Identifying Your Team's Superpowers

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. It's almost been an entire year of you guys listening to these podcasts, and I'm joined as always by my co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are doing today, my friend?

Good morning, Jim. I'm great. I can't believe. Hasn't the year gone fast?

I know. It's December, and I'm trying to figure out whether the year went, to be honest.

Yeah. It's I I think it's one of those things because of, you know, post COVID and and people being able to get out and travel a little bit more. I think it's just become a really, really busy year. And so the year's just moved along really, really fast. So, yeah, I I love I like I love this time of the year, though.

I just for you, because we're we're complete different climates too. For me, nice and sunny. It's warm. People go to the beaches and swimming, and you would be covered in snow.

Snowmen, ice skating, you know, occasionally some skiing. So, yeah, definitely different different parts of the world, but at the same time, sharing a similar thoughts and a similar mind when it comes to marking podiatry practice. So what are we gonna jump into today, by the way? What's the topic of the day?

Today's topic is identify your team's superpowers. And and what I mean by that is you you profile like, every team member has superpowers, and you you need to actually make them part of your your marketing strategy. And the reason why I think this is is really important is if you think of if you've ever watched a superhero show, which I'm sure you have. Who's your favorite superhero, by the way, before I get on to this point?

I'd probably go Batman.

Yeah. I can see that. Mine's Captain America. He's my favorite superhero. I've got he's sitting around up here on my desk somewhere.

And so when you think of most superheroes and that that's a good contrast, actually, is superheroes who have their powers hidden are usually frustrated. So you think of most of superheroes who have to keep their identity hidden and can't just burst with their powers whenever they feel like it are normally very, very frustrated because something will be happening and they're sitting there going, gosh, shit. You know, I just wanna rip my gear off and dive over there and do something, but all of sudden, everyone will find out it's me, and they get really frustrated. The superheroes who don't hide their superpowers are usually much happier, such as Captain America. Everyone knew who Captain America was.

He was not a hidden superhero. He was out there for everybody to see, and he was actually a very happy superhero. I think that applies, which is really good. I'm glad you picked one who was definitely hidden like Batman. My god.

Hasn't he become grumpy over the years?

Yeah. There's something about Bruce Wayne who's kind of a obviously, he has all these toys. He's rich, but he's he's probably the most disgruntled of all the superheroes, I would say. So it's it's funny we have kind of the opposite taste in superheroes.

Yeah. So I like the happy ones. But so if you think of superheroes, the ones that are hidden, frustrated, the ones that are actually out there that everybody knows who they are are not frustrated. And I think every team member has some form of superpower. And if they keep it hidden and don't get the ability don't get a chance to actually share that in your business, they can get very, very frustrated.

And you might find that might be why they leave.

Yeah. I mean, that that's a great point. How would you go about looking for those kind of hidden superpowers? What are the some of the ways that you when you were previously, you know, owning your own practice, what would you do to unearth the those super super those different superpowers on your staff?

Well, the interesting part, sometimes you can sit back so there's two parts to it. One is the whole marketing side of your business that they might be they might be good at blog writing or video editing. And you can actually ask them these questions. Oh, what yeah. Do you like to write?

So if I worked for somebody, wouldn't matter what the the job had been. Even when I was a a kid at school, I loved writing. I loved writing, you know, crazy stories. So if somebody had come at me no matter what job and said, hey, Tyson, you like to write? I would have said, yes.

I do. That is one of my superpowers. I don't get tired when I write. I can write about any topic at any time. So and video editing.

I love video editing. I didn't realize how much fun it is. I love audio editing. Yeah. It's, of course, because we do the the podcast.

But I think if you ask your staff, do that is have they got a skill in social media? Are they good at graphic design? But we had a girl one of the girls that worked with me, Sam, she was right into what are they called? You know, like, making cards, like gift cards and things like that. So we used that skill.

She used to create these Christmas bauble things for us that we would put on our our Christmas tree. She would make up cards that we would hand out to professional referrers, and she loved doing it. And that her superpower of being able to do that was an asset to our clinic.

I mean, that that's hugely important. I think you said, like, it's kinda tapping into those different strengths and experiences that people have that are already on your staff can be huge. I know that whenever I'm talking with the clinic about marketing or, you know, trying to kind of get buy in into the marketing plan of the folks, you know one of the most important people to me is that front desk person. Because they're such a touch point for that clinic when the patient enters the clinic, that's kind of the first voice they hear, the first greeting they have, But also at the end of the clinic visit, they can be a huge important as far as helping gather some feedback and things. So having, you know, the right people in the right roles along with certain skills can be hugely important, I think.

Yeah. Because you get all these behind the behind the scenes skills, like the blog writing, video editing, audio, doing graphic, posting your social media, but it is that person who's at your front counter who greets the patients coming in, that is all part of your marketing. It's all it's all part of the systems that you're collecting. Sometimes I've seen clinics, but I think they have the wrong person at the front and the wrong person at the back. The person at the back who is really big smile on the face and groomed well are the people that should be at the front.

And the grouchy person who may be very efficient with the crunching numbers, hide them out the back because they're the ones that actually scare your patients.

No. For sure. That's a great point.

So being being quite social, I think, is a is a social is a is a superpower that people don't realize. But I've got a list of other things that may or may not relate to marketing. Well, actually, to get back to the marketing side of things, that question they asked me, how do you find out about this? Is ask your staff. What do you like doing, yeah, in your spare time?

And sometimes that will give you a hint of what, you know, what skills they'll have. So Sam that I was talking about was creative doing these cards. She also used to have these, like, adult coloring in books, not nude pictures or nothing like that, Jim. Get that out of your head. Tell by that look on your face.

But they're like adult coloring in books. I didn't know they existed. But they had these special pens, and they would color them in really fine detail until at the end it was this beautiful picture. That was what she did in her spare time. So obviously, there was a big signal there that she loves that whole creative side of things.

So I really tapped into that.

I think one other aspect of that that's really important too is like you said, it's kind of what skills or what interests do they have and then which way, what are the ways that you can nurture them as the clinic owner, right? They don't necessarily have to be like a social media master or a video editing master, but if you kind of help nurture them along the course, whether it's an online course that you can kind of reimburse for them or find some ways to kind of grow into these roles, I think that's where a real opportunity is. Because I see a lot of clinics that have, like you talked about, staff that kind of knows how to do certain things or thinks it's interesting. But when you kind of give them a bridge to expand their knowledge and expand their ability to help your practice, I think that's one area that the people that own clinic can really, you know, really skill up on their staff to really kind of helpfully take their practice to the next level, just kind of improving the skills and knowledge of their staff.

Yeah. I remember walking into someone's clinic, it was a friend of mine. We're in there talking away, and he had these two staff members there. And he said, oh, yeah. This is Mary.

And Mary's about, you know, 21. She's our social media person. I said, oh, okay. Hey, Mary. How are doing?

We're talking away. And then oh, and this is Barbara. Yeah. Barbara's forty five and does all this other stuff. So as I'm talking to Mary, we were talking about social media.

She goes, oh, god. I can't stand social media. I said, what do mean? She goes, I hate it. She goes, I I avoid it like the plague in my personal life.

I've never been a fan of it. I said, but you're the social media person for the clinic. Oh, you gave it to me because I'm the youngest. So he just assumed because they were young that they were all over social media. Whereas Barbara, the 45 year old, she spent half her life on social outside of work.

She was always on social media, using the platforms, shooting her own videos, posting them out there for friends, putting up recipes. And I've said to my friend, Barbara needs to be your social media person, not, yeah, not the other person. And as soon as he made that switch, I was like, ah. Yeah. He made the made the the role fit who they were.

That makes total sense.

Which is why I think you just gotta ask them the questions. But there's other things in your business which I think are superpowers that not necessarily marketing, but I still think fit in there. One could be you might have a particular podiatrist that may be better at presenting treatment plans, for example. Now how you present a treatment plan to me is part of your communication, part of your marketing. So you may have someone who's just that is their superpower.

They're really good at presenting treatment plans. Can they teach that superpower to somebody else? I always think if you got someone that's got a really good skill, it's really important that we all learn from each other as well. So if somebody's good at video editing, instead of just only one person in your business being really good at that, over a period of time, I think you should get them to try and help a bit of a skill transfer to some other people. So if that person leaves, you're not left in the lurch where where we've got 15 videos here unedited, and now I'm sitting there.

Everyone's just sitting around looking at each other, and the videos never get posted.

No. That's a great point. I think another aspect of that too is practice promotion or public speaking. Yeah. You know, maybe you have an maybe you have an associate who is on a debate team or just as very comfortable, you know, maybe had a couple broadcasting classes in university, and they feel very comfortable in front of the camera.

They communicate well, and they can get on radio or TV or then, you know, right in those maybe those places where you want to get more patients from and present different topics. And then like you said, it's not about them just going out and doing those things, but if you have other associates or other people on staff that could be could learn from that person, it could, you know, glean some of that confidence, some of those best practices about how to speak in public or in front of a camera on a microphone. I think those are things that you said just like this kind of cross functional, like, kind of inter clinic learning can be a huge aspect of things so you don't be left in a lurch if that person decides to, you know, open up a a practice across the state or they end up leaving your practice. So.

Yeah. I definitely think the public speaking is huge because you could have four podiatrists working for you. If you said to them, who here likes public speaking? There might be three that just do not like it, you got one who isn't absolute natural at doing it. So when I think of my daughter, for example, and I was telling her about going through high school, yeah, primary school, high school, university, never doing it, getting up, doing a talk, petrified to do public speaking.

And she just looks at me and goes, why? It's not gonna kill you. Just get up there and say what you gotta say and then sit back down. How hard is it? So someone like her working in a business, and you've got the owners of the business who don't like public speaking, well, straight away, if you've employed someone who loves public speaking and who has no fear of it, that is a massive asset to the business.

No. For sure. That that voice out there in the community, you know, speaking to the people and being visible is a huge benefit to the practice.

So a couple of things that I I think is superpowers that are probably overlooked could be, yeah, even to the point of dealing with difficult patients. You have a patient that is a little bit difficult, and you may have someone in your team who has that skill that knows how to talk someone down off the cliff. Yeah. Or when when emotions are high, they just have that mannerism that is really good. So if you've got someone like that that represents your clinic and then there is a bit of an issue, you make sure that person is involved in that.

And you get somebody else who say could be like me who could sometimes be a little bit hot headed, I'm the last person you want negotiating with terrorists.

I mean, you you seem pretty level headed to me. I'm not you know, I I guess I've stayed mostly on your good side, so I don't know would happen if I if I tend to over that to other side and get on your last nerve. But I think it's a good point, though, because I think there are times, you know, people different people handle stress in different ways. Some people get very defensive. Some people get combative, but other people are able to kind of maintain their calm, you know, see the kind of the situation from the other person's point of view and maybe not necessarily like cave into that person, but at same time, make that person, that difficult patient, feel like they've been heard.

Sometimes that's what all they want. They just want somebody to listen to But it could be difficult, right, if you're if they're blaming or they're kind of being extremely negative towards you to really, like, be able to listen to them at the same time is not an easy skill or task to pick up on. So I think you said, like, you know, having either working on yourself, but also having someone on your staff who is kind of the go to person to deal with. You know? I know that sometimes people will get a negative review.

Right? And, you know, how do we deal with this? It's, you know, like a four alarm fire. But it's one of those things where if you just address it head on, you keep a cool collected manner about yourself, don't get too defensive, not cave, but also listen to them. It can it can make a huge difference between, you know, what's kind of devolves into kind of something that's settled very peacefully and calmly versus a potential lawsuit or issues like that.

I remember my wife was our go to person for, yeah. If somebody was upset about something, she was just beautiful mannerism, big smile, everybody loved her. So we would direct all problems to her. And I remember one particular day, her coming out just just she's lost it. And I'm like, my god.

If if they were able to push her button to get her all fired up, and I remember her coming in after, and she goes, you're so glad that you did not have to deal with them. We've the police would have been called. They said they that was just so unreasonable. But I think another superpower that some people have that other people don't is recommending and selling retail products in your business. Yeah.

If you have a business that has a large retail side of things, it may even have large number of footwear in your clinic. You can have certain team members that are just naturally gifted at being able to talk to the pay yeah. Someone off the street, especially footwear that that comes in, finds out what their needs are, be able to fit something, and sell them a pair of shoes, and then also the the foot the shoe care products that go with it and maybe a second pair of shoes. Some people are just naturally better at doing it. And it's not that you're trying to sell something that people don't need.

They just have a mannerism and a way of actually doing it. If you've got someone like that in your team, tap into it and and make sure you've got them in the right position.

Yeah. Sometimes just a it's sometimes just a matter of getting repetitions in, having a little bit of some guidance or some feedback from someone who's good at it. But I think, like you said, it's these people kind of connect the dots. Right? Like, I remember when I worked in a running shoe store, for example, you know, like, you look at someone's shoes wondering how much they're training.

You know, if it made sense for them to get an orthotic or, you know, they were concerned about how much their feet sweat, you know, some products to help them. You know, listening to them during that whole sales cycle or during the whole appointment can really help lead you down the path as far as what they need or what what might be right for them, whether that's, you know, some type of insole or an additional pair of shoes. It's really listening to the person and kind of putting those options in front of them in a timely and helpful manner is that, you know, if you're doing it that way, it feels less like a sale and more like you're just providing more options to the patient.

And I think if you go right back to the beginning of when you're first interviewing your you know, the new team member is asking the right questions and really digging into their their work history and what they've done before prior to, say, was a podiatrist going to employed, Prior to them even starting podiatry, what did they do through high school as part time jobs? What did they do when they're at university? Then, you know, once they've graduated, they're a podiatrist. But what do they do in their spare time? What do they do on weekends?

These are really important keys to find out what they like doing. So you may have a newsletter, for example. Your newsletter, you know, comes out on a monthly basis, and and we've spoken about that before. But you have a podiatrist who has a special interest in smoking meat. You have them do an article on once a month about smoking meat.

You're gonna have a certain amount of patients that are gonna go, wow. That was really, really interesting. To me, that's being able to smoke meat, that is now a superpower of that podiatrist that you can use that in your business as part of your newsletter. Then you have another one of your receptionists or it could be another podiatrist who's awesome at putting newsletters together. He's quite creative, can make things look good.

You start bringing these superpowers together, and next minute, you've got the fantastic four who once again did not hide the superpowers and were all happy.

I'll probably go with the Avengers, but if Fantastic Four is a solid group as well

They are a solid group. I love the Fantastic Four. I didn't realize I remember when we got Color TV, and everyone's going, my god. You're you're around before Color TV? Yes.

I was. I remember we got Color TV, and the first TV show I saw that I used to watch in black and white all the time and went to Color was the Fantastic Four. One, I didn't know they were blue, and I didn't realize that Ben, the rock guy, was orange. It blew me away. But anyway

Now the teamwork's the teamwork aspect to things that really helps multiply, like you said, you know, kind of making that personal connection with the smoked meat. Also, having people with those different skills, blog writing newsletters and just combining those superpowers together can really help multiply productivity and just opportunities for your practice.

Well, Steven, you might have a patient comes in that has a young child or baby, and the baby's not settled. You will if you've got a team member who is fantastic with little kids or fantastic with babies, oh, is a massive superpower. That they can have a baby crying. I think it's hold the baby. Oh, you you'll be okay.

And and all of a sudden, the baby settles down. You can see the look on the on the patient's face. Like, I've come to the right place because these people actually care about my children or keeping them entertained. So I think it's just such an important thing. Dig down into your team, find out all the superpowers, and then create this massive team, whether they're the Avengers, the, you know, the Fantastic Four.

Yeah. But oh, I told you because my clinic used to be this is how why we tapped into the superholes superhero is because my clinic was themed with superheroes.

There you go.

So instead of having consultation room 12345, we had Superman room, Spider Man room, and and each room is slightly themed with each of those characters. And our orthotic lab was professor x. The bathroom door, you know, the toilet door had Thor's hammer on there, the god of thunder, because we thought that was appropriate. Our staff room was the Batcave.

It makes it makes sense now that Hemsworth is Thor. Hemsworth is Australian. Right?

So He is. And my wife's office was Wonder Woman. And my office, because the patients didn't really see too much, was the Invisible Man.

There you go.

It it was great because you would have people coming in. And because of that and that was how we tapped into once because I love superheroes, I thought I'm gonna theme the clinic superheroes, and then they started tapping at what is the super what are the superpowers of my staff? And we sort of built on it from there. And it's fun.

Yeah. No. It makes sense. I think one aspect that we talked about a little bit earlier, but I think it is a huge potential for growth within a practice, right? So let's say you're developing somebody with some of these skills, you're helping them upskill, but also this could be something that, you know, maybe you've had an outside marketing agency or you followed a marketing plan from someone else, but over the course of five, ten years, if you upskill one of your staff to have all of the skills you need to kinda have an in house marketing person, maybe they started off as halftime clinical assistant, halftime marketing.

There's a lot of different ways to grow your practice and really invest in these individuals in your practice. I think that's something that, yeah, you can just give them some coursework or some online courses, but, you know, if someone really has the strong will and determination to become that marketing coordinator in your practice, or like you said, like a customer service representative, where they're going out, maybe even talking to different clinics or different groups on behalf of your clinic, These are things that can be built up over time as you invest in these people, and they can pay dividends, I think.

Yeah. Well, that's what we had. We had the community and patient relations manager, which is what we called them. That was their title, and they were pretty much our marketing assistant. They sort of did a lot of because I love the marketing, they were sort of my assistant.

And we did. We had them dropping off hand delivering reports. And Sam, who I mentioned earlier on, was our patient community relations manager. She started as a receptionist and then moved away through from that. And then once I identified what her skills were, and she was so good with people that I realized she would be perfect for this role.

So we created this role, and and it just grew and built from there and totally change your clinic once you have somebody who is filling that position. You're so much more done.

No, that's a great example. I think that's a huge opportunity that it takes time to develop, it takes patience, but I think that can pay off big time for people that are willing to kind of develop those folks.

What everybody needs to do is sit down, look at your team, have a meeting with them, and ask them as a group, what are your superpowers? And everybody has a superpower. They just if someone says I don't have any, then they probably shouldn't be part of your team.

I think that's great advice. I mean, I think one superpower that all of our listeners can do if they've been enjoying the podcast, we would love an iTunes rating or review. Oh, You're gonna need a lot to Tyson and me. It's not invisibility or the ability to fly or shoot lasers out of your eyes. But, you know, a nice star rating or a written review on iTunes would be much appreciated by Tyson and myself.

Yeah. And it'd be a great Christmas gift for us. If you were thinking about, wow. I've been listening to Jim and Tyson all year, and I would love to give him something for Christmas, and you don't have our address, all you need to do is go to iTunes, give us a rating and review, and that'll put a huge smile on our face.

That sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. Good talking to you, Jim, and I look forward to talking to next week as we get closer to Christmas.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Bye now. Bye.

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