Reflect, Align, and Thrive: A Podiatrist's Guide to Fulfilling Practice

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

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing. With me as usual is Big Jim Mac all the way over in Canada. How are doing today, Jim?

Fantastic, Tyson. Things are good. Yeah. No complaints with me.

When are we getting our Big Jim Mac t shirts?

I gotta figure out a design for those. I'm not sure exactly what that's gonna look like yet. I'm not sure how much pent up demand the market has for them. Maybe some of the listeners can email in and let us know exactly their sizes and and and when they would expect to have their Big Jim Mac t shirt. But yeah.

Still a little bit of planning to go into that and to kind of put my finger up in the air and see like if there's that market demand or not.

Yeah. Would be funny. I'd wear it. Big Jim Mac. And and a little thing in the corner says, tie n Tyson.

There you go.

So as Nikki called me, Big Cheese. That's why my brain book is yellow. So Big Jim Mac and Big Cheese or Doctor T, whichever way you wanna go. So Jim, what are we talking about today for episode one twenty three, I think it is?

Wow. We're just getting through all the episodes. Yeah. So today, we're gonna jump into kind of a stepwise fashion to really reflect, align, and thrive in your practice. Right?

So this is kind of a guide to kinda developing a fulfilling practice here, whether it's it's your private practice, you're in a multi specialty group, maybe you're working with an orthopedic group. What are just gonna like, what can you do in kind of a stepwise fashion to try to balance kind of a rewarding career, seeing the patients you wanna see, but also have a profitable practice? Because we've talked a lot about these things in the past, and, you know, sometimes it can be difficult, you know, when we talk about generalities. But this this today was really supposed to be about talking about, you know, how can you kind of align the type of services you have, how can you engage specific types of patients, and make sure that what you're doing is is not only sustainable financially, but sustainable for what you wanna be doing, and it gets you excited to get out of bed and go to work every day.

And I think that's really important. If you're dreading when that alarm goes off in the morning, if you're lying there going, another day. That's not how you should start the day. The day you wanna come out, you wanna wake up, and you want to be at work, but you'll only go if you set up something that puts a smile on your face.

Yeah. And it has to be something deliberate. Right? Nothing happens by accident in the world. I mean, maybe a couple of the podiatrists listening here have had a fortuitous life and they've just stumbled upon the perfect practice and it just worked for them without having to take time to be deliberate about it.

But I think for most people, it all it all really starts with kind of having a personal reflection and kind of taking time to begin and and have kind of some introspection as far as, you know, setting aside a weekend or maybe taking a day off from work and thinking about the aspects of practice that really bring the most satisfaction. Mhmm. You know, recall kind of interactions with specific types of patients. Maybe there's just treatments you know they like to do more than others. And just kind of knowing the the gratitude expressed by those you've helped, you know, what is there some kind of common thread amongst all those people?

But I really recommend people take a day off either during the week or a day during the weekend where they can really focus on understanding their practice and reflecting on these moments so they can kinda illustrate the path of the practice that really excites them. Because it's not only, yes, does have to be like financially feasible, but really what's gonna enrich your professional life. And just take time for yourself to reflect on those things.

I think it's really important to block out the time to do this as well. Because if you are working all day and you think, oh, no. I'm gonna sit down tonight for two hours and try and work out, yeah, what makes me happy in my practice and reflecting on the type of patients you like seeing and what you wanna see more of, you're gonna be tired and your your brain's not gonna be, I think, at yeah, be in the right state to be making decisions. So I think if you block out time, whether it's one or two days and I've got a a friend, a dentist, doctor Jesse Green, and he once a year, he goes to a beach suburb. He's in Canberra.

He drives to this beach suburb about four hours away, books himself into this motel, takes a whole pile of pens and highlighters and and books and pads, his computer, and does this thing. Does it for a week, every single year, and just really maps out what what it is that he really wants to achieve, what he's achieved in the past, what it is he wants to do in the future. So I think everybody should be able do it for a couple of days.

Yeah. I totally agree. And and when you reflect like that, like you said, you're able to kind of plan a path that you like, head in a specific direction. Right? You're not you're no longer kind of rudder rudderless, just kinda taking what's what's given to you.

You clearly understand what you like to do and you're able to kinda move down that path to more of that. So, you know, it really comes down to also aligning your practice with your passions. Right? Like we all have something that got us excited about why we got into podiatry. Maybe it's something during our training that, you know, oh, we really liked biomechanics or we liked pediatrics or we like sports medicine.

Just kind of, you know, aligning your practice with those passions is the next step. You've kind of you've determined what those things are, but now how you can actually kind of implement some of those things into your clinic to make sure that you have that fulfilling work. Whether it's, you know, like I said, whether it's kind of a subspecialty that you're passionate about, or there's like a specific patient demographic. Know, maybe you like treating seniors. Maybe like treating kids.

Maybe it's you know younger people, younger athletes. You know, you really need to focus on those areas of expertise and it'll help you not only get more professional fulfillment, but the more you do a certain type of treatment or treat a certain type of person, you're probably gonna have better patient outcomes because you become a real specialist in that area. And when people you're treating people better and there's better outcomes, it's gonna help with your job satisfaction as well. So once you kinda kind of know and reflect about what you want, it's starting to align and kinda implement these things into your practice, that's really kind of the next step.

Yeah. I think I was lucky. My sort of exposure to podiatry was somebody showed me a pair of orthotics. A guy that went through school with from grade one to grade 12. Linden, if you happen to be listening, probably not.

And because he does a different part of podiatry. Anyway, he I I went back and repeated my final year of high school because I had no idea what I was gonna do. I was gonna be an art teacher. He turned up at the school and he showed me this orthotic thing and said, is what we were were learning about at uni. Anyway, that looks really cool.

I think I could make them. So when I got to uni and I learned how to make orthotics, I always just loved that aspect of podiatry. So the only way I could make more of these things was to be in the area with the type of patients where I could make more of those things. The more I made, the happier I was. I remember doing some work in a nursing home.

I hated it. I went in there. Just didn't like the smell, didn't like the work I had to do. Hurt my back. I was drinking from my hands.

So I eliminated that from my practice life. It's it's working out what you're passionate about and just staying focused on that and trying to do more of it.

Yeah. I think you bring up a good point too. Sometimes it's not only what you want to do, it's sometimes you know what you don't want to do. Yeah. And and that can be just as important because it'll help you kind of focus on the care that you wanna provide.

And you know, one other aspect of that too is kinda understanding, enhancing kind of your patient base. Meaning like, you know, you analyze your existing patient demographics to really understand like who you serve and why they come to you. You know, once you know who what you wanna do, really looking at, you know, if let's say I wanna do sports medicine, you know, what were the reasons that people came and saw me? Was it someone referred them? Was it they saw me working at a road race?

Kind of getting an understanding about what those channels are that are leading people to you is really really important because when you understand and identify which aspects of your practice are kind of, know, that it's leading to those types of patients, then you can really dig into understanding you know what type of treatment or what kind of diagnosis are kind of you know profitable and make your clinic sustainable from a financial perspective. You know what kind of patient interactions and kind of balancing that out with what kind of patient interactions are most rewarding to you. So when you have the knowledge as far as the type of patients you want to treat with the type of care you want to provide, you can kind of see where that right mix is. And when you're really analyzing it as opposed to like just kind of guess, you know, kind of guessing, you can really fine tune those services to the needs and preferences of your ideal patient demographic. And you're able to kind of balance that financial stability with the kind of personal fulfillment.

It's not an either or situation. You can really kind of you know find that right balance between those two things. And that's what it's really all about is, you know, providing terrific value to your patients, but also, you know, building yourself a work life that's, you know, sustaining the kind of professional life you wanna have.

Yeah. And I think that part you mentioned too towards in there about the financial stability. Like, I knew if I looked at my diary and looked ahead, I could go ahead two weeks and we might have had, like, six patients booked in. And people used to go, doesn't that scare you that you've only got six patients booked in two weeks' time ago? No.

I said, because in two weeks time, the diary will be full. Because we just knew the type of patients that we had coming through, yet your biomechanical MSK patients and sports patients, they don't ring up to make an appointment two weeks ahead for the foot injury they think they're going to have. They're ringing up Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning for the injury they did over the weekend and during the week. So our book just completely filled up. I knew before the month started how many orthotics we were probably gonna do.

I knew what a turnover was probably gonna be for that month. Give or take a few thousand, it was always gonna be above what I knew it was the the year before. So it really does when you know the patients you want, you know where those patients hang out, you can be in touch with those people, it creates massive financial stability in your business and, like you said, and you get personal fulfillment.

No. Exactly. And it's also sometimes drill drilling it down to not just even in a a general demographic, but it can be helpful and I think we've talked about this on a previous podcast, but really getting to a specific patient demographic by calling them like a patient persona. Right? So maybe it's you know, 42 year old weekend warriors that run marathons twice a year, know, that that that's kind of the person you're going for.

Or maybe it's you know, seven year olds or eight year olds with ingrown toenails or something. But just knowing those specific personas that you know patient personas that you have and kind of the characteristics that your ideal patients will have allows you to kind of incorporate elements from either into your profitable services. You know, you're able to really kind of bring out those aspects that you enjoy in practice. But also it's gonna help you track down those other channels that you don't know are out there. Right?

You're gonna be able to whether let's say for example your website. You know, if if you're gonna go after, you know, weekend warriors who wanna do marathons, you're not gonna be, you know, trimming toenails or or treating wounds on the homepage. It's gonna help guide you to make sure that whatever you're doing from a marketing perspective is really dialed in and it's gonna really engage these potential patients, you know. So when they land on your website or they land on an ad, a Google ad or a Facebook ad or something, they they feel like you are the right choice for them. So you're gonna ensure that you attract and retain patients who align with your your practice's kind of goals and values, and the type of patients you wanna see in your practice is really really important.

It's funny. I'm always looking at podiatry websites. And and some of them yeah. You just you look at the website, and you go, why? Why why is that the picture that you actually you come to the homepage and there's feet walking on the beach, which if you're and this clinic will be in a rural part of Australia that has no beaches and go, that makes no sense.

Or they've got a feet there with a flower sticking through the toe, but then they wanna be doing MSK and biomechanical patients go, the photos make any sense. But it really is. Yeah. Your website has to depict the the type of patients that that you wanna see. And we used to write a lot of articles about netball.

Remember having a a few netball patients actually coming through, but going, oh, yeah. This is good. And then I remember driving past the netball courts. And now do you know what netball is, Jim?

Not a clue.

I just I was looking at you, and I'm going, oh my god. That's right. Netball is a netball is a commonwealth game, and and you guys who broke who Mel Gibson helped break away from The UK in '72. This conversation before. Heath Ledger gave up his life to help you guys get your independence.

I've seen the movie.

I'm I'm thankful. I'm very thankful.

Yes. Thank you. You can thank those two Australians. And, anyway oh, it's a netball. Netball is like basketball with no backboard.

Okay.

Played predominantly by women, but you can play mixed netball and guys are getting into it over the most recent years. One of my worst Achilles injuries was actually playing mixed netball. So, yeah, so it's a it can be a rough rough game, but it's sort of like basketball but different. There's a ball, there's a basket, and the rule's completely different. So it's nothing like basketball.

Hard to describe. Google netball, Jim. Get up to date with the rest of the world.

I'll I'll I'll take a look at it on YouTube once we get off this call.

Yes. Anyway, I'm driving past the local netball courts, and there are hundreds, I mean, hundreds of kids. There's about 10 netball courts there and hundreds of kids playing it, and I've just driven past going, oh my god. We've just had a whole a few netball players coming through, checking many patients who are out there running around who need our services. So we initially contacted them, and we became a sponsor for the Cairns netball.

And then when Australian players came up, because they do have representative teams as well in netball gym, in case you're wondering, They would come into our clinic. We'd do some PR stuff with them, and that became a big part of what was on our website because we attracted so many of those pay those patients.

Now that's a huge I mean, having that association, but also, I think the big thing here recently, at least in North America, pickleball. And, you know, do you know what pickleball is?

I'm educated. Yes. It's like half court. It's like half court tennis.

Yeah. But just at a much slower pace. But there's a lot of podiatrists I've been talking to at conferences that are saying that the number of Achilles injuries, Achilles ruptures, the amount of foot and ankle injuries that are happening happening at pickleball. So people are starting to, like you said, sponsor or or be, you know, advertised in around pickleball because it is a it could be a huge source of a a business for sure. But, you know, your marketing efforts really are you know, it should be authentic.

You know? So when you're marketing, you wanna market with authenticity and purpose. So, you know, when you reflect your your practice's unique strengths and those aspects of podiatry you're most passionate about, it really shines through. You know, if you just you know, if it's a afterthought, if it's three clicks away from your website, they say you do sports medicine, it's not gonna be very convincing. So you have to have it, like, on your webs on your homepage.

You, you know, involved in that community. People want, you know, more of a niche or subspecialty podiatrist that really understands them and their problems. Right? So whether it's through digital marketing, community outreach, or patient educational initiatives, you really wanna aim to connect with your ideal patients on a personal level. And by marketing with purpose and authenticity, you're not only gonna attract those patients that are a good fit for your practice, but you're gonna, you know, they'll tell other people.

And your job satisfaction and you know, what you enjoy doing, you'll get more of those patients in your practice. So you know, if you kind of follow these steps we talked about today, I think it's really gonna set you up for an opportunity to kind of balance that those passions that you have that could shed a bed in the morning to kinda get out there and do the job that you love, but also make sure you're earning the income and get the financial rewards for providing great care. And like we talked about, the more you see that you're your ideal patient, the better you're gonna get, the better care they're gonna receive. It's gonna be kind of a you gather momentum, and it just sets you up for a a really joyful and a fulfilling professional career in podiatry where you can combine those aspects of practice.

Yeah. I just wanna touch on that last thing you said too about the marketing with authenticity and purpose. I always feel whenever you're doing anything for your for your website or any form of marketing, is you I don't know if you've spoken about on this podcast or not, or was it talk that I did, but it's do it with intent. What is it you what's your intention of of doing it? So if you're writing an article and it's gonna go onto your website, why are you writing this article?

What is it you're intending to get out of it? And and who are you writing it for? And keep that in mind because there's so much marketing I see from podiatrist, which is so beige, it makes it makes the color beige look exciting. Their their marketing is so beige. So and and I think it's because they're they're so scared of, oh, I might miss someone.

So they just they wanna try and make their marketing I wanted to cover everybody. And when you do that, you eventually miss everybody.

No. That's that's well put, and I I run into the same issues. Right? When I look at websites, I see the top 50 diagnoses, the top 50 treatments on every of these kind of more cookie cutter websites, and it screams that, like, they they're kind of a jack of all trades. And, you know, if your niche that you're you're a general podiatrist, like, seeing everything, you know, congratulations.

But I think kind of in our consumer culture, people are wanting to find an expert in an activity or in a demographic or in an area that that they know that that person has treated a lot of piece of patients similar to them. And when you can show that on your different marketing channels, whether it's your website, your social accounts, showing that you are that go to expert for a specific demographic type of patient, not only will you have that focus in your marketing, but you can provide great care for patients. And I think that's what's exciting about when you're willing to market your practice and put yourself out there with the type of care you wanna provide. It's like a mirror. People will see it and it'll reflect back on you, and you're gonna get a lot of a lot more of those type of patients when you make that super visible and very specific to patients as opposed to like like a like you said, a beige or generic website or online presence that doesn't really speak to anybody at all.

Yeah. And I think a lot of the younger podiatrists are embracing this. They realize that they're going through uni. They they have a certain interest in in particular areas, and they're putting a bit more emphasis on that. So I'm noticing new and recent business owners and podiatry, their websites seem to be a little bit better.

Their marketing seems to be a little bit better. And I think some of the older podiatrists that are just and they're probably not even listening to this podcast anyway, that they're slowly falling behind. And that's the second part. It's part two of the Red Queen hypothesis, is if you're standing still, you're falling behind. Have we spoken about the Red Queen hypothesis on here?

Yeah. We definitely have.

I think we have. Yeah. So part two of the Red Queen hypothesis. If you're standing still, you're falling behind. So if you don't if you think you've already made it, you don't need to do anything else for your practice because it's going fantastic.

Don't worry. Everybody else is catching up to you. And the more they catch up, by the time you realize it, they'll be in front, And then you'll just be that that, you know, man, that podiatrist that used to have that clinic down in that place there, yeah, you'll be a has been. So anything else on this subject before we wrap up?

No. That's pretty much it for today. Like I said, you know, it's up to you have to be deliberate about it. Right? It's not something that just happens.

So I really encourage everyone to, know, once a year, take a day or a couple of days, even a week if you can afford it Yeah. To really to kind of reflect on your practice, what you like doing, what you don't like doing, and the direction would take your practice. And hopefully, some of these tips hidden here will be helpful. You know, if needed, you know, don't hesitate to reach out to Tyson and myself. We're happy to help you along that path to your ideal practice.

So, you know, don't be a stranger.

Yeah. So what I should do for all podiatrists in Australia, since they're the number one listeners of this podcast, just point that out, is we we could do a we could do a, like, a thinking retreat in in Bali and make it tax deductible. That'd be even better.

That'd be fantastic.

Anyone wants to know more, just reach out. Okay, Jim. That has been fantastic, and I look forward to talking to next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you. Bye now.

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