Chase the Money

[00:00:00]

Introduction

Jim McDannald, DPM: 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 in the other side of the world right

Tyson E. Franklin: I, and I'm glad you refer to me as Trustee. Wouldn't be funny if you said, am my untrusted co-host Tyson Franklin.

That

But you

as

credibility.

Jim McDannald, DPM: always refer to me the partner in crime. I have to

Tyson E. Franklin: and of

Jim McDannald, DPM: yin yang the positive and negative there.

Tyson E. Franklin: partner in crime as an Australian thing is, is a good term. partner in crime. Everyone goes, oh, it must be, a top bloke.

Jim McDannald, DPM: he's Exactly.

Tyson E. Franklin: sense.

Unveiling the Topic: Chase the Money

Tyson E. Franklin: Okay, let's dive into today's topic. Do you wanna know what is,

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah. Yeah.I'm on the edge of my chair. What's going on?

Tyson E. Franklin: in anticipation waiting for this. Oh, they probably know the title 'cause they would've seen the title of the episode already.

Understanding the Concept of Chasing the Money

Tyson E. Franklin: But we're talking about chase the money. title actually came It's a, a friend of mine just, uh, recentlywas doing a a like end of the year type tips, you know, things to do, things to [00:01:00] sure that you tick off before the year finishes.

And this was one of about 12 different things he spoke about and what he meant by chase the money. He said in December. It's a silly Yeah. We're all, we all know that we, we go to a lotgo to a lot more events. You, you're catching up with friends and families. You're eating more, you're drinking more, but you're also buying a lot of gifts for people.

So for I've never been in this boat, but for some people, they get to, yeah, they sort of run outta money before they run end of month. So then when January, a lot of 'em spend a lot more than what they should in December. So when it gets to January, they've got no money left.

And they've actually got credit card bills that are coming in on top of their other bills, and they get under a bit of financial stress. And because of that, certain things that would normally say yes to, they don't because they're not quite sure about the bill paying. So Chase, the money is all about in December, there'll be a certain group of patients and types of patients or services [00:02:00] that you should be chasing up on in December, because if you try and do it in January,

Your patients won't have the money, but if you do it now while they do have the money, more than likely they'll say yes to certain

things.

Jim McDannald, DPM: That's pretty common in the U. S. as well, because a lot of people are on private insurances and they have these annual deductibles and, they've

maybe reached their deductible in October, November, and they have the opportunity now to get free healthcare or, they know that if they wait until January, February, that's going to go. They have 1, 000 or 2, 000 before that deductible has been met to receive care. So it's similar in, at least in the U S where they have that going on as well. So I think it's a very pertinent topic for us to talk about today.

Practical Tips and Techniques for Chasing the Money

Tyson E. Franklin: So if you go through some of the type of patients that you should be chasing up on, you'll have patients that have said to you, oh yeah, I'll get back to you. I just need to check my roster at work. Or I need to check wife, or I've just gotta check my finances or I've gotta talk to the cat, [00:03:00] whatever excuse they want to use.

But they, sometimes they are 100% legitimate reasons. I do need to check my roster before I can make an appointment. I do need to talk to my wife. Not, may not even be about money. Might just be what have we've got going on at the moment. Or, or it could be a money issue.But the thing is, if, if you wait to you, and I know exactly what it's like.

So, so recently I was at the dentist.I've got one wisdom tooth left, and the dentist other day said, all your teeth are fantastic. Obviously you floss all the time. I said, yes, I do. My brother's a dentist because you know, so I just, I know what to They said, but you've got this one wisdom tooth at the back.

It's just got this little, little hole's been in there for a while. We were gonna tell you about it, but we just thought, nah, the wisdom tooth, it'll probably, we'll probably have to pull it out. So they said, we need you to get this, uh, OPG X-Ray done.just so we can big hook.

And I said, ah, it'll just pop out. Don't worry about it. Just do it. And they went, no, no, we really need to get this And I said, well, the other three came out really easy.They said, no, you need to go and get this X-ray fine. Yeah. [00:04:00] and I do, I keep meaning to get it done, but life gets busy and, and I think this I need to check my roster, talk. The wife need to check a bank account, need to talk the cat. They really mean go and do it, but all of a sudden something happens, life gets in the way, things get busy, and I think it's, I think it's unprofessional if don't chase those people up. I think just leaving it to them and saying, yeah, look, no, we don't wanna be annoying.

I don't want them to think I'm annoying. I think some people need to be annoyed and they actually not only need it, they want you to annoy them. I, I'm like that I said to my physio, oh look, I need to check something before I make another appointment. I need them to me if I don't make that appointment.

Because if I don't make the appointment before I walk out, it could be six months before I get back

there. Easy.

Jim McDannald, DPM: it could be six months and it could be a, 500 or 1, 000 for someone who has a deductible. So you're doing that patient service

by following up and making sure that they receive great care.

Tyson E. Franklin: the treatment was, you, you may have had them in, you may Been doing [00:05:00] a course of shock wave therapy or could have been, you know, laser therapy, uh, they might be coming and go, oh yeah, no, I will reappoint. I just need to go and check whatever it is.

So, a week to turn into two weeks and for two weeks and turn into a month until eventually in the back of their mind they sort of remember they're supposed to do it. But . ,so many other take priority. So if you call them up now in December, knowing that they're supposed to come back in, and these could be patients from, yeah, the last Don't just wait until next year to get hold of them. Just start calling I identify who they are. Have your receptionist phone up and say, Hey, I was talking to Tyson. He's been reviewing some of the files. He asked me to give you a call when you were in last, you were gonna check your roster. I tell right now, majority of the patients will I have been meaning to get in.

Now. The important part is you need to have room in your diary to fit them in. This is also time of the year for podiatry.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, it definitely can be busy, but trying to find those kind of right [00:06:00] fit patients to find to come in and see you is really important besides having a receptionist, give them a call. Are there other types of systems or methods you think are really beneficial to try to get those patients in to see you?

Tyson E. Franklin: receptionist You could do a text message if you wanted to. You could do an email if you wanted to. 'cause they can all be a little bit more automated and. Uh, it's a lot faster.The personal touch phone call I think is always good if you can get hold of the patient. But if you want to, depending on the age of your patient too.

If you had some older patients tell you a letter really 'cause they still go to the mailbox they were doing it for, they've been doing it for 50 years. They've got a habit of still doing it even though there's nothing usually in there. But there's another, uh, program called Brain Toss. dunno if you've seen that

at all.

Jim McDannald, DPM: No, I haven't heard of that

Tyson E. Franklin: Uh, it's an app. the time. It's really cool. It's a, it's an app. It costs like $4 and it's just called brain Toss. And I use it a If, uh, I go past and you might see something, you go, oh, that's really good. That business, I can take [00:07:00] a photo of it.

Soon as I take a photo through the app, it will automatically email it to me. So I don't have to think about it. I've taken the photo walk away, don't have to think about it all, and it's emailed it to me. Or I might see something and I can give myself a voice message. Hey, Tyson, remember that you've gotta do, do do do, do, do. email me straight away as a voice message. And also it'll, it'll write it out.So, but advantage for this type of thing is you can set up to up to five email on it. So you might do a recording. and you can send it to you might send it to your receptionist.

So it could be a great thing to remind receptionist to do things or your team, but you could also do recordings and Hey Jim, it's Tyson here from, you know, pro Arch Pod. That was the old clinic. Hey Jim, it's Tyson here ProMatch Podiatry. I was just going through PA a few patient files and I just noticed that when I spoke to you last, he said you were just gonna check your roster.

I was wondering is, is December is a good month for you to come in to get this treatment started or to follow up or to do the next treatment, whatever that happens [00:08:00] to be? And forward to seeing you, uh, before Christmas.It's to my receptionist. My receptionist then takes their audio file and sends it on to Jim.

Now, if you got saying, Hey, Jim. Yeah, you were gonna get back in touch with me. You're gonna check your roster, hope to see you before Christmas to get that personal message from me.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, that is really huge, right? Like it's, it, it can be very appealing for people instead of just something more generic.

Tyson E. Franklin: it's, one of those things, when I've done marketingworkshops, I talk about this program every now and then. It's just, to use. just takes a little bit of time of setting up what email addresses you're going to use, on when your receptionist get that email.

Uh, . transfer it and then send it to the patient. So a little bit of fiddling around, but once you know how to do it, that personal 'cause I know right now if, if I was supposed to go and and hadn't, or my physio or chiropractor, whoever it was, and all of a sudden I got an email and it was a message for them saying, Hey, [00:09:00] Tyson.

Now depending how much they know me, if they know me, knew me pretty well. I said, Hey Tyson, you slack ass. I thought you were coming back in. I would've gone. Oh, Matt, sorry. was, wasn't I That's the name of my Matt. And, ring got a message from Matt.

I just need to book in before the Christmas break. So I think when it comes to chasing it could be, like I said, people who have started the treatment were supposed to reappoint and haven't people who are in the middle of treatment that you need to follow up on, it could be your yearly orthotic reviews.

All the people that were come in throughout the year who haven't come in. , identify them and, and get inEven if you sent somebody out to 200 people and only 5% responded for the amount of time and money it takes you to do it with what you actually make back pays for it tenfold.

But you're gonna get more than five. You'll get more than 5% and, and same. orthotic. You might have a lot of diabetic patients. How many diabetic foot checks were due during the year that haven't turned up? [00:10:00] Get onto 'em. Now, if there's time in your diary, see, nobody should have any excuse to be sitting around going, geez, December's quiet.

They should be for, they're not busy. They should be doing this to make sure that they're busy. And if they're too busy now. Put it in November next year, or even October next year, and say, okay, for the next two months, November, December, we're gonna chase the money.

Closing Thoughts and Personal Experiences

Tyson E. Franklin: And if people hear the word money and go, oh geez, that's, that's terrible.

You're just talking about You're listening to the wrong podcast,

Jim McDannald, DPM: no, it's an excellent point. I think, that, that list of patients you have that haven't come in a while, while it's helpful, definitely to chase the money in December, it also can, can turn that around. And after December and January and February, those people still haven't come in yet. those could be the

potentially coming into your clinic as well. maybe not everyone's got a high deductible, but, just being diligent about, chasing out for those folks who haven't been in a while that are, that deserve the, that need to be seen, can really, be really helpful to your practice

Tyson E. Franklin: the moneyaround July. So [00:11:00] in Australia, your end of financial year is 30th of April, isn't

it? In America?

Jim McDannald, DPM: yet. Like tax 15th. It depends on the corporations and

Tyson E. Franklin: it's 1st of July, 30th of June is our financial year. So on the 1st of July, the new financial year starts. So a lot of people who are employees will get their returns in as fast as they can 'cause they wanna get money back from the tax office. So around July we would do, we would chase the money then and we'd contact certain things.

Just say, Hey, you've probably just got a nice return from your tax office. Before you go and blow it on something unimportant, why don't you use it towards your feet? So that was another just had it in our schedule of, um, sort of, two emails. A friend of mine, Sam Hart, who has uh, on my other podcast,he, uh, he, used to have in South Africa.

And a couple of emails that he used to send to people that he said converted a, a certain percentage or certain with him, a certain [00:12:00] amount of, uh, clients booking a balloon trip. And they were, the question was, Yeah, had some interest, contacted him, he's given him the information, and then he'd send this email afterwards and he'd just say, are you still interested in ballooning with us?

So it'd be for podiatry. Are you still interested in getting orthotics with us or are you still having shockwave uh, therapy with us or laser with us, or whatever treatment you were gonna do. And the other one, uh, that he mentioned the other day was just confirming, you don't want to go ahead with x, wanna go ahead with orthotics.

And I'm now with, um, clients are listening to this episode, they would've known, they would've got an email from me recently. Just say, just confirm me. You don't want to go ahead with coaching stop start things all the time and, and sometimes on purpose.Something happens. Something comes up. So you, you, So if you said to a patient, just confirm, you don't wanna go ahead with orthotics. If they wanted to go [00:13:00] ahead with orthotics, you're gonna go, oh, no, no, I actually want to go ahead.Or just confirming continue with shock wave therapy if you don't hear than likely that was the right result. they, they didn't want to go ahead with so I thought they simple questions that you could use in an

email.

Jim McDannald, DPM: those are two simple questions, but you're getting at the same yes or no answer, right? You're not, there's no kind of, like any wishy washiness that can come from that. If they're going to respond to it, they're going to have a strong yes or a strong no. There's no maybes or,I'll think about it.

I don't think that's going to happen there. So it's a way to. I've heard that sometimes referred to as closing the loop email.

Tyson E. Franklin:

Jim McDannald, DPM: and it closes the

loop in a way. So that, that definitely is something that a technique that can be really helpful, just, not only for your clinic, but also for the patient or in your, situation there with the coaching clients to help them come to this decision or, on a positive or negative side of things.

Tyson E. Franklin: contact, uh, like some past or ones that I've been working with off and on throughout the year, and I've got to that point [00:14:00] now 'cause I'm busy enough that I don't wanna work with people for just two or three months. I wanna work with people long term because I know we get results, good results long term.

So people that want me to, uh, like I feel like a, um,a, hired hit To come in and just solve this one little problem. And I said like, I'm, I don't like being a man anymore. I want to build a relationship. I want to connect with people and I want to help them build their business long term, not just a short fixed bandaid.

Oh yeah, I'm really busy now I need to stop. Um, no, I don't need that anymore.So they'll probably get a brain toss message from me saying, Hey, just confirming you don't want to do any more, don't wanna do any further coaching. If you do, please reach out to me and I'll tell you how, how we're gonna be working.From now onwards. The last thing I this, just about chasing the money now, is also remembering that you can cross sell. So if you've had patients that have come in that have, they've been good patients, you like them, they like you, they've used certain services, think about what other services do you have that they could possibly use,[00:15:00] them to them before the Christmas break finishes.

It's really used to do a thing where we have a lot of our patients. We identified that we are good patients. We would send them some saying, not sure about what gift to give your mum this year. we would describe, therapeutic wax foot how it felt and all that.

And we had these really nice gift vouchers done up. And we would sell, oh man, maybe a dozen Leading up to Christmas patients that come in, they go, they actually didn't know what to get. My mother-in-Law, that wax foot voucher would be great. And they say, what if she's in a health fund? We go, well, if she's in a health fund, she can her health fund and she'll end up getting two wax foot baths for the price of one.

So yeah, up to Easter we did, leading up to Mother's Day, we did it leading up to Christmas, we did it. And to me that is what the essence of chasing the money is all about. It's and thinking about your patients. and with them and trying to find out where,

and pick them back [00:16:00] up. Where are the ones where there's just an opportunity to, I dunno, partying with the money, it's also providing the care at the same time.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, it's well put. I think,showing that diligence and showing patients that there's an opportunity there to come in and be seen by the clinic, for some great care is definitely helpful to them, but also helpful to the bottom line of your practice.

Tyson E. Franklin: patients that, say, for example, I used to sell hundreds of rolls of strapping tape per year. Just a sudden I, I, and I would, every person bought strapping tape from me, I would have a. Had them on a database. Just these were my strapping tape patients.

If all of a sudden I came across a new strapping tape. So I was at a conference recently and there was a, a strapping company I won't mention the name they're not sponsoring this program in any way. And, good tape. They gave me a couple roles. I used it myself and I thought this is great.

So. , I could uh, an email or message toall my patients who are on my database who have bought strapping tape from me in the past and [00:17:00] say, Hey, there's this new strapping tape that's out. This is what's great about it. And if all of a sudden that went out to 250 patients, I will guarantee a percentage of them will start coming in again to buy this new tape.

Without a doubt, know it will happen. And this is, is, true care. This is caring about your patients and letting 'em know new services when they're there, following 'em up when they need to be followed up. Don't get it in your head. Oh no, I don't wanna be annoying. It's This is about caring about

your patients.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, it's about making those connections, right? And then also taking action. Because if you just sit around and just wait to see what comes in, you're not really being proactive in that, in putting those connections together. And you don't have a plan to take action or you don't take that action. Yeah. You're just going to be stuck in a rut or kind of doing the same old,

Tyson E. Franklin: say, oh I'm all about patient-centered care. I don't want to push your orthotics. I don't want to do this. And I'm like, seriously? If you've got a just absolutely flat out with just say general patients and [00:18:00] some of those patients who need orthotics. , but you're too busy actually spend the time to actually provide those orthotics for them or follow 'em up if they, they were supposed to have a check, but you are so busy you can't be bothered following 'em up when they missed it.

Because I know life got busy. Is that really being patient centered care or is that just, I know I, I'm wearing this big badge on my shoulder that up here says I'm booked out three weeks ahead. Look at me. I feel sorry for me. my badge of honor. So yeah, Don, I've done a video on that recently as well.

just, just talk It's, it's not a badge of honor. of laziness. So Tim Ferriss would say,

Jim McDannald, DPM: there you go.

Tyson E. Franklin: better stop before I annoy

anybody else.

Jim McDannald, DPM: no, I thought that was a good, a good topic and a very timely topic since we are running into the holidays here. I know that I've still got

Tyson E. Franklin: I know.

Jim McDannald, DPM: shopping left to do, but, yeah, I've got my own, crazy December, what is it? What did you call it? The crazy season.

Tyson E. Franklin: silly season.

Jim McDannald, DPM: silly

season. No, I'm definitely in the silly season mood.

Tyson E. Franklin: I just, I [00:19:00] love, I love I love December. Christmas. I am, yeah. once, once we hit December, my wife and I, we've done the same thing for so many years. As soon as it hits the 1st of December. Well, we have all these other traditions a ham and we talk to the ham and all, but that's, that's a different story.

People think I'm trying to explain that.

Uh,

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, a future episode, Tyson talks to hams.

Tyson E. Franklin: to the ham. People who know me know the whole talking to the ham story and they reckon it's hilarious. And my kids have been doing it their whole life, so they know they're different. And it's only 'cause I did it with my dad.

So it's like a tradition. But the other thing my do from 1st of December, every night we sit down, we watch a Christmas movie, we just through the barrel, we, we watch Christmas movie and we just,some of 'em we watch and we go, that was horrendous. But some of actually are quite good.

So it's just, I just love Christmas movies. So there we go. A little bit of insight into it, into how my

mind works.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Elf is really big in our household, so

Tyson E. Franklin: loved

Jim McDannald, DPM: the

yeah,

Tyson E. Franklin: I'll [00:20:00] guarantee she, she would be watching The Grinch over Christmas and she can recite nearly the whole movie, just . she does his voice as well, which is even funnier. Yeah, and she's probably, she listens to the she'll go. really embarrassed, but not as, as embarra, not as embarrassed as you're 19 talking to a ham at a shopping center.

But that's all right. There's a

different story,

time

Jim McDannald, DPM: We'll save that for another but, thanks again for the, the

insights Tyson. And, we'll talk soon. Okay.

Tyson E. Franklin: I'll talk to you again next week. Bye.

Jim McDannald, DPM: All right, Tyson.