and they did it and they got the response when they had their team meetings, they go, hey.

I did this, and this is what happened. And everyone's went, oh, we need to all start doing that. That's a fantastic idea. So give your team permission to come up with ideas and weigh our people or weigh our patients.

That's a great example. I think the the Zappos story, you know, they kind of went, you know, beyond to kind of really benefit the patients or benefit their customers. I think there's definitely important learnings from that to to kinda lead to patient satisfaction on our side of things for sure.

Yeah. And the whole thing with all this this this and this number six is there's a ripple effect of raving fans. When you create a raving fan, one raving fan will will send other people that create other raving fans. It's almost like a butterfly effect. Because a patient who loves you, who raves about you, like I said before, they'll tell their friends, they'll tell their family, they'll tell their work colleagues, they'll be talking to people at the gym, and your patient list will just keep growing with really like, it's like a really solid foundation.

And I and that's why I think this is something that everybody really needs to put a lot of time and effort into because you can spend a lot of money on marketing. And I think you should be spending money in other areas of marketing. And you should continue to read books and go to workshops and learn more about marketing. But creating raving fans is probably one of the most cost effective strategies that you will ever do. And it's something once you have them in place, it's your business becomes really solid.

And and you don't have to think about you know, some months, you do have ups and downs based on the marketing and the environment. But your raving fans, if they're always there and they're sending people in, you will never have anything to worry about.

Yeah. It's like you mentioned, these people are multipliers. Right? You know, if you get a a raving fan, that person's just gonna multiply the number of patients that come to your practice. Right?

And if they create if another, you know, raving fan is created from that those group of people, it's one of those things that just kind of builds up momentum over time. It's almost like, you know, a ball rolling down a hill. Just get that momentum of, you know, the people that love your practice, that love your clinic, and the more you can cater to their needs and kinda build more of those people into your practice, the more successful you'll be.

Yeah. And there was a post in Facebook recently. It was UK podiatry group. And somebody's asking, oh, I've got this business. It's all of sudden, it's gone quiet.

Can someone give me marketing tips? And I hate those questions. But anyway and I've shot a video on this, and I think I spoke about it on a previous episode. And some of the tips they gave were good, some of them were crap. And the person, if they've got no idea about marketing, they won't be able to tell the difference between a good idea and a bad idea.

But I think if you want to really have a solid business, yes, you need to keep you need to have new patients coming in. That's great. But really focus on the patients you've already got. Go through your database and think about the whole clinic experience from the per from walk through your process from the time a patient walks in till the time they leave. Get that right.

Because I think if you can if you can get that right, everything else will just basically fall into place. Because I can't say, what's the point on bringing in a hundred new patients the next month if you're gonna lose eighty percent of them because you don't treat them right? So it that's why you wanna do this right, create raving fans, build your business long term.

No. I love that. I think that's a great point is that once you have those patients that you can get them to know, like, and trust you, you want to give them opportunities and and make it as easy as possible for them to tell their network, their fan their friends, their family, and treat them well, and they'll keep coming back. And like I said, they'll they'll bring other people back with them.

I think there's a fantastic way to finish, Jim.

Alright, Tyson.

Okay. I look forward to talking to you again next week. Oh, and if anyone has any questions, please feel free to email us. What's the email address for this podcast?

Well, they can go to podiatry dot marketing, and there's a form you can fill out that will send us an email, or you can email me, jim@podiatrygrowth.com, and or they can email you at?

Tf@tysonfranklin.com. I have a new website which you might wanna go and check out. So tyson franklin dot com. Okay, Jim. Talk to you next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you. Bye now.

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 dot marketing.