We Have Too Many Marketing Options

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, how's it going, man?

I am fantastic today, Jim. I've had a a magnificent morning. You've been having one of those mornings where you just wake up, you feel great. And the whole day, everything just falls into place really well. And now I'm talking to you.

So so far, it's been a great day. And then when we finish here, I'm heading off to have my favorite hamburger in Cairns.

What's the name of the place?

Herbie's Cafe. It's an American style hamburger. So it's it's it's not the best looking burger. It's not the flashiest looking thing, but when you bite into it, it is just the tastiest hamburger I found in Cairns. And I told the guy that every time I've been there, was get these other bit.

I don't know what he does. I don't if he puts like a, I don't know, secret juice or something in there that is just flavor is fantastic. So I'm looking forward to that. How you been anyway?

Oh, things are good. No. Things are good here. I in related topics, my I grew up my my mother's dad was a a beef rancher. So I had Okay.

Basically a locker, like a freezer full of hamburger growing up. So we had all different types of iteration of hamburgers at my place and I I still like if someone asked me what my favorite burger is, it's kind of like I had this nostalgia for my for the cows and for the beef that my my grandfather raised. But there's some okay burger places in Montreal. But, yeah, I just thought I'd throw them there real quick.

Yeah. Well, the yeah. Just a a while back, I was on a cruise. And when I was on the cruise, I had a a burger place. On the cruise, I actually shot a video on YouTube.

It was titled protect your reputation, and it's lessons learned from a shit burger experience. And there's this, you know, celebrity chef in Australia who has a has a burger place on the boat. Okay. So I'm thinking, well, the burger's gotta be good. He's got his name attached to it.

It was hideous. It was a terrible, terrible burger. I even posted a photo online just saying how bad this burger was. And, yes, it makes you real. And that that's almost like that's not my marketing topic today about protecting your reputation, but we have spoken about reputation management in the past.

And I think if you're putting your name or your business name to something, you really wanna make sure that it's being represented the right way.

Yeah. Absolutely. But, yeah, you don't you don't want to sully your name by just, you know, taking the money and running in a way. So so for sure.

Yeah. And that's the part that people don't realize too. When when you're asking somebody for a referral, when they give you that referral or when they say to a patient, hey, you should go and see Tyson the podiatrist or you should see Jim the podiatrist, they're actually putting their reputation on the line to actually hand out that referral. So you gotta realize when your name is attached to that referral, you've gotta live up to a certain reputation because you could damage your reputation and also the person who referred them to you. And if you bugger that up, they may never refer anyone again.

Maybe I should have made this top my topic for today.

Well, I'll talk about it a little bit more down the line, but I'll I'll make sure that I avoid burger places on cruise ships in Australia in the future, so no worries.

Well, I'm hoping they read my reviews and they apologize to me and they say, would you like a free cruise? Okay. The burgers are tasting really good now.

Yeah. I wish you the best of that. I don't think that's probably gonna happen, but I wish you the best. So what are we gonna we're not gonna talk about burgers. We're not gonna talk about cruises and reputations today.

What are we gonna jump into?

Today, we're talking about we have too many marketing options. And I know it seems like a lot of podiatrists think they have too few options, but it's actually the exact opposite to what I think. And there's this thing here, I've got it written down, called the Red Queen hypothesis. I don't know if you've heard of that before, Jim.

Yeah. I think we've mentioned it a few times. I think we've about it either off the podcast, and I and I definitely have looked it up because I know that it's been a part of some of the marketing talks you've given in the past.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure we've done an actual episode on that. Like, I've spoken about it in workshops, and I'll and I'll always bring it up in future workshops. So the red queen hypothesis is and I'll read this out so I don't bugger it up. It's an evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate in order to survive while pitted against ever evolving opposing organisms in a constantly changing environment as well as to gain a reproductive advantage.

So in nature, nature knows it must overproduce. It must really overproduce everything. We you could be talking about berries on trees, nuts, little turtles, for example. And even with when turtles are born, only one in a thousand actually make it to adulthood. That's 999 turtles that do not make it.

And and and the problem the problem we have is we have too many ideas. Unlike nature, it overproduces because it knows that the whole pile is getting killed off because so many organisms and creatures are fighting for that same space. So with our marketing ideas, it's the same thing. We we have too many ideas, and we need to work out and learn how to kill off ideas and how to kill them off quickly so we can work on the ones that are really going to succeed. And Thomas Edison has a fantastic quote quote, and it says, to have a great idea, you need to have a lot of them.

I like that quote. I I'm a big fan of, like, you know, chasing bright shiny objects, but I know it's not always the the most productive or effective thing to do. Right? But it is good to have a lot of ideas. It's just, you know, choosing those ones that you you wanna execute on.

Yeah. Well, I remember a quote somebody else said once. Don't let a good idea get in the way of a great idea. And sometimes you can have all these really good ideas, and you keep focusing on them, but you don't okay. Try it.

Kill it. Try it. Kill it. Just make decisions really fast on, okay. I've done this.

It's not really working. Tweak it. It's not working. Kill it. Move on to the next thing.

And just keep testing different things because you keep the thing called the OODA loop we use is keep getting information coming back to you all the time. So my wife will always say I'd come to my wife and go, hey, Crick. Oh, I've got this I've got this I've got this really, really good idea. And she'd say, is it a good idea or is it a great idea? And I go, oh, it's not really a great idea.

It's just a good idea. She goes, come back to me when you've got a great idea. And it it really made me stop and think that all of a sudden, you might see something and go, oh, that might be a good marketing idea. Is it good, or is it great? And if you know straight away it's not great, well, maybe wait and just put it aside and move on to move on to something else.

Yeah. It there's like you said, there's so many things, different things you can do, and you don't wanna do something kind of halfway or mediocre if it's not gonna stand out or kind of separate yourself or differentiate you and your practice from someone else, it might be worth just waiting around until you have something that is a clear differentiator that really makes sense. Like, that is a great idea.

Yeah. Like, I know if somebody said to me, yeah, weigh up a couple of different sessions. Talking in front of a group of 50 people in my local area about a specific podiatry problem or issue, I know the impact on that that I'll receive from that is far better than advertising, yeah, at the at the local golf club. I still might get some people from the local golf club, but when you're looking at those two ideas, talking in front of 50 people and and creating a a pathway that you can do that on a regular basis throughout the year is a far better idea than advertising on the scorecards at the local golf club. So a lot of times, people will spend so much money on all these, like, maybe good and mediocre ideas.

They spend money here, advertise there, 60 you know, $600 here, a thousand dollars there, all these little things. But if they sat down and went, okay. What's a really good marketing strategy? Public speaking, getting in front of people. Cost me next to nothing.

Usually, get a free lunch, which is great. And the impact you can have on 50 people at one time is incredible.

Yeah. You're find those kind of multipliers, right? Those kind of areas of leverage when you can spend your time doing something and reaching 50 people in a real impactful basis or something that could potentially be ignored. You know, people are coming to your event and there's 50 people that are watching you, they're gonna be much more engaged than just some other passive form of advertising. So I think that's a that's a great example.

Yeah. So if we think of social media as an example, which is one part of the whole online marketing world, and it's it's pillar number six of my six pillars of marketing. And if you think of just social media, we've got YouTube. You got Facebook. You got Twitter, which is now x.

What do you change? Do know why he changed to x?

The theory is he's gonna turn it into, like, more than just a messaging app. He's gonna turn it into he's had this idea for a long time to try to Okay. Create, a payments app as well, like, kind of a a Venmo or I don't know what you use in Australia to basically.

PayPal or something like that?

Yeah. PayPal. I mean, was an initial founder of PayPal, but it's a little bit different where he just like, let's say we're at the bar and I would just send you, you know, I guess you could

do an underachiever.

Yeah. Exactly. Right. But it's mostly how

So you should we maybe you should do some research on that, and we do an episode on x.

I don't know.

The episode can just be called x.

The more I'm on there, the more spam I get, the more, like, irrelevant kind of content I get on x. But but, yeah, it's interesting to see what he's gonna do with it and if he can actually pull it pull it off. So

Yeah. So if we go through the list, like, basic list, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or x, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, threads, which we spoke about recently. And even if you think of TikTok, in 02/2018, TikTok was the number one Apple app. But does just because it was a number one doesn't mean it's actually good for you. And what happens is a lot of podi I've seen podiatrists, though.

They spend a lot of time shooting, editing different videos, and they'll have it on Facebook and they have it on YouTube and they have it on Twitter and they have it on TikTok and they're dancing and they're doing other weird things. And you sometimes wonder how much time are they actually spending on all those platforms and are they better to test them, evaluate them, kill a couple off, and really just focus on the ones that are ones where their patients are probably hanging out. And that's a question they need to ask the patients. They could they could have a survey sheet and go, here's all the social media platforms that I'm thinking about using. Which ones do you use?

Simple question with I think the feedback from that would could be sometimes an eye opener.

I totally agree. Like you said, you have to kinda go where the money is. Right? Like, go where your patients are. If you're, taking care of mostly seniors and you're on TikTok, it's probably going to be a huge waste of time, money, and effort.

But if there's a local like seniors newspaper, maybe they're reading that more often or, you know, there's opportunities for speaking engagements at senior centers and things. So like you said, you know, go where your patients are. Don't necessarily go with what's the bright shiny object or the hot social media channel of the day. Just really step back and, you know, talking to your patients, right? Letting, you know, when they sign up to come into your clinic and they're filling out a form, understanding which channels that they are most reachable on, right?

Is it do they still watch TV? Is it radio? Is it some form of social media? Getting that information can pretty pretty valuable to make sure you're spending money and getting that kind of return on investment with whatever type of marketing or advertising you're doing.

Yeah. My it's funny. My mom's 79 years of age. She's on YouTube all the time. She's constantly on her phone watching different things that interest her on YouTube.

The other thing that she watches on YouTube all the time are my videos. And I said, mom, how can you watch them? She said, oh, because I'm on YouTube anyway. And when I saw that you did some, I subscribed to it. So whenever your videos pop up, I watch them.

And she goes, not just because she must actually find some of the stuff you say interesting. Didn't know realize you knew so much. So a bit of a positive slap in the face comment.

And A little slap on the back there, like, there you go.

Yeah. And but it made me realize that, okay, if my mom is 79 and is on YouTube a lot, that means there's probably not that not a lot of other people in that age group, if that's your demographics, that's also on YouTube. And if they if you let them know you're on YouTube, hey. I we put some educational videos out there, and you keep reminding them that, yeah, you're there, more than likely, they're going to subscribe, and they might see more of your content coming through on a regular basis. But it it really is find where your patients are hanging out, YouTube, Facebook, whatever it is.

And then I also think it's really important to find your angle. Just don't try not to be like everybody else. If you're just shooting the same videos that everybody else is shooting, which are some most are boring, then you're not gonna stand out. I I think you need to find a little bit of uniqueness. I had a coaching client that I helped them.

They were doing something on YouTube. And I said, what do you love doing outside of podiatry? And they went, drinking. I said, okay. What do you like to drink?

And they said, whiskey. I said, fair enough. I said, how would you feel about doing whiskey reviews? I said, and that that becomes your thing. I said, you're a podiatrist.

You do these random whiskey reviews, but then and then you you look yeah. You might have your shirt on that has your podiatry business on there. I said, so you're promoting your podiatry business, but you're talking about something you enjoy. And I'll guarantee there'll be patients that will watch more of your whiskey videos than they'll ever watch of your podiatry videos. I've had others that have been into scuba diving, others that drink wine, some that, play music and write funny songs.

I said, that is gonna stand out more with your patients than just shooting a boring podiatry video.

Yeah. I mean, there's a million videos about, you know, plantar fascia treatment and heal you know, healing up. And I think it's okay to have some of that stuff on on your website if you're, you know, showing people kind of what you do. But, you know, on these different social channels, if you're really trying to, like you mentioned, trying to stand out and look different from other people, you know, kinda tapping into those interests or those differentiators which makes you, you know, stand out. Maybe it's the the form of training you have or the the clientele you've worked with in the past.

There are definitely ways to help attract more of the care you wanna provide by really kind of, you know, separating yourself and kinda having those interesting facts, those those differentiators which are really gonna help you stand out amongst the crowd.

Yeah. Because you like, you might like, I I know some podiatrists that are on YouTube, and they make really good money from I got some friends on YouTube that make really good money. They've given up their jobs because they make a full time living on YouTube. And they have said to me, I've never worked so hard in my life. They said it's actually really hard work.

To produce good content that engages people takes a lot of time, but they're targeting the world. But if you're targeting your patients and you want them coming back to your local area, you don't have to put in as much hard work. You just still need to produce quality content, but it's really more about you, who you are, getting them to know, like, and trust you a little bit more. And if I had my podiatrically now, I'd be doing probably burger reviews on a fairly regular basis. Mhmm.

I'd have another photo of the burger. I'd bite into it. I'd talk about it, what I liked about it. And I guarantee more patients have probably watched my burger review videos than me talking about heel pain.

You have to be surprised. Right? Like, I think people when you're relatable and you're genuine about, you know, what you're showing on social media or on your website of things, I think it really can be a huge way to attract people to your practice and and just, you kind of be bought on in about who you are and what you can provide.

Yeah. And it's also starting to get known for something. So I talk in my marketing workshops as well, but, yeah, micro storytelling, and we've done an episode on that where you just give people a little bit of information about yourself, but you control the narrative. You let them know what you want them to know. But there's other aspects of your business where you might be right into rehab work, or you might really love strength and conditioning, or you might really love nail surgery.

Then that might be something that you focus on a little bit more than just the average podiatry stuff, and you shoot more videos in that particular area. So when people think of your clinical when professional referrers think about your clinic, they go, oh, you're the you're the podiatrist that does a lot of nail surgery. You're the podiatrist that does a lot of rehab yeah, exercise and rehab stuff. Boy, you're the podiatrist that loves hamburgers and drinking whiskey. That's not bad either.

Yeah. Some of those topics you bring up are really you know, can be visual. Right? So it's not just a Yeah. You know, it can be kind of engaging.

It can be stuff that it also can be kind of a bridge between what someone can do at home for a period of time versus come into your clinic. Right? Or if even if they come into your clinic, maybe instead of like handing, you know, everyone's handed out a piece of paper for people to have, you know, the the exercise. These are the extras you need to do when you leave the clinic, but the static piece of paper and while it's not the worst thing, you know, if you had, you know, the video of those five or six exercises to really show them about how to execute them, Sometimes that can be more engaging. You know, it's a branded video.

It really shows your expertise. I think there's a lot of ways you can use video to really kind of help different yourself and really show off your expertise and your kind of a a domain authority in a specific topic.

Yeah. Well, how many times have you been handed a handout from another health professional, some form of vendor, whatever it is? Oh, here's a handout with more information. You go, oh, yeah. Okay.

Thank and and yes. And they fold it up, and they might put it in their back pocket or they put it in their bag. That thing ain't never coming out again. It's it'll it might sit on the desk. Something else will pile on top of it, and eventually, it will end up in the bin.

It'll end up in the bin or But

if they left your yeah.

It'll just be somewhere you don't know where it's at. Like, I had surgery a year ago. Right? And I I recently was trying to find where did I put all those that paperwork, you know, just to kinda, like, look at the, like, the, you know, the kind of recommendations they had made at that time. And it's like, it's somewhere in my house.

Right? Like, it's maybe saying more about me than it is about the the piece of paper, but definitely

No. It's a bit it's humans. It's just you. It's not you. It's not just the gym effect.

It's the human effect. We just a piece of it's just a piece of paper. Well, I had a referral to get MRIs done on my ankles again because they're just a bit dodgy, and they need to get tidied up. Do you think I could find it? I did eventually, but it was on top of the fridge.

I should've looked there first. But if you said to a patient, you you've given the instructions to go, hey. Don't worry about having to remember this. I will send you an email this afternoon. Or as soon as you leave here, my receptionist will send you an email, and I'll have a list of the exercises that I want you to do.

In the email, there'll be links to each of those videos. It'll take you through to my YouTube channel. When you get on there, you'll see those exercises. By the way, also do whiskey reviews and and eat burgers. It might seem and I reckon patients, even though they get the the look at the exercises, it's a great way of just letting them know other things that you do.

Because even if they're talking to their friends, they're like, oh, is it my podiatrist? I went through these exercises. Fantastic. Do know the guy does some really cool whiskey reviews as well? Their friends have got more likely to come over there and look at your whiskey reviews.

And then when they get to know you and they need a podiatrist, they'll then see you in your clinic.

Yeah. It's just that, you know, just showing that you're a human being. Right? You're a person. And it just helps you connect with other people in ways that, you know, a an injection video or a plantar fasciitis video will not necessarily appeal to to most most folks.

Well, I should have worn my shirt today. I've got a I've got a howler head monkey whiskey shirt. So this is this is why we're at marketing, I think, is just the craziest thing in general. Because, yeah, some things you you do it, and it just works. And the other things take a little bit more time to sort of build up.

And that's why you've you have to try different things. You gotta test things. You gotta see what works and what doesn't work. And so hell ahead is a whiskey that advertised on the UFC all the time. We've never had it in Australia before.

Also, it's just popped up at a local bottle shop liquor store for you, Jim. Yeah. Yeah. A bottle shop. And I I bought a bottle.

Really enjoyed it. So I thought, no. Yeah. I'm like, okay. I've had it now.

I don't need to go back and and have another bottle. But then a friend sent me a message going, they're giving away free T shirts with every bottle at the moment. He said, I walked past it. I wasn't gonna get a bottle, and I saw the free t shirt and I'm like, damn it. They got me.

And he bought a bottle. He tells me I jump on my car. I drive down. I want the free t shirt because they're cool shirts. And I and I also like the whiskey, so I bought it as well.

So sometimes it's like little incentives. And and I know you might look at that and go, well, how do we do that in podiatry? Think about it. Don't say the idea won't work. We just think about how can we use that idea in podiatry?

And then you might try a couple of things that don't work, kill them, move, and then try something else. And like Thomas Edison, the way to have a good idea is you've got to have a lot of them. So you just keep trying different things.

That's good advice. I think you said like you said, you got to kill a lot of good ideas to get to the great ones, but most important, just kind of get started, right? I think a lot of people will hesitate to even kind of dip their toe in the water, but if you can start getting those good ideas and help kind of snowball into great ideas, that's some great opportunities to grow your practice and really kind of do more of work you love.

Well, we did that episode a while back on Ned whiskey, Ned Australian whiskey. Yep. Maybe need to do another one on howl ahead. Should reach out to him. Would you like to sponsor the podiatry marketing podcast?

You never know. You never know. Right?

I know. So I think I've pretty I've worn out this topic. The the the biggest takeaway I want people to remember is, like I said before, don't let a good idea get in the way of a great idea. And you and there's always gonna be an abundance of ideas and opportunities presented to you every single day. You need to come up with a format or a way of looking at an idea and being able to make a decision quickly whether it's good or not.

And if you're gonna run with it, do it for a period of time. If it's not working, move on to something fast. Kill it and move on to the next thing. And that's where having a business coach like myself helps. Working with yourself, Jim, on different marketing ideas helps.

If you're just sitting there and you don't have a lot of experience in marketing and you're not sure what to do, you will be you can sometimes get bamboozled by slick salespeople, and you gotta be aware of that. It might be there as another topic. Beware of shady salespeople.

For sure. They could be sneaky.

I know. Okay, Jim. I've got nothing else. This has been fun, and I look forward to talking to again next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you later. 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.