The Mid-Year Check-Up

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 back to this week's episode of podiatry marketing. With me today is my cohost, big Jim Mac, all the way over in Canada. So Jim, how are you doing this morning?

Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. My my birthday is coming up. Getting older by the day, but no no complaints. Life is good.

Is that June 30, isn't it? Your birthday?

Yeah. Yeah. It's coming up here. I guess it's yeah. Like four days.

So once once this is recording a little bit early, but this is the June 26 episode. So, yeah, four days away.

So Yeah. And mine would be the week after that. So about two weeks time.

Your July guide,

isn't it? Yeah. July 6. You can note that down in your calendar if you need to. Anyone?

For sure.

I'm keen to get some big Jim Mac shirts done.

You you might be one of I don't know. Maybe my kids would want one. I'm trying to think who else would be dying for big Jim Mac shirt, but

Yeah. It's one of those caricatures.

Very kind of you.

A caricature of you then. It says big Jim Mac. And then a little writing underneath it says, and Tyson.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll see about that.

Yeah. And people go people look at it and go, who the hell's Tyson? Yeah. Doesn't matter.

Just some guy hang out and record a podcast with on Tuesday nights. No big deal.

So what are we talking about today?

Well, we're getting to the the middle of the year. So I thought it would be a good idea to kinda go over just some things, you know, could people reflect on that that first six months of 2023? You know, what are some constructive ways to look at, you know, what you've done so far and and where you wanna go for the rest of 2023?

Okay. Yeah. It's an interesting time of the year, especially for in Australia as we head towards June 30 is our end of financial year. So when we wrap up then, it's one of those things where you have this big goal, you're you're trying to pay certain bills beforehand to try and get them in this tax year, and then July 1. So I know a lot of times you'll you'll have, like, calendar goals, but in Australia, we have we work a lot on that financial year and yeah.

And it is you sort of you're really reflecting not just over the last six months, but over the last twelve months as well.

No. No. For sure. And I think it's interesting in North America. It's like like I said, it's kind of that first half of the year, but, you know, maybe school's been out for a little while.

People are going on summer vacation. So it's kinda like the summertime's a bit of a time in North America to kinda rest and recharge a bit. So, you know, you're gonna probably have a little bit of time. Not the clinic's necessarily slower because it can be a busy time, but it's a it's a it's a good time to kinda, like, step back, reflect a little bit about kinda what was working well for the first six months, and then, you know, where you wanna go for the rest of the year because there's still, you know, another you know, there's July, August, September, October, November, December left in the year. And, you know, if you've done great, it's a great way to kinda like charge up be charged up as far as like, wow, that was great for six months.

Let's keep the momentum going. And maybe you've experimented. You've done a few things that haven't worked out as well. But it's a you know, you got six more months this year to kinda, like, keep things ramping up. And, you know, 2023 hasn't been necessarily the easiest year.

You know, economically speaking, there's kind of all kinds of banking and mark you know, market turbulence, and it's never it's never easy, but it's a it's a good chance to, you know, get some motivation going to second half of the year.

I must admit, when all the bad news that goes on in the world for the last thirty years, this is this will sound really I don't This might sound bad or insightful. Depends which way you look at it. But I've I've never really got involved.

I don't know if

it makes any sense, but even the whole global financial crisis going on. And these there were different people that knew dentists and other health professionals. We went, oh, business is really bad because of the global financial crisis. Yep. They were the best years I ever had.

But my business grew so much over that same time. So while everybody else is shouting doom and gloom, I decided not to participate. I just went, no. I'm just gonna just keep getting on with with building my business. Who's to say that if it hadn't been for the global financial crisis, my business may have grown even more.

Maybe it still grew, just not as much as it could have. Don't know.

Yeah. The news is definitely interesting. Right? You have to, like, be aware enough of, you know, things that are happening within the profession and be aware enough as far as what things are changing. You know, what what are kind of things that we'll have to deal with to to be able to adapt.

But at the same time, right, you said you can't you can't dwell on it. Mhmm. If dwell on it, then you're like you said, you're kinda gonna if it's all doom and gloom and you don't have but people are still gonna have foot and ankle problems no matter what's happening

That's true.

You know, with the with the global financial market. So it's a matter of, you know, be being aware, but at the same time, like you said, not focusing on that that negative aspect of whatever is in the news or, you know, what what the end of the world that's that's coming up near, you know, to just, you know, just kinda taking one day at a time.

Well, I said to my wife the other day that we were home at 06:00, and that's when the news comes on here. And for some reason, we sat there and watched it. I have not watched the news. I reckon probably three years before I've seen actual half hour news. I wanted to jump off the roof of my house.

It was so bad. There were, like, 10 stories and there were 11 victims. It was just awful. Everything was just doom and gloom. And I'm like, I do not understand how people can watch it every night and still feel positive each day.

I said, it's really difficult. So but what I figured out, if you listen to the news on the radio, on a music channel, the news is concise to about two minutes, and you only get the main facts. You don't get all the rubbish and and everything else. So if people wanna keep up with the news, I reckon the radio is the better way of doing it.

Yeah. For sure. But, yeah, like jumping back into as far as the, you know, the the positive side of things. Back to the back to your clinic, back to, you know, the progress you're making at your practice. I kinda like to break it up into two sections to start off with, you know, the first section kinda being like, you know, what's going on with your clinic in general?

You know, qualitatively, you know, obviously, without the numbers in front of you, like, what is your feeling been like, you know, for during this first six months? Right? How is things going with your staff? Like, you know, have you retained all your staff? Are you having issues?

I know that especially these days, you know, there's been a jump not only inflation, but in sometimes staff wages. Right? So Mhmm. You know, are you able to retain that that talent within your clinic to make sure that your operations are running smoothly? Because I think there is a lot of, you know, whether it be a medical assistance or front desk people.

There's different kinds of opportunities that are cropping up all the time now, you know. So if they're looking for, you know, a higher, you know, wage, you know, can you can you match that or other benefits you provide for your clinic? So, you getting a general kind of qualitative feeling about your staff, the overall higher practices running. Are you seeing the type of patients you wanna see? And kind of what your level of kind of professional satisfaction is currently.

You know, you don't like I said, that's kind of that qualitative assessment. Right? Like kind of the gut check as far as like, how do you think things are going? And that's it's not the only way to kind of analyze and look at the year the first half of the year, but does give you a general sense of, like, okay, how how do you feel things are going?

Should you ask your team the same question? You know, you're asking yourself how is the team going and whether they've stayed. Have you lost team members and other aspects of your business? Should you ask your team the exact same question and get their feedback and how they feel things have gone?

Yeah. And definitely, it depends on, you know, what kinda I think reviews and kind of having open dialogues and providing feedback to your staff is obviously hugely important. You know, some people will work on that on a quarterly basis. Some people will do it, you know, once every six months. But it is good to check-in with them and see how they're doing.

Because, obviously, you know, maybe it could be for per you know, you you know, we're kinda working with people all day, all year long. But sometimes it can be at a super not initially superficial level, but you have work to do. You're working on the patients. That's the priority. That's the focus.

But taking time either, you know, once a month, once every quarter, once every six months, just to check-in with people and see how they're doing on a personal level. Right? Like, do they have a, you know, a sick kid at home that, like, they need to go get a better job with a higher paying job or, you know, is is there other things going on their lives? Are they satisfied with the type of role they're in? So Yeah.

I think it is I think you bring up an important component is that, you know, that kind of qualitative assessment of your staff should be done on a consistent basis, you know. But it's gonna kinda depend on do you have kind of a manager? Are you the manager? Like, how do you like, how do what do you have time for? And, like, how can you make sure that you're staying in touch with those employees in your practice to make sure that they're at a you know, satisfied and and thriving so that it'll help you and your practice continue to make traction and progress.

So have you heard businesses where they will have, a happiness meter? Where they they measure they try and measure the happiness in their business?

I've seen different things where there's like kind of the like employee surveys

that

come out. And you can kinda like one to five, like how's that person doing or how are they feeling about the work? And I think that can be beneficial. I don't if it's done on a weekly basis, but if it if it's done daily, I think people just get used to clicking a button and probably just saying they're happy just to get it done with. Something less less frequent might be might be better to get a general sense of things, whether it be monthly, like I said, or if you're doing something like that.

So some type of sequence or some type of, like, check-in with that employee can be definitely helpful. But it's like I said, it's gonna really vary between do you wanna do a little bit on software? Do you wanna have those kinda heart to heart or those, like, face to face conversations? You know, with some professional feedback, but also a chance to listen to them and kinda understand how they're doing.

Yeah. I remember listening to a person on podcast, and they were talking about measuring happiness in their business. And that was, like, one of the big things was they they give themselves a happiness ranking. And but they based it on arguments between staff because as the business owner, they would have staff come to complain about certain things. So they'll be noting down, oh, there were less complaints, less complaints from patients.

And that that's how they because that's how they worked out, how they felt the business was on a happiness level based on certain things that would not happen in the business.

No. I think it's a good point. I think, you know, kind of the harmony of your staff. Sometimes, obviously, some turnovers, you know, is gonna be kind of normal. If you're in a really small clinic, maybe you can hold on to somebody longer.

But if the larger the larger clinic gets and the more podiatrists you have probably means you're gonna have a little more turnover. But having some kind of way to assess the the culture and the team morale is really important. I think as you grow, you know, having those because you can't have, you know, our conversation with everyone every single day. So finding some systems to put in place with this happiness meter or some way to kinda general assess the general attitude and satisfaction of your employees is super important. But once you get past the qualitative thing, you know, the kind of assessment to kinda see how things are going, think there is really benefit.

We talked about this in some past episodes is really getting to the the quantitative aspects of your clinic. So that means like, you know, how many new patients did you have for the last six months or the last year and kind of know what those numbers are. You know, what are you doing as far as, a number of procedures and different types of diagnosis that are coming through the door? So really taking a hard look at those numbers and getting a general sense of maybe it's in The US and in Canada somewhat. What insurance plans are coming to see you?

What where's your referrals coming from in your clinic, really having some core metrics to look at. And and and sometimes people will sometimes drill down too much into days and two weeks and even into months. You wanna be aware of what those what's happening from month to month. If there's some huge drop off, like you did something that might have caused it, or if there's something that, you know, maybe this new staff member on the phones or something. The month to month is important, but really what you wanna look is at in trends of these things.

Yeah.

You know, from over the course of a year or, you know, from a from one quarter to the next quarter, what are things looking like? Like, from all those kind of kind of key performance indicators or those things that you're trying to achieve to make sure you're measuring those things. So like I said, you gotta measure it first so you can kind of, you know, right the ship where you can correct things. If you don't if it's not measured, you you you can't make any real, you know, actions to kind of help correct those things. So I think that's a really important important part of your clinic is having those quantitative that data will help you make better decisions moving forward.

Yeah. And like they say, numbers don't lie, any people lie. Because it's it's true. Like, the the numbers, you you can't lie with numbers. They they are they are what they are, and it's then it comes down to how you actually interpret them.

But I do like what you said about looking at things on a quarterly basis as well because you can have a bad week or you can have a bad day. You can have a bad week. You can even have a a bad month, but you shouldn't have a bad quarter. And, you know, two good months and one bad month can you can still have a trend yeah. A quarter that trends upwards, which is okay.

But if you have a couple of if if you have a bad quarter, then that's a sign that something needs to change or something's amiss.

Yeah. Exactly. I think, like you said, if you're, you know, if the the spikes will go up and down on a on a weekly or monthly basis sometimes, and it can be very, like you you wanna be proactive but not reactive. Right? So you don't wanna, like, look at that month and you're just like, oh my gosh.

Like what happened? Like like trying it's good to like run yourself through an exercise to try to determine what you think might have happened and and, you know, make me make some slight adjustments. But I think any big adjustments, you know, like from a strategic standpoint, those things should really be focused more on a quarterly basis because otherwise, you're just trying to put out fire after fire sometimes. And and sometimes running a business and and taking good care of patients is already busy enough, let alone you trying to, like, solve every what happened every single week or every single month. But you can kind of see the the trends over the course of of quarters.

And like you said, you can take appropriate action to kind of rectify that much more on it much more easily. And I would say also, like, besides just kind of the clinical aspects of things, really looking into your marketing on a quantitative level. Right? Like, you getting you know, what kind of patients are you getting? Or kind of what is the feeling that, you know, you're you're trying to do some experiments, let's say, in your marketing?

Yeah.

Like, is this do you feel like it's being received well? Like, are you are you getting things parroted back to you from patients that maybe it was a Facebook ad or you're or you're you're kind of checking in on patients as, you know, like you talked about with some of the stuff you've done with your traditional marketing. Right? Like, you know, there there's certain things that, you know, whether it be a phrase or, you know, you can you can just tell that they read something or they you know, that something you put out there without even measuring it, you just get the feeling that, like, this is working. It's it's make you know, I'm getting I did an orthotics, you know, Facebook ad for two months, and and now I can just I'm getting all these orthotic patients.

Right? So does it feel like it's working? So kinda like getting that kind of qualitative gut check about your marketing is is an important component as well.

Yeah. I think the marketing side of things is super important. And that and I think that's where, yeah, strategy and tactics can sometimes get mixed up where, yeah, the strategy is the, you like, what you wanna do is a plan to get to the goal you wanna achieve, and the tactics are just the things you're gonna do, the actions you're gonna take. And sometimes they might be looking at their figures and thinking, oh, I'm not gonna reach my goals. So they they constantly it's okay for the tactics to change, but the strategy should always stay the same.

Yeah. And I think one thing we talk about on on this podcast quite a bit is, like, kind of finding your niche within podiatry. Right? Like, do you want to be, you know, a sports medicine doctor? Do you want be a wound care specialist?

Do you want to be the surgeon? You know, do you want to be known as the best person to go for ingrown toenails? And that quanti you know, the quantitative aspect of things, definitely we'll we'll get into that. But, you know, are do you feel like you're doing more of the work you love? Like, are you is it easier to get out of bed?

Are you excited that, you know, your your schedule's gonna be full, you know, for the last month, you know, since doing this thing, like, you know, you've just seen more of those patients you wanna see. So that kinda like bleeds into that, the quantitative stuff. Right? So like we talked about, you know, if you're doing a campaign about sports medicine or doing Google Ads or Facebook Ads or you're running an ad in a local paper about or you're doing a partnership with maybe the local, you know, Aussie football club or the local soccer club, you know, do you feel like that that's, you know, you know, sometimes you'll get the ability to kinda, like, verify those numbers. Right?

So if you're doing something, you know, maybe you have a special website URL for, you know, the newspaper ad you're doing. Like, go to like, you know, pro arch podiatry backslash, you know, foot foot orthotics. And if you know that you got 500 people that came from that very spec that that link that only showed up in an ad, you can really, you know, determine the data as far as what's working, not not working when you do something like that. You know, Google Ads and Facebook Ads also allow for you to see who clicks through and who makes appointments from those kind of things. And you can even more simply ask on some of the patient intake forms, you know, about how did you hear about the clinic to get a general sense of, you know, what channels are working well.

But, you know, tying that kind of qualitative feeling into hard numbers and like you talked about, that are tied to not only, you know, it's it's really tied into kind of the patients you wanna see. Right? So those kind of we talked about in your your clinic, what is the moving the needle in the clinical aspect of things that's tied into your marketing and making those connections is hugely important to make sure that this first six months, you're kinda moving in that direction and it's and it's working. You're getting that return on investment.

So a lot of this too would all yeah. Going back a little bit, would all relate to the goals that you wanna achieve in the future.

Right.

So, like, you so you need to sit down and work out what is it that you wanna achieve for your business. Because I think if if you're as a business owner, you're sitting there going, yeah. Yeah. I don't care if we have a great month or or not or we get more patients. I think if you if you don't care, then you don't need to actually, you shouldn't be listening to this podcast.

Turn it off now. Go away. But I think most of people listening to this, the reason they're listening to this podcast is because they care about their business. And if they care about their business, then they should have goals in place. And if you've got goals in place, then you need to be looking at certain things about your business to know that you're you're heading in a forward direction.

Exactly. And I think we talked about, you know, I I kinda sometimes simply break it down into these, different categories, these different niches. But it can also be, you know, you just wanna become the kind of, you know, the the foot and ankle expert with kind of a shockwave, for example. You just wanna, like, be known as that person in your local area that does shockwave. So you could do things.

It's not only just the patient you're seeing, but are you, you know, have you undergone the proper, you know, education, you know, the the kind of have you been to some meetings? Are you really kinda learning from other people that have done it before you? You know, are you kind of making progress, you know, in your own career to want to want to do and to kinda be the best at doing that thing? So it, yeah, it can be sometimes about those clinical numbers and the marketing numbers, but it's also about what do you like to do within the profession, and are you doing things that help you enjoy it even more over time? So like you said, you know, it is about sometimes clinical objectives, sometimes marketing objectives, sometimes professional objectives you have.

But, you know, this this midyear checking is a way to kind of take all that take all that kind of inputs from the the first six months and really think to yourself, am I am I making traction? Am moving that direction in my practice I wanna move? Because when you're in the day to day or for week to week, you know, you've got a busy clinic, you've got people to take care of, you have staff to oversee, you've got things going on, but you gotta take time every so often just to kinda, like, pause for maybe it's a couple hours, maybe it's a half a day, but to really reflect on what direction your practice is going to because there's a lot of outside forces that will try to take your own practice into a different way that maybe you don't wanna go. Maybe it's going perfect and you're just on that road and nothing's gonna stop you. But sometimes, you know, it's like, well, you like doing sports medicine, but now someone's sending you all these wound care patients.

And while that's nice in some way because it's it's you know, they're they're you know, they respect you and they're sending you patients your way. It's not really who you want to see. So how can you turn that kind of either negative into a positive? Right? Is there someone else that you know that does a great job with wound care that you can kind of hook them up with this, and then maybe they'll send you more sports medicine patients.

So it's a matter of just kinda, like, strategic thinking. It's kinda like you talked about Tyson. It's not only tactics and getting caught in the day to day, but stepping back a little bit. So maybe it's with your business coach, someone like Tyson, for example, or maybe it's someone that does marketing with you. But just kind of being a little bit more strategic and making sure that you're on track to hit the goals so you can have a profession, you know, to have a job, a profession, and a practice that really bring you that satisfaction.

And it's amazing, like you said then about coaches as well as me or somebody else. To me, that's one of the things about having a coach in general is they keep you accountable. When you say to them, oh, this is what I wanna do next month, and that month, they're gonna say, so did you do it? Oh, no. Yeah.

Like, yeah. And you can only make excuses for a certain amount of time until the, yeah, the coach will pull you up on it. And I find people that I've actually worked with the people that I don't work with for very long are usually the people that are constantly just wanting to get information, but then don't actually take any action on it. And then they end up because they don't take any action, they just keep wanting more. They end up just information overload, and then they leave because they're thinking, oh, I've got too much.

I've got I've gotta get through all this first. I'm gonna get through all this, then I'll come back. And unlike Stephen King novels, they don't come back. Stephen King said sometimes they come back, but in the coaching world, when a client leaves, they don't come back. They never come back.

And when I talk to other coaches, they all say the same thing. No. They never come back. And it's because they haven't taken action on the information. So I I think this midyear check-in is a perfect thing because usually at the beginning of the year, everybody's saying, this is what I wanna do this year, they get so fired up.

And the next thing, it's the eighteenth, ninth of December, and they go, oh, shit. What happened then? And they look back. That year went fast, but next year next year is gonna be the year that I'm gonna tear it up. So I think the midyear check-in is a is a good reality check.

Yeah. I think it's we all get busy in the day to day. Right? And but putting this on the calendar, spending a few hours, you know, either by yourself or with some people that you trust to kind of hold you accountable is hugely important and hugely impactful on that second half half the year. Because like I said, in North America, kinda get into vacation mode.

People get out of vacation mode, and they're like, okay. Like, what do I do with that second half of the year? Obviously, you're seeing patients. You're helping them get better, but, you know, you gotta kinda pull you gotta not always be focused on working inside your business. You have to be working on your business as well.

And, you know, this mid year check-in really provides that.

Yeah. Have you read that book, The Twelve Week Year?

I have not read that yet. No.

It is an absolute ripper. And it's sort of along this concept because the same most people, January, they set all these goals that they're gonna do with the best intentions, then it gets to December. And they reckon they get more done usually in the the last four weeks of the year than they do the the other forty eight weeks of the year because they just keep putting it off. Whereas midlife that midlife the midyear check-in sort of makes him think about that. But the twelve week year is about doing this every three months.

It's for twelve weeks, you set a goal and you've got twelve weeks to get it done, then you have a week off, then you have twelve weeks again. So it's like four times a year, you're actually checking in and and pushing yourself. It's not just doing it like once a year, but if people don't wanna do it four times a year, at least do it twice a year. Check it out in June, and then you'd say check it out again at the end of the year.

For sure.

Okay. You got anything else in this subject?

No. I think it's just a matter of, like I said, you know, set those goals, but, like, you gotta you gotta keep consistent in this midyear check-in just really gives you a chance to kinda, like, get back on track if you're off track. And if you're on track and you're killing it, just give you some more motivation to kick ass the second half of the year.

Okay, Jim. Well, I'll bid you for it. Have a fantastic birthday. And

Thank appreciate that.

And Jim accepts accepts gifts. So if you wanna send him something, just send him a message. Hey, Jim. What's your what's your postal address? And we'll send you something awesome.

So I hope you have a fantastic day.

Appreciate it, Tyson. Thanks.

Okay. Talk to you next week. Bye, man. 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.