Show Your Patients Behind The Scenes

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 cohost, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, what's going on today?

I'm fantastic. Today, big Jim, what's going on at the moment? Not a lot. Same old. Same old.

Keeping pretty busy with podcasting as we've we've been doing, but just life is busy. There's never a dull moment. I reckon there's just never a dull moment. I remember when I was a kid, and you used to be, oh, I just can't wait for, you know, for holidays to be over or something. But as an as an adult, it's just there's always something on.

Yeah. It flies by. Note that there's always something on the schedule for sure.

Yeah. There's always something on, but it's even just where we live in Cairns, don't know if it's just because of regional areas. Every weekend, there is some event. And I've mentioned this when I've done some talks. I would've spoken to podiatrists, and they're trying to attract podiatrists to their business, you know, to have them join their team.

And I always say, but, yeah, sell the sizzles. You know, what makes your job fantastic? But also, what makes the area you live in fantastic? And your profile, if you really pay attention to what happens in your town, why are you there? What social events do you go to?

What makes your town unique? Bring that into your your, you know, the text, you know, your your sales pitch that you use to actually attract team members. That's got nothing to do with what I'm talking about today, though.

Yeah. So what are what are we gonna chat about today?

Today, we're talking about the topic. Well, the title of this is show your patients behind the scenes. And I think it may have been episode 50. We spoke about YouTube and and doing videos. I can't remember the exact episode, but that's what this is about.

It's about showing patients behind the scenes of your business through video, pretty much.

Nice. I guess I can get a little peek behind the curtain to see what you're really like and what you and your staff stand for, I guess.

Yeah. And sometimes too, what people don't realize, what we do every day in our clinic, that we may look at that is very mundane and boring, but for our patients that don't know what happens behind closed doors. Yeah. Sometimes they might be sitting in a reception area, and they can hear a sterilizer making noises or they hear a grinder or they just hear something, and they really look around and go, wonder what they're actually doing. So something that might seem boring to us could be really interesting to them, and it's something you could use it, especially in your social media posts because most social media posts are boring.

You have a look at a lot of podiatrists, especially if they're using an agency who knows nothing about podiatry, and you see the same boring social media posts, and it's liked by three people, the business owner, their wife, and their mom. And usually, there's that one fanatical patient that just likes everything you do. It doesn't matter what you you can post a can post a picture of a pen, and they'll like it because it's you. I I just think there's a lot of potential. There's a lot of things that we do in a clinic that patients will find interesting.

Yeah. I'd have to agree. Like like you said, you know, you're kinda living it every day. So but, you know, patients may be in an office once a year, a couple times a year, maybe a few more times than that, but it's it's just like kind of a new experience for them every time they come in unless they're one of your regulars. So, you know, kind of letting people know what's going on and kinda giving them a peek behind the scenes can definitely be helpful.

Well, yeah. And if the only thing you're posting is podiatry information, that will get get boring pretty quickly. I've been with when there's been large groups of podiatrists, and I said, put your hand up if you follow your dentist online. No one puts a hand up. Okay.

What about your chiropractor? Who who follows their chiropractor online? Yeah. What really wants to know what their business is doing? What about your physiotherapist?

No. Your your general practitioner? No. What about your orthopedic surgeon? No.

Okay. Why don't you follow them? And then everyone's, oh, because they're boring. And then you look at theirs and they go and they're trying to get their patients. And they they are the paying companies to post for them or they're spending all this time and effort doing these, like, elaborate posts that don't actually mean anything.

And I'm thinking if if you've done it before, if if you're not getting any likes, if nobody's sharing it, then it's sort of telling you that what you're currently posting at the moment is not resonating with anybody. So try mixing up a little bit, and and I think you can actually make it pretty exciting.

As as far as some examples of stuff you've used in the past, what what kind of what's a good way for someone to make you consider getting started with the kind of post you're talking about?

Well, I think it's something also you should get together with your team. I think at your next team meeting, you throw the idea at that that, hey, we wanna start creating some videos on behind the scenes. And when you have a team meeting, have everybody in your team come up with an idea. What's something that they do behind the scenes? And it doesn't and even and you say, whatever seems the most boring thing could be the most interesting.

Give you an I'll go through some examples of what I've got written down. But I remember I was at my brother's dental clinic one day, and he had his little lab area just off of one of the consultation rooms. I remember being in there, and he'd shot out to go and do something, and he said, I'll meet you back out the front. So as I'm walking down the hallway, the door was open. Went, oh, gave a little push, opened up.

And in there were all these, like, people's dentures and teeth and molds of jaws, and there were different crowns and bridges, and then there was somebody that was working in there who was polishing up one of them. And I stood there watching it for about, oh, maybe sixty seconds, and I walked out. My brother said, where were you? I said, that was really interesting out there back there. I said, I didn't realize I said, yeah.

You're flat out drawing a straight line. Here you are. Because, yeah, we grew up together. I know how artistic he is. I said, but here you are.

You're doing all this bolding stuff out there and and buffing things. I said, that was really interesting. That's what originally got me thinking even with podiatry. What we do and to him, he just went, oh, we do that shit every day. That's boring.

But I'm thinking, for me, I found that really interesting. So here's a couple of examples, and people might listen to this and go, oh my god. That is really boring. But have you ever thought about you shoot a quick video, and it's like cleaning, bagging, and sterilizing your instruments? Like, the patient see the bag, get open up, get torn open.

Hang on. Sound effects. So they see you tearing open a bag, but how did those instruments get in that bag? What's the process that you go through for cleaning instruments, or do you have an ultrasonic cleaner? You can do a video just on the ultrasonic cleaner.

What it is, how it's worked, how it works, how many instruments go in there at any one time, and then where they go next. Every one of those things could be a little step, And I don't think patients realize the process that a contaminated instrument goes from being sterilized.

I think it's a great point. I think people wanna know exactly if their the instruments are clean and they're not being used, you know. Obviously, they're being reused, but what is that process? And it can kind of maybe preserve a little peace of mind for that patient to know if they have the opportunity to see all those steps it takes for an instrument to go from being dirty to being used on the next patient.

And I think it's also valuable too. One, you can put this in your social media pages. This could be something that's on your website as a short video. This is how we prepare our instruments for you. So the next time a patient says, oh, geez, I can't believe your fees are this amount.

They say, have you seen how much care and attention we take just with their instruments? Do you think that whole process, that ultrasonic cleaner, do you think they gave that to us for free? No. We had to buy that. Do think that when when the the time it takes to actually clean everything down, the the bags that things are going to, we have to pay for them.

See this autoclave, that wasn't free either. That cost thousands and thousands of dollars. So so you don't get an infection or catch some disease that's gonna kill you, we spend all that money on that stuff so that you are safe. And to me, that justifies why we charge what we charge. So that that video can have a number of different purposes.

And that's one simple video of something we do which is extremely boring. But, yeah, you can put music behind it and actually make it entertaining if you wanted to.

But sometimes the most important stuff is boring. Right? Like Yeah. Like, I think that's a great I think it's a great thing to show. I think one thing that pops to my mind is, you know, along with, you know, instrumentation, you know, I I've gone through surgery.

We perform, you know, ingrown toenails and other types of small procedures on patients, you know. And and a lot of times, get those pre op recommendations. Right? Or this this is what you should do in the twenty four or forty hours leading into a procedure. But I think if you could have a video, I think it would translate to a lot more people and they would probably watch that pre op video or these are these are why you we're asking you to do these things and and see it.

Because sometimes if it's a page of paper, page and a half of paper, we know how I know how I am sometimes reading, you know, skimming along. But if it was a quick, you know, two, three minute video and really showed the visuals of why we're doing what we're doing, I think it could be a pretty pretty valuable piece of information, but, yeah, it is kind of to us, it seems kinda boring though. You're right.

Yeah. And it's it's because we're doing it every day. So I've got some other ones to to run through. And I think this is something like in about a month's time, we've got a live event in Chicago. So people what's the website, Jim, that they need to go to to get a seat?

If they go to podiatrygrowth.com, there'll be a nice button in the upper right hand corner for for Podiatry Marketing Live so they can purchase you know, learn about the the that workshop there and then purchase their tickets.

Yeah. So if you're sitting on the fence and you're thinking about it, I always say pull the splinters out of your bum and just book in and come and catch up for the day with Jim and I in Chicago. But I I think what we're talking about here with some of these videos, I'm gonna touch on this again, I think, when we're at at the marketing event. But some of the other things we've got written down here is, like, putting together a nail surgery pack. What is in a nail surgery pack?

And you may even explain what each instrument is used for. Difference between a pair of clippers that you would cut a toenail with compared to a pair of clippers you would use to do the nail surgery. And I remember showing that to a patient once, and they said, oh, I want say this one's special. And when I showed them the flat base and the sharp cutting edge, they went, oh my god. They're amazing.

The patients were very excited, so I'd show it to them all the time. That's a simple thing that you could not just show the instruments, but how do you put that together? That's an extension of and that's an extension of the sterilizing, but you can show how it's put together to start with, which what the instruments are, and then when they're finished, what happens to these instruments afterwards, and then that all goes through another process. Even something as simple as adding covers to a pair of orthotics. We do it every day.

The patients don't the orthotics don't just come with those covers. Sometimes we have to put them on. So what glue do we use? What makes that glue special? Do you have a vacuum thing where you're doing your gluing to to suck it out?

If you do, explain what explain what that's all about so they can go, wow. You're not just whacking some like, getting one of those blue stick tube things and and rubbing on a thing. There's actually a special glue that I don't know what glue you used to use, Jim, but we used to, you know, put the glue on, let it touch dry, then heat it with the heat gun, and then whack it down there. Like I said, we do it all the time. Sounds really boring, but I think patients would find that that one interesting as well.

No. I agree. The behind the scenes stuff like you're mentioning is there's a certain segment of the patients who really, really enjoy it and, you know, they'll learn quite a bit as well.

And also the the thickness of the materials, and you might have different types of covering materials. You might have this just a leather, you might have a vinyl type material, you might use something that's got cushioning on it. You can show the different thicknesses and and why we use different ones. So you can do a video just talking about the materials you use purely as a top cover or going into some of the orthotic adjustments that you do. How you do a planar groove in an orthotic, or if you grind down the arch height, or changing the angle on a on a rear foot post.

Every one of them could be their own individual video.

Yeah. Some of these things really can help highlight your expertise. Right? You know, we're talking about before the show about people wanting to do more of a certain type of, you know, procedures or different types of podiatry. And, you know, the more you have kind of a library of some of this content, it's gonna really separate you from some other folks that may not want to show that.

But these little details will, you know, and showing that you you know what you're doing really kinda help separate you from others and it kinda highlights your expertise.

Yeah. And if you're in there and they say that you've got a grinder there, you know, that, oh, is that what that noise is at the back of here all the time? And they actually see you grinding something and taking something that may have just looked like a piece of rubber, and also you convert that into a metatarsal dome for a specific problem, and you might modify it a certain way, you might do a cutout on it. And they see how much detail actually goes into making that. It'd be really impressive.

Like I said, my brother you know, I grew up with my brother having the artistic skills of a penguin, but here he is doing this intricate work on, like, crown bridge work and and modifying with a little grinder and buffing it down. And when I saw that, I just went I was impressed. And I actually said that to him. I said, and here I am, I just thought you were inept. It's doing certain things with your hands, but not realizing that, well, hang on, as a dentist, he was actually really, really good at what he does.

So his little fine motor skills was probably far better than what mine were, but only because I saw him doing it. I think if your patients see you doing it as well, they're gonna sort of go, wow, I'm actually really impressed that my podiatrist does a lot more than than what I actually thought.

Yeah. Think that's a really good point, and I think one thing that pops up sometimes with podiatry patients is that kind of the off the shelf versus custom orthotic. Right? And they don't totally understand the amount of time and effort it takes to go into not only diagnosing a patient with someone and making sure that the the orthotic is custom and, you know, is kind of fabricated for a specific purpose. But, you know, when, like I said, when you show those videos or you have some way to, you know, show the kind of craftsmanship that went into making this thing, it wasn't something you just like clicked a couple buttons and order from a lab and it gets shipped out after, you know, know, you scan their foot with your iPhone or whatever device people are scanning feet with these days.

There's more to it than that. And I think, like like you mentioned, the kind of craftsmanship side of things and letting the people see that. Because if you go back into the back room with the grinder and you're just kind of back there for a while doing things, you know, the patient's not gonna see that. Right? And their perception of kind of what you're providing them could be radically changed if you were able to show it in a video form or kinda show the process of what you actually do to get an orthotic that's custom for for for their feet and not just something just, you know, a super feet off the shelf or something.

But like I said, it's the things we do on a regular basis that we forget how interesting they are to other people. My daughter had her eighteenth birthday party at home here last year, and I've got my office all set up with all my podcasting stuff. And then somebody mentioned something that I did podcasting, and then one of the kids at the party said, oh, you're a podcaster? I'm like, yeah. Can I have a look at your setup?

Next, every kid at that party was in my home office looking at my where where my microphones were and the setup and my lighting and and the sound panels, and they were going, oh, this is really cool. What's this button doing? I'm going, don't touch the buttons. And and there were, like there were three girls in particular. They just didn't wanna leave the room.

They were just having too much fun looking at how it all worked and and asking questions. And here I am, I look at it every day. So I don't when I see it, it's just it's just there. But you forget back to even yourself when you first saw something done for the first time. Yeah.

When I was at uni and I first saw something get instruments get bagged, and they go, oh, that's interesting. And we had to learn how to do it. When I saw a met dome get done the first time or how to make a silicon wedge for yeah, a silicon toe prop for somebody's foot. All those things are boring to us, but may not be to your patients. Another thing we found that was we we did these ones, which were some of their best videos.

Because we had the shoe shop, whenever footwear arrived, and we were opening up all the boxes and taking out all the stock, and then talking to the camera at the same time as we're pulling things out, that got a lot of engagement. So I think podiatrists could do that just for any stock that arrives, A box arrives. Someone can pick up the camera, start video tape, and say, okay. We just got a box from such and such medical. Let's open it up and see what we've got today.

And just start pulling things out, and your patients will be going, what the hell is that? What do you use that for? Oh, one of those dressings. Oh, what's that called? That that looks a little bit different.

And one, it just you probably find some of those patients that come in and say, oh, I saw you opening up that box. What was that red thing that you pulled out that you and they won't even remember the name of it, but you will. And it's just it's just a conversation. And another video could be maintenance on equipment. If you pull your grinder apart at any stage, whether you or you might get somebody else to come and do it.

If they pull it apart, just video do short video. The best thing about video is you can video something, and if it's crap, you throw it out. You just delete it. And and it should be something that you just it's not really interfering with with anything you're doing. You just you got the opportunity to do it.

And because of smartphones, we have a video camera in a hand, which is pretty good quality, so you can shoot a video at any time. And in the last video I'll just mention, if you have a coffee machine, for example, show them how you make the perfect cup of coffee in your clinic. Just say, hey. So when you come and see us at, yeah, ABC Podiatry, you will be offered a cup of coffee. This is how we make our coffee.

Now if you have instant terrible coffee, the thing is you could do that. You could shoot a video on your instant terrible coffee and just go, sorry. But when you come and see us, you may wanna have a coffee before you get here because we have this instant crap. You show, we've got this. This is how we make it.

One sugar or two. But if you make nice coffee, be proud of the coffee that you make and and say, hey. When you come to us, if you want a coffee, this is the type of coffee that we have. Basically, or if you want a cup of tea, this is a selection of tea that we offer. And and even though, like I said, you might go, but that's silly just to to talk about the coffee machine.

I don't think it is. I'd like to know if I was going don't wanna not now. We're gonna to a hairdresser and get a haircut.

A little too late for that.

Yeah. A bit late for that. But they used to have a, like, a tea menu that they'd hand to you when you walked in. And they said, oh, here's the tea menu. And I said, oh, they said, what type of tea?

And they have, like, 20 different teas on there. For some people, the tea that they drink, the coffee that they drink is important to them, but I think you just showing behind the scenes that, look, this is what we do. Yeah. I think it I think it's interesting. And so have you got any others yourself, Jim, that you would throw in there?

I mean, those I think the orthotic example is pretty good. Like I said, the pre op stuff, I think having a video just walking either yourself or kind of a mock patient through what that's like could be really helpful. I think it really really relates to kind of whatever type of thing you wanted to do. Right? I think there's there's benefits if you can get some if you're in the surgery and some patients were willing to sign off, you it can be beneficial to have a video of surgery to see what that's like.

Or what is it like to come into the OR? What can you expect with anesthesia, for example? I think there's just a lot of ways to not everyone gonna wanna read up on these things. Maybe some people won't want to learn at all, but there is a subset of patients that are curious about what that experience is gonna be like and if you can make them more comfortable by sharing that information about your practice, whether it's the care you provide or maybe it's some of the supplemental things, like you said, like coffee or other aspects of your practice that that provide a little bit of insight into the personality of the practice. Those all can be really, really beneficial.

But those are kind my thoughts.

Yeah. And I think if people wanna test this out, is have a look at things you've done in the past and you've posted on your social media pages. Have a look at the engagement that you've got, and then go off, grab your phone, think of, okay, what's something that we do all the time which is really boring? And ask yourself, is it video worthy? If you're not sure, just record it, post it on your social media page, and just see what happens.

And if all of a sudden, you see the engagement go up because I've seen videos, not just the podiatrist, but other places where it's a staff member's birthday, and they videotape the birth the the staff member sitting in the staff room and then bringing in a birthday cake and everyone singing happy birthday, and that's all that was posted. And everyone having a bit of a laugh. And next thing, it's got twenty twenty five likes. It's been shared four times, and you're going, there was nothing really exciting about it. So I think test test the waters.

And also remember too, when you're doing the videos, you're not trying to win an Academy Award. It's really just as long as the lighting is okay and the lighting doesn't need to be perfect. The sound doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be clear. And like I've mentioned, you know, I did a a video just on how to strap your heels, go through ninety seconds, and I think the last time looked, it had 88,000 views.

Just ridiculous. So it it's one of those things that every time you're with a patient, any problem, anything you're doing around the clinic is just think about, is this video worthy? And if it could be, go and grab a staff member, grab one of your teammates, and say, hey. Can you just grab my iPhone? Just want you to film me do this.

And the thing is you don't really even need to talk. You can just film it. You can easily narrate over the top of it later, if that's what you wanna do. Or you put the video up there and you put text over the top. You don't even have to talk.

So if don't like the sound of your voice, which Jim and I do, then there's ways of getting around it.

I think one of the quick aspect that you know, that birthday cake video, a staff member birthday, it reminded me of is that knowing who your audience is for. You know, sometimes you're gonna be creating content for your patients and it should be really patient centric Yeah. That'll people it will dear patients your practice. But also by putting some of that stuff on social media, you might be kind of reaching out to, you know, potential employees or a potential staff member and they can see that, you know, this practice is diff you know, this is something you can point to. Other people will see, you know, kind of in and around your social media channels that they treat their staff well.

Right? So it is important to like make a lot of your content patient centric, but there is benefit of showing your personality for staff members and for the community at large to see that you are a great place to work. So that's something, you know, especially these days when it's hard to find good staff and it seems like wages are beginning higher and higher. If you can hire those those patients that are a good fit for your culture, those good, you know, staff members that are good fit for your culture, some of those social media posts can really help out with that.

Oh, I definitely agree. I know when I used to take the barbecue at work and I'd be cooking at the back, and if somebody shot a quick video of me cooking at the back for everybody doing breakfast, even if we were just posting photos of that, the amount of engagement and comments, not just like you might post it, you might get 20 patients might comment on, oh, it's really nice to see see you've got the boss working for a change. But the comments from the rest of the team, them saying, this is one of their favorite days of the of the year when we bring the barbecue in and we have a breakfast before, yeah, they start work that day. But the comments from and then them sharing it on their own sites, that's where and like you said, if I was looking for if I was going to work somewhere, I wanna know that I'm gonna work somewhere that it's it's the people get along. They enjoy each other's company.

They and, yeah, they just feel like they're having fun as well.

For sure.

And even if it didn't work, I was a patient. I'm gonna go somewhere. If you want more fun patients, make your business look fun. Don't make it look sterile.

Totally agree.

Okay. That's about it on that. We will talk like I said, we'll talk about it again in Chicago, Twenty First Of October. Go to podiatry.marketing, and you'll find the links there for to get a seat. One month to go.

Yeah. It's gonna be here before, and I'm looking forward to it, Tyson.

I'm looking forward to meeting you and meet you in the flesh since we've never met before.

I know. It's gonna be a good time.

It will be fun. Okay, Jim. I will see you next week.

Alright, Tyson.

Okay. See you. Bye.

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.marketing.