The One Thing Every NEW Podiatry Business Owner Should Do
💻 Podiatry clinic website & digital marketing services: https://podiatrygrowth.com/schedule-more-patients/
🤝 Podiatry business coaching: https://www.tysonfranklin.com/Coaching
In this episode of Podiatry Marketing, Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald, DPM, discuss the critical strategy that every new podiatry business owner should implement to save years of frustration: tracking every number from day one. They dive into the importance of monitoring data, such as new patient numbers, referral sources, average patient spend, rebooking rates, revenue per hour, and Google reviews.
They also share practical tips for building relationships with referral sources and making smart marketing decisions based on accurate data. This episode is packed with actionable advice for podiatrists looking to grow their practice effectively.
✉️ Contact: jim@podiatrygrowth.com
Jim McDannald, DPM:
You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations
Jim McDannald, DPM:
on building
Jim McDannald, DPM:
a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always are my trusted co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are doing today?
Tyson E. Franklin:
I'm fantastic today. But Jim, all the all the dogs are where they should be. No. There should be no barking during this episode or any any mayhem which has happened in the past.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
That's unfortunate. It's always adds a little excitement to each of the shows you do when you're when your dog hears somebody delivering a package or just decides to, you know, just entertain us a little bit here.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. And it's funny too. It depends what settings you use. So if I'm recording on Zoom, I've got things set up where the dog can be going off its nut, and the and it does not pick it up. But because we're recording this on a different platform, every little noise I make, if I bump I keep forgetting that when I'm using Zoom, I can make noises and can pick things up and throw stuff around, and it never picks it up.
Tyson E. Franklin:
This program, that is a lot more sensitive, so I have to my chair squeaking is another thing. So I apologize to anyone if you've been listening to the episode and you hear squeaks and things dropping. It's my fault.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
I'm sure they'll get over it, Tazen. I'm sure they'll get over it.
Tyson E. Franklin:
I'm sure they will. So anyway, today, we're gonna talk about you ready for it? The one thing that every new podiatry business owner should do. And this step will save years of frustration. And we're not talking about a marketing tactic or a fancy bit of tech.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Is something far simpler and far more powerful. And if people are thinking we're about to talk about the book, The One Thing, that's not what we're talking about. Even though that is a fantastic book, if you have not got a copy, you should get a copy of it.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Alright. You got me
Jim McDannald, DPM:
yeah. I'm curious now what where we're take
Tyson E. Franklin:
this Got you intrigued? I know. I thought I'd go for a little bit of intrigue in this particular episode. Keep people on the edge. So some common mistakes.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Many new well, before I get into it, so many new business owners focus entirely on patients, and they figured about the data behind the patients. And they assume, and this is a huge mistake, that busy equals successful or being successful. So the thing is that without data, you're basically flying blind, and you can't identify what's working or what you actually need to change. So marketing became becomes more of a you're more guessing instead of actually having a strategy in place. So here is the one thing.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Track every number from day one. Okay. We can just end the episode now and just put it all to bed. Yeah. Three minutes in, it's done.
Tyson E. Franklin:
But that's it. Track every number from day one, and most podiatrists don't do that.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Now it sounds simple, but, yeah, you're right. I don't think I'm I'm curious to hear how many of our listeners actually do this on a daily basis.
Tyson E. Franklin:
What what happens a lot of people, they start they start opening up the clinic. Well, they open it up, and they're just busy doing stuff, constantly doing stuff. Oh, I've heard that you should track numbers from day one, but, you know, I'll do that when I get a little bit busy because at the moment, I'm folding this, I'm putting these pieces of paper there, I'm putting equipment together, or they're so busy just doing things, and because they're busy, they think they're they're progressing and and being successful. But from the first day, that first patient that walks in, you need to start tracking everything. And tracking is your best early marketing and management system.
Tyson E. Franklin:
If you can track things from the first patient that comes in I remember my first patient ever. Alex Kalinas was my first patient. $24.50 was the initial fee. And I know the exact day, I know the time, and I can still see this person when they came in my clinic because I was so excited to have my first patient as well. But from day dot, I've always kept track of the data.
Tyson E. Franklin:
I've kept track of the numbers. So some of the core metrics that I think everybody should be looking at is new patient numbers for starters. How many new patients did you have coming to your clinic? And, ideally, I would split them to the types of new patients you're wanting to attract. So if you're wanting more routine foot care patients, you wanna know how many of them are coming in.
Tyson E. Franklin:
If you're wanting more MSK biomechanical type, how many of those are coming in? If you're wanting more surgical patients, how many of those are actually coming through your door? So that's that's the first one. You agree with that one, Jim?
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yeah. That's that's sound like a great way to kind of, you know, kinda segment by not only just the numbers, but kinda who they are, what you wanna get, and then you can kinda make some decisions from those numbers as opposed just to like yeah. It's it's a good way to segment the data.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So the second thing you should do is what are your referral sources? And don't think, oh, look. I'll look for them all later. No. You need to do this from day one.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Did they come in through Google? Was it a doctor's referral? Was it word-of-mouth from a patient, or was it word-of-mouth from a family friend? Was it just from a was it from a community talk? Was it were you on the radio?
Tyson E. Franklin:
Did you do a talk at Rotary? Did you put an ad in the local newspaper if your town still has a newspaper? And no matter what the patient tells you, when you're first working and you first open up the clinic, you're the only person that's going to be seeing those patients. So every single patient that sits in, no matter what they write down, you need to clarify that what they told you is the truth. Because they might put there that doctor Jim McDaniel referred me, and you go, oh, that's really cool.
Tyson E. Franklin:
That's a third person I've got from Jim. Jim is awesome. And then when you're talking to him, say, so when you were talking to Jim, Jim said, you should go and see Tyson Franklin, the podiatrist, because he's awesome. And they go, oh, no. No.
Tyson E. Franklin:
No. Jim said, I don't know any podiatrists in town. My receptionist might know. And you go, oh, okay. So then my well, then I went out to the receptionist, and the receptionist said, oh, I'm not really quite sure who the podiatrist in town.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Why don't you just look online? So I went online, and then I I found your website, and I did a Google search. It tells you a couple of things. Okay. They found you through Google, but also Jim and the receptionist needs a little bit of education on who you are, where you are, because they're they're obviously podiatry friendly because they said you should see a podiatrist, but they don't know anything about you.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So these things were going through this data that you're collecting when you're first starting, dig, go deeper. Don't just take what they write down as being the truth because usually patients lie if you haven't figured that out already.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Well, not only not only do they lie, I think the verification point is really important because even when I'm building websites for people and, you know, I put in the in that kind of initial online form saying, how did you hear about the clinic or what brought you to the clinic? And I'm always trying to kind of determine, like, how many choices should I give them because I know that if I were to fill out a form, you know, I might look at the first two or three and just click something and just get on to the next thing. Right? So it's one of those things where you need to like, you wanna get that good information. You think you got it Yeah.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
From that online form, but like you're saying, you have to verify. Otherwise, they might have just been in a rush that day. They clicked that they found you, you know, you know, from a family friend or something or whatever selection number five was out of your list of eight different things about who referred you there. Right? They didn't have time to read the whole list.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
So it's definitely a solid idea to verify that information. It's an easy thing to bring up. Right? You know, did you happen to come across the clinic or how did you hear about us? Like people are more than happy to volunteer that, but it's important to confirm, you know, where you're getting those referral sources from.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. Because you might on your website, you might give them eight options, but their option might be outside of that eight. And if you're giving those eight options, they're probably thinking, oh, mate, I've gotta pick one of these, so they actually select one. And I I've done that myself heaps of times. And or or you might get a a person that's been booked in.
Tyson E. Franklin:
You go, how did you find out about this? I don't know. My wife made the appointment. But then you find out the wife is a patient. You go, okay.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So he would have just been making stuff up. If he went from that list, it it could could have written down anything. So I just think that's really important.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
And one other option that's kind of, you know, trying to parse things out even more is that I used to put just search, you know, like search and then like it'd be like Google search engines. But now with all these AI agents and stuff like, are they and it's a little bit obviously, it's newer. You're not really sure how you it's a little it's a little confusing about how to rank sometimes on these AI chat GPTs and cloud clouds and those things. But if know you people are starting to look in those places for podiatrists, it also helps you kinda decide about, you know, where should my marketing be spent or where should my marketing provider start spending some time because now people are, know, they you know, maybe they they found me on Google or they didn't find me on Google. They found me somewhere else and it could kind of be a way to get feedback about the way things are moving, way people are finding you.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
So you're staying a bit ahead of the ball instead of just like, I don't know where they're coming from. They're just coming from the clouds. Right? So
Tyson E. Franklin:
Well, that goes back to the thing. Here's the one thing. Track every number from day one because tracking everything is your best marketing and management system. That's what I said earlier on. And when you open up your clinic, like I said, you are the podiatrist who will be seeing every single patient.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So while you got them there, instead of talking about baking cakes or their grandchildren or where did they get that pet yeah. That that dress from, Ask the questions. Dig deeper about how they found out about you. And no matter what they tell you, just pry a little bit more. If you think you're being nosy, yes, you're being nosy because it but it will be beneficial for you long term.
Tyson E. Franklin:
The third thing that you should be tracking is the average dollar spend per patient. So at the end of every week, count how many patients you saw, and you count every single patient. If someone came in just to have a quick orthotic adjustment and didn't pay for it, you count them. So you count every patient, you count the total amount of money that you turned over for the week, you divide it by the the number of patients, and that tells you the average money that was spent per patient. And you might be thinking, what's the point of that?
Tyson E. Franklin:
What you'll see over time is that per patient value should actually be increasing. That means that you're actually you're charging what you should be charging. You're not giving away too many free appointments. Also very helpful if you eventually employ somebody else, your average dollar spend per patient should be the same as theirs. So you get this baseline.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And if you if you had another person working for you and your average dollar spend was $200 per patient, but the person working for you is only a 150, I would be concerned because that means on average, for every 100 patients, that's $50 less per patient that they're actually charging. You're wonder why. Why is that happening? Is are they giving away too many free visits? Are there are there problems in their treatment that people are coming back with complaints that they're not charging them for?
Tyson E. Franklin:
So it's a very important number to do yourself first to get a baseline, very important for for future management.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
I think it's great point. Just having that kind of baseline helps you make make good decisions in the future. Obviously, it might might not seem all that important when you're first getting started off, but having that backlog of data, whether it be for another associate that comes along or just comparing you to your yourself month over month or quarter over quarter can be a pretty powerful thing.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And all these numbers we're going through that we're tracking, that there's a reason behind all of them even with your referral sources. Yes. You know where people are coming from, But all of sudden, if you're getting referrals from, you know, doctor McDaniel on a regular basis, three, four a month, and all of a sudden it stops. Four months have gone past, you haven't got one from him. If you're keeping track of this on a regular basis, you'll know in that first month, why didn't Jim refer anyone this month?
Tyson E. Franklin:
And then all of a sudden, find, oh, Jim's got a podiatrist in his clinic now. Well, I didn't know that. I've been sending people down to his clinic for certain things. This is why you need to keep track of stuff. So the fourth thing is what your rebooking rate is or retention rate.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Someone comes in for a specific problem, how many of them are reappointed based on whatever how your treatment paths work, but there should be a a certain percentage that are rebooked for certain problems. So somebody comes in with pain, it should almost be a 100% that that person's booked in for some form of follow-up visit. You keep track of yourself as a baseline when you employ other people. You can then compare to make sure that everybody is actually doing the right thing.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
No. That helps you kind of measure how well you're treating the patients. Right? Sometimes it's out of your control, but but if you're seeing people on a consistent basis and kind of, you know, treating them for certain protocols or for certain types of, you know, diagnosis, it helps you kind of track those things along along the course of time.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. The next thing is just revenue per hour that your clinic is generating. You might be thinking, but isn't this the same per dollar spent per patient? It's a little bit different. The per patient value is patients are coming in, you wanna know for every patient comes in, on average, what is that per patient?
Tyson E. Franklin:
The revenue per hour is just every hour that your clinic is open, what is it actually turning over? These two figures will actually relate to each other, and you can also do that per practitioner. But why it's beneficial, if you've got certain staff members that are paid per hour or an hourly wage, could be podiatrist as well, you wanna know that your clinic per hour is making far more than what you're paying out per hour. That's the you wanna set and make sure that ratio is right. And the last thing is and I think this one's really important, and I know Jim is gonna go, hallelujah.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yes. I believe this one. Is look at your Google review count and your rating. Always be keeping track of that. Always be asking for Google reviews.
Tyson E. Franklin:
You want to see week after week, month after month that is always increasing. There's some new reviews. It relates to the treatment that you're providing, and you wanna see that your rating is 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, or above. You don't wanna see it dropping down to 3.6. That is concerning.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
No. It's a it's an active process. Right? You have to ask for these reviews in a kind way when you at the right time, the right patient, so you get those well written reviews. But like I said, you wanna have the most in the high you know, in that reasonable range between four point eight and five point o, but having the most in your area, and it's not gonna happen by accident.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
So, you know, you do have to, you know, build a system for you and for your staff to make sure you're getting those reviews and that patients want you know, obviously, you have to provide the great care so that you get the type of reviews you want to. But super important these days because when people just search for podiatrist near me or any kind of search into Google, they're gonna see a list of providers. And if you can have a higher rating and more reviews than the competitor down the street, patients are more likely gonna come to you and they're gonna trust you more off the bat.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Okay. So I'm gonna give you an example right now. Pretend you you're a patient. You've just moved to Cairns, North Queensland. It's a nice place.
Tyson E. Franklin:
This is great. All perp the foot. I need to go and see somebody. So I just did a review now. Podiatrist in Cairns.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Simple search. Because I still get things from Google sent to me, and this is the number one search that people look for, podiatrist in Cairns. So whatever your area is, it's probably gonna be podiatrist in whatever town, Canberra. Podiatrist in Yungabarra. So I put in podiatrist in Cairns.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So if I scroll through here, perfect example Would be we have one podiatrist clinic. It's got 91 reviews. The rating is five. It has a five star rating. My old clinic, which is now now not owned by me, it's owned by somebody else, they have 18 reviews, and their rating is 3.9.
Tyson E. Franklin:
The next one under that, who I know who they are, they're dodgy. But they are all still also they only got five reviews, but they are a five star rating. So if you're a patient, you were looking at those three clinics, not knowing anything about them other than 91 reviews, eighteen and five, but you got two of them that got five star reviews and one's got a 3.9, where would you go, Jim?
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Pretty obvious. The one with the higher number of views and the higher rating. So it's just it's just a conscious, subconscious thing. We just you see the stars, you see the number of reviews, and you just that's where you're gonna go.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. And even if you went, oh, I'm not sure. They'll go the one with 91. They'll go the one with five. They both got five star.
Tyson E. Franklin:
You might think, okay. One might be a little bit more active than the other one, but still five stars. I wouldn't be going to the three point nine. And the thing is the three point nine one, the people that bought my clinic, is a big corporate company. They don't they don't look at this stuff anymore.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So if you've got a big corporate company that's in your area, don't fear them because they don't look at this stuff, which is why you as the business owner should be looking at it.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Absolutely.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Frustrates me, Jim. Just frustrates me. Anyway, so the idea is when you think about how should you do all this, how do you keep it, just keep it simple. A spreadsheet to start with is fine. Sheet of paper, just write these things down.
Tyson E. Franklin:
I don't care if you just do it manually with crayons. Just record it somewhere. If you've got a good computer system, good, you know, patient management system, you'll be able to drag this information out that will make it look a little bit better. But the important part is what gets measured gets improved, and this gives you control, like, over the growth of your business. So if you don't measure anything, you can't improve something you don't measure.
Tyson E. Franklin:
That's that's a really important I can't there's a quote from someone. I can't remember who it was. It was a guy at Kitcher and Leven or something like that, and he said 50% of my marketing works, 50% doesn't. I just wish I knew which 50% it was. And that's what happens when you don't measure it.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Now how this links to your marketing is data shows you where to focus your marketing spend. So you'll discover which referral channels bring the the right patients. So just because you get a lot of new patients, you wanna make sure you're getting the right ones. And it'll tell you which campaigns produce the best results. This is why you keep track of the figures.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And when to ramp things up or when to sort of pull things back a little bit. Because if you're putting money into a certain area and it's going really well and you can see the patient numbers coming through, you might go, okay. Now it's time to just ease off a little bit because where you might be getting close to capacity, and you don't wanna be making people wait too long for an appointment because then they're just gonna go somewhere else.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yeah. You gotta be careful with that. Right? Like, you have to understand, you know, what you're able to do, you know, what type of patient you wanna bring in. But, yeah, if you're getting to the point where it's, you know, two, three weeks out to see you and you're, you know, promising depending on what, you know, what you're promising in the marketing campaign.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Hopefully, it's not an urgent care replacement or an emergency services campaign where you're having to book people out that far. But, yeah, depending on what the campaign is, make sure you're living on your promise and providing great service. But if it's getting to the point where the the light the waiting line is getting too long, then that's the time to to push push pause for a bit.
Tyson E. Franklin:
It's good to be at capacity, but you don't want to be making people wait too long to get an appointment, especially when they're in pain. So the idea behind all this and and how it ties in with the marketing is your marketing then becomes a really measured investment instead of it just being an emotional decision every time. Oh, the guy down the road is doing this. Maybe I should be doing something. Oh, I saw somebody on Instagram.
Tyson E. Franklin:
They were doing all these really cool videos. Maybe I should be doing really cool videos. You don't wanna be reactive. You you just want everything to be a measured sort of decision. Here's the bonus tip.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Build relationships early. So this is a bonus tip other than the one thing that you should always be doing. Because people are like, is that all we're getting? No. We're gonna give you a bonus tip.
Tyson E. Franklin:
So don't wait until you need referrals before you start getting out there in networking. I believe in going to lunches, and I've said this dozens of times before, you need to get it there, introduce yourself to GPs, your physios, your gyms, your running clubs, other health providers. And the big question is, you may have heard me say this dozen times on this podcast, even more, but are you doing it yet? Have you actually got off your bum and gone out there to try and connect with different people in your area, and then also maintain that relationship. I bet you haven't.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Or if you have, good. But if you haven't, get out there and actually start doing it.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
No. You just there's no substitute for for shaking hands and seeing people face to face. I think
Tyson E. Franklin:
Kissing babies.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Post yeah. Post pandemic people are really wanna have these kind of most of the time, you know, they wanna have kind of interpersonal relationship with people, you know, kind of make making contact that's not just always through, you know, Zoom calls and through, you know, online video calls. It it it can make a big difference to go into someone's clinic, you know, listen to them about their clinic, what they're trying to build, understand their needs, and then see if it's a good fit, a good match for what you're trying to do in your practice. Sometimes it's gonna be maybe it's not a direct fit or a direct match for what you want, but at the same time, you're making connection there and showing interest in what they're doing, and that will sometimes lead to other, you know, connections and other relationships down the line.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. And I always say, don't assume, you know, one visit from you is is all that is needed. That that isn't actually a lazy way to to approach this. Strong referral network networks, they do compound your marketing results. So when you have a good relationship with people and you're doing some form of marketing, it's not just patients that see it, but your referral network also sees it.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And that reinforces if I'd met a physiotherapist once, and that was the only time I'd ever seen them, and years have gone past before I'd had anything else to do with them, and they were doing some form of marketing, I probably wouldn't notice it. But if I saw them on a regular basis at different networking events and they were helping out at a community event, and I kept seeing them when they're marketing, I would probably notice that more. So it does have a compounding effect with your marketing. And I always say, you you need to do this. You need to build familiarity with these people before your competitors do.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Because if you don't if you don't do it, more than likely, the guy down the road may be doing it. And you might be wondering, oh, why don't I get referrals from Jim anymore? Jim used to refer heaps of people to me. Well, Jim now knows the other podiatrist better, and that's that's just what happened. To wrap things up, just to recap, is track every number from day one, and your marketing decisions will always be smarter.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And we encourage you to look at your numbers this week if you haven't been doing it, even if it's just new patients to start with. If you've never been tracking anything before, you go, oh, jeez. That seemed like a really long list, Tyson. There were six things that I should be doing. Just start with new patients.
Tyson E. Franklin:
And then later on, add referral sources. Where are they coming from? And then build from there. Just keep building onto it until you're doing all those those main collecting that that main data. And if you do that, I tell you, you're gonna be you're gonna be much happier.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Now when you start collecting that information, right, you have you have the knowledge to make, like you talked about, better decisions for for you and for your clinic, for your patients. But you gotta get started though. You can't just be putting it off and putting it off. It has to be something that you start doing now and it it can pay benefits down the Road.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. And if you enjoyed this information, if you found this useful, share it with podiatry friends if you have some. If you don't have any, then just keep all the information to yourself. But if you know anybody, not just podiatry, if you know anyone that is starting out in business, pass this information on to them. Because it doesn't just relate to podiatry.
Tyson E. Franklin:
You got a friend who's opening up a barber shop. It's exactly the same thing. You need to keep track of of these particular numbers. And if you need help with any of this sort of stuff, please reach out to Jim or myself. Yes.
Tyson E. Franklin:
This is a shameless self promotional plug that we are here to help podiatrists who want to actually grow their businesses. And yeah. So what's what's how do they get ahold of us? Jim?
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yeah. The easiest way is to go to our website podiatry.marketing. There's a form, a contact us form that can get in touch for some expert podiatry business coaching from Tyson or people who looking to do things online to to better their online presence and their website and their online campaigns on there to help, you know, educate. But also, you know, if you need me to do it for you, I can do that as well. So, yeah, definitely head over to podiatry.marketing and fill out the contact form and get in touch.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Or you've got your own website as well, haven't you? Podiatrygrowth.com?
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Yep. They can go there as well and get in contact and set up a time to chat if they if they choose to.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Yeah. Or if you wanna just get ahold of me directly, just tyson franklin dot com. Nice and simple. So that's it for me this week, Jim. I hope everyone gets out there and starts measuring a few things, and, yeah, and it will definitely improve their business.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Sounds like a plan, Tyson.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Okay. I will talk to again next week.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
Alright. Bye now.
Tyson E. Franklin:
Okay. See you.
Jim McDannald, DPM:
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.
