Transcript

Marketing Complacency | Podiatry Marketing 9

[00:00:00]

Jim McDannald, DPM:

Introduction and Casual Banter

Jim McDannald, DPM: I'm Jim McDannald and my co host Tyson Franklin. Tyson, what's going on today?

Tyson E. Franklin: I am Good Jim. It's, as I always say, it is sunny in Cairns. Wasn't, actually, wasn't there a TV show, Sunny in Philadelphia?

Jim McDannald, DPM: in Philadelphia, I believe.

Tyson E. Franklin: Always sunny in Philadelphia. Cairns. It's always hot in Cairns. . So the other day I was out there smoking, this beef, big piece of beef. And I had a thermometer that I was, as I was setting everything up, a thermometer in the, in the smoker, getting the temperature up, had the other thermometer just sitting on the table and it was said it was 105 just sitting on my table, which was about 39 degrees Celsius.

So it was hot as yes, it's warm in cans. How I'd take it. It's cool. It's cool. Once again

Jim McDannald, DPM: yeah. It's always minus 15 here during the wintertime. just life in Montreal, lots of ice skating, lots of getting outside and throwing snowballs and making snowmen, in Montreal. So no, things are good over here, but, how about you let us know, what are we going to get into today?

What's that, the topic that everyone's just dying to [00:01:00] hear about, on podiatry marketing.

Tyson E. Franklin: Okay.

Understanding Marketing Complacency

Tyson E. Franklin: The topic today is marketing complacency.

Jim McDannald, DPM: All right. All right. So are people getting complacent? Are they, it's the beginning of the year. Everyone should be ramped up and ready to rock and roll. what are your thoughts on getting complacent with their marketing?

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. Okay. first I'll just explain like complacency in general is like a feeling of certainty of one achievement. So you start to get a little bit smug where you currently are. And it's one of those things where you think. You've arrived and there's not much else that you actually need to do.

And sometimes you can feel really secure where you are, but you're unaware of some of the potential dangers that could be coming up. So how this actually relates to your marketing is A lot of people, it's their marketing, all the work they've done behind the scenes that gets them to where they are. And if they stop marketing or sort of reduce the current level of marketing that they're doing, because, they think they've arrived and, they don't need to do it, that is the part that can be a really big [00:02:00] mistake.

That makes a lot of sense. we live in an ever changing world, which has been, more than apparent over the last two years. Oh, yeah.

Jim McDannald, DPM: we'd like to discuss on the scope of this podcast, but what are some examples of that kind of complacency in action, right? you make it to that level and you feel like you're set and just You got the momentum and nothing's going to stop you.

Tyson E. Franklin: it's one of the things is like I've identified five things that I think are signs that you're getting a little bit more complacent in your marketing.

Signs of Marketing Complacency

Tyson E. Franklin: One is disengagement. You're no longer really involved in networking or community activities. So you're just pulling away from the community itself.

The second thing is a lack of investment in your marketing. So you'll start to reduce your spending and you'll start looking at, maybe marketing is an expense and not an investment. and marketing is an investment. It's an investment in your business, an investment in your future. But when you start to get complacent, you think, maybe it's an expense.

I could save some money if I didn't market as much. The third sort of sign that [00:03:00] marketing complaincy is happening is there's a loss of passion for the numbers of your business. So you don't test and measure anything anymore. You don't look at your key performance indicators. You're just happy with how things are actually, plodding along.

The fourth thing is there's no interest in like new opportunities or ways to grow and promote your business. So all of a sudden you're presented with something and you're like, nah. Don't need to worry about that. Yeah, everything is going great. And I think the other big part is there's no critical thinking and therefore there's no planning and there's no, there's no planning with your team and no action is actually taken.

So I think that they're like the biggest signs of marketing complacency is starting to happen. And I've seen it happen in podiatry business. And I saw a great example in a physio clinic once.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, I think that's a huge, concern. You think this is more prevalent in folks that, run solo practices, or do you see this just as much as, people in, multi, healthcare provider groups or podiatry groups in general?

Tyson E. Franklin: I think it can [00:04:00] happen to everybody at any stage, regardless if you're a solo practitioner, you're a big business. I think at a certain point you may have had a goal that you wanted to achieve. And once you reach that goal, you get that feeling of, Oh, that was great. And you might celebrate. And then because while you're celebrating, you take your foot off the brake.

So I've seen a lot of businesses where they've hit these big milestones. And I've, yeah, People listening to this know I'll do one on one business coaching and I've seen podiatrists that I've done coaching with who said this is what I want to do and this is what I want to achieve and they get there and as soon as they get there they say yeah I don't want to do coaching anymore, I'm where I need to be and I just shake my head thinking you've just built up all this momentum and then you stop and then what tends to happen a lot of those businesses will start to plateau over a period of time and it could be for three months it could be for Six months could be of two years.

They just, they platter one don't really grow, but they're happy with this bit, but what they don't realize it's just the momentum of all their [00:05:00] past marketing that they've done that is actually keeping the business alive. And they actually, it's like false belief that what they've done is going to just keep going on.

And what they don't realize is slowly and internally the business is starting to run away. Like having termites in the house. You don't know they're there. Until when you do know, then it's hard to actually get rid of them. So that's one of the biggest problems.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, I guess you just stop challenging yourself or challenging your assumptions. And, part of life is being a lifelong learner and like you said, setting goals for yourself, but also like knowing what you don't know, so you can go out and test things and, try some new things from occasion, for those people that, that feel maybe they're just getting a little complacent or just are on that plateau, what are some kind of concrete steps that people can take to get out of that funk or get out of that rut?

Overcoming Marketing Complacency

Tyson E. Franklin: I think when you, first thing you should do is have a look at all the marketing you've done in the past and you should be testing and measuring it. You should know what worked, what didn't work. A certain percentage of your marketing budget should be going towards things that, already working, [00:06:00] but you should be taking a small percentage and putting it towards new things that you haven't done before.

test new things that if you've never done Google ads, maybe do some Google ads and see what effect that has, or if you've never organized a dinner, invited say health professionals to have dinner with you, yeah, 10 people at a table at an event, try something like that. It's just constantly keep trying different things and don't just rest on your laurels.

So even when my clinic was absolutely booming and going great. Every year I spent more money on marketing. So I always took whatever we turned over. I would take eight to 10 percent of my turnover and that would be invested into marketing. And as the business grew, then my marketing budget grew and I just kept plowing it back in there, which is why the clinic never took it down.

It never spiraled downwards at any stage. It just constantly just kept growing because I kept wanting to build it. And of course, I also know... That when I've seen [00:07:00] businesses plateau that their staff, the team morale starts to drop a little bit and then once the team morale starts to drop because the business owner is not looking at the business as much anymore, then team members start to leave and then I've seen business owners then have to come back and try and rebuild their business.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, that's not easy, right? once you get that downward momentum going, along with the up momentum, also that downward momentum can really be, Negative to, not only the team, but just your way of life, it affects more than just the business itself. I definitely can see where that could be an issue.

So a lot, so what kind of things would you say, in that vein to try to stop that from having, obviously piling more money back into your marketing, what other opportunities think are there for people to try to like, maintain that momentum or keep building in a way.

Tyson E. Franklin: I think a lot of it's mindset too. You've got to keep yourself really in a positive mindset. You need to be. Reading, not just mindset books, but reading marketing books. Seth Godin has a number of books that every time you pick up any of his books and [00:08:00] start reading it, you not have your brain actually thinking about different ways.

And when you read something, never say that won't work for me, or that won't work in podiatry. It might work in, for a hairdresser, but it won't work for a podiatrist. Instead, ask yourself, how can I make that work for me? as you're reading, like I'm reading a book at the moment called The Practice by Seth Godin.

And it's all about, about practicing. It's about constantly practicing what it is that you do. And he said, if you're a writer... Then you should be writing every single day. If there's other things you want to get better at, then you should be doing it every day. So your business, if you want your business to succeed, you need to be doing the marketing.

You need to be involved in the marketing for your business. And it needs to be something that you constantly want to get better at. And if you try something and it fails, then what he says in the book, you didn't fail. All you did was practice.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yep.

Tyson E. Franklin: You practice something that didn't work, or you, so it's practice.

And he said, [00:09:00] we're all creative people, entrepreneurs, business owners. We are all creative people. And what we create is art. Now your podiatry business is your art. That's what you're showing the world. And it's through marketing that you're then sharing it with

Jim McDannald, DPM: And everybody's going to make mistakes along this course, right? No one has a thousand percent batting average when it comes to, what's going to work with a certain type of patient or a certain area. So it's okay to have those flaws, to expect that occasionally things are not going to turn out.

All right. I think you brought up a good point earlier too, that, when you just get a little complacent or you feel like you're hitting that plateau. there's new podiatry students or new residents or new fellows coming out into podiatry world all the time that you know Maybe you're digital native Also have you know, we're born with skills or a knowledge base that not that we're that old But you know we come from more of an analog world initially and have over time learn more about digital ways of marketing a practice and providing patients care in a way that's You know, there's more [00:10:00] opportunities to be in contact and communicate with people, this day and age than, back when we, wearing pagers or, calling on landlines.

So I think like what you're tying talks, what you're talking about kind of ties into this lifelong learning and not just getting Oh, this is the way I've always done it. So I'm going to keep on doing it that way. That might work for a little while, but over time, it would be overtaken by either competitors or the next generation, that's speaking in ways and doing things that you're not willing to do.

Tyson E. Franklin: and I actually think it's, there's two things I want to say. One was, there's a saying I saw someone once and it said, the big don't eat the small, the fast eat the slow. So you could have a big clinic that has been going along really well. And because it's been so successful and in your town, you've had little to no competition, then that you can get very complacent.

And I was actually in Cairns itself when I got to Cairns, there was one podiatry clinic. And they were the only podiatry clinic in Cairns. They were booked out weeks in advance, solid as. So they did no [00:11:00] marketing. Then I came along and bang, I just got stuck into it. And my clinic grew really fast. Now, over a number of years, other podiatrists came into town and they were all crap.

not crap, yeah, they weren't the greatest. They weren't the greatest podiatry businesses. I should rephrase that.

Jim McDannald, DPM: That's okay.

Tyson E. Franklin: over the years, other podiatrists came into town and they set up very similar businesses to the other, the clinic that was originally here. They did no marketing. They just opened up the doors and thought, because I'm here, all the patients are going to come. And while they were doing that, I just kept marketing my practice and it just kept growing and it kept growing.

After, 20 something years, I had a business that was booming along. I had a lot of competitors that were doing very little. Some started to do marketing, but all they were trying to do was copy what I was doing. But even then, even when I knew we were so far in front of everybody else, I didn't take my foot off the pedal.

I just kept going because I knew eventually some new younger guys would come into [00:12:00] town who were clever. Who were going to start doing some marketing and I thought, I want to be ready for when they arrive. So like I said, it's not the big that eat the small, it's the fast that eat the slow. And I didn't want to go, Oh, I've made it now, I can just sit back and rest.

Because these new younger guys coming through would have actually taken over if I didn't keep doing what I was doing. Now, I sold my practice, the people that took it over got a bit complacent. The younger guys coming in are kicking their arse.

Jim McDannald, DPM: that being the first mover advantage. you came in and dominated your market and were the visible, podiatry clinic in your local area, everyone who's aware of you, you built momentum through your marketing and through the great care you provided, and it just becomes a flywheel by, and then you're doubling down on that, learning what's working and not working, it's a huge advantage.

And I think one way to quantify that is sometimes if you, In the states where, we have Google reviews, right? So when someone types in, let's say, San [00:13:00] Francisco podiatrist or Denver podiatrist, and they look on Google and they see that someone that has, 540, 4. 8 stars versus a clinic, the clinic down there that has seven reviews that are all five stars, they're going to see that clinic that has that 540 reviews or and think that's where I want to go.

That's the place that like, that's the place where you go for foot and ankle care in this area. I think that just ties into you're talking about is that you got to keep your foot on the gas and just keep on, keep on moving forward because like you said, those young, aggressive, motivated, ambitious.

podiatrists that might have some skills you simply don't have that you're trying to learn, or maybe we'll learn in a year from now. it's a huge opportunity, like I said, to jump, get the jump on everybody before, yeah, so you build a successful business that's, beneficial to you in your practice.

Tyson E. Franklin: it's interesting what you said about The Google reviews, for example, I'll tell you right now, a podiatrist that has 540 Google reviews is not complacent with their marketing. They're not complacent with asking patients for [00:14:00] Google reviews. They don't go to a conference, have someone get up on stage and say, Oh, you should try and get more Google reviews.

Do it for a week. Yeah. Come back from the conference. Excited. They do it for two weeks. They get 10 Google reviews and they go, Oh, that's awesome. And they stop. And that, that leads on to another topic that we can talk about later on about helicopter marketing. That's just another big no that people shouldn't do.

And, but the person that's got 540 Google reviews, no complacency whatsoever. They would have put a system in place to gather those reviews and once they got 100, they kept going. When they got 200, they kept going. When they got 500, they kept going. there's no room for

Jim McDannald, DPM: exactly what you're talking about. It's putting these consistent systems in place where, where it's important to the clinic. It's known by the practice owner that these are the things that we do. We have systems in place to make them happen. And then it's a marathon and not a sprint, right?

Because there's always going to be some bright, new, shiny object coming along, or someone's going to cold call you or send you an email. Are you going to hear from a colleague? Do this thing as well, [00:15:00] but you have to nail down those core systems and do it consistently to get those benefits. If you're always jumping from rock to rock, like pretty soon you're going to run out of rocks.

And you're gonna have, you're not gonna be any further down, down the road. that's a good point.

The Importance of Consistency in Marketing

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah, I think when it comes to marketing though, in general, some people might say, I'm not quite sure how to do marketing. if you're not sure, reach out to Jim and myself and say, can you help me with the marketing? Yes, we can help you with marketing. But once you learn what to do and you start getting it going and you start building up the momentum is don't stop.

Just don't stop is just keep going with it. And even when your business, like there will be times where my business was. We were flat out, we were booked out and we had a list of patients wanting to come into the clinic and I still did marketing. I was still constantly looking for new ideas. If an opportunity arose, I would sit down, evaluate it, talk with the team and we'd make a decision and we'd either do it or not do it.

But I never [00:16:00] just, I never got to that point where I've made it, I'm at the top of the mountain, I can just stop. And it's because... business goes through cycles where all of a sudden there's that slight downturn where it is quiet. But because of my marketing, our downturns were so minimal that rarely we were ever sitting around just looking at each

Jim McDannald, DPM: It you bring that up, reminds me of a book I'm currently reading called Think Again, and, it's one of these things where you gotta check your own beliefs and like your own knowledge, Over the course of your life or the over the course of your practice. Because if I go back to when I was in podiatry school, shockwave therapy for heel pain was something that was done with these huge machines in this operate operating room setting that made these people on the podcast that, remember what those sounded like?

It's like this like crazy sound, these huge machines. And, if that was my only idea about what shockwave therapy was. things have progressed and evolved over time. So now even, podiatry clinics in the States, some people are doing it for cash, in the office with a smaller device, [00:17:00] whether it's as powerful or not, I've lost track a little bit of that kind of stuff, but it's what you bring up.

It's really important to think again about these kind of tightly hold beliefs or Oh, I would never do that in my practice. But. Over time, life changes, practice changes, research on certain topics change, so you have to be ready to adapt to do what's right for you in your practice.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah. how many people probably have looked at something? Yeah, they might have something in the business now, but how long did it take before they actually implemented it? From the first time they saw it. Rarely does somebody see something and go, Oh, that looks cool. I'm going to get that. But now I tend to do that probably too often, but most people don't do that.

And, but what they'll do is they'll look at something and they think, Oh no, I'm not going to do that. That doesn't fit with what I do. But then over time they see other people using it and then the beliefs actually start. It's what I refer to in the TOEIC reboot as the bandwagon effect.

It's where. There's not too many podiatrists now that you'll see that don't do shockwave, [00:18:00] don't do foot mobilization, don't do dry needling. There's a big list. Exercise and rehab now. You go back 10 years ago, if you mentioned any of that stuff, people go, Oh, no, I'm not doing that. But now it's just, it's common to teaching it at university, but it's taking those skills.

Knowing that everybody does them now is how are you going to market that to your patients? And once you find something that works. Keep doing it and even when you get bored and this is the other part with complacency or marketing complacency is you will get bored way before your patients ever get bored.

So just because you think I should change this and I should change what I'm doing here. I should stop doing that because it's really boring. I must be boring everybody. No, you're not boring anybody. Just keep doing it until it stops working.

Jim McDannald, DPM: I think that's a great point. I think even when you're talking with patients, right? and you're reminding them about what the diagnosis is, how they, what your treatment recommendations are, the more times you can loop back and make it simple for them. And sometimes that's feel like you're repeating yourself three or four times, [00:19:00] but humans, for the most part, that's how we learn is through repetition and having things taught, maybe they were, maybe their kid grabbed their leg.

The first time you said you have plantar fasciitis do these three things or So it's important to, have a message, repeat the message, circle back to the message, three or four times, and, maybe they heard you two times instead of those four times.

it is one of those things when you have a message, you're more embarrassed about saying, even with me, like I'll write an email newsletter to the podiatrist and, I feel like I said those things before. But maybe they didn't know, maybe it was, what I get, like 40 percent of people open my email.

So I already know that 60 percent of people didn't read that. and then maybe, tip 20 percent like open it, but didn't actually read it. you're not really, you're only feeling repetitive in your own eyes or it only feels repetitive to yourself. So I think that's a good point.

Tyson E. Franklin: Yeah, I remember having a sales rep coming up to me once and saying, Oh, Tyson, when are you going to change that ad? You've been running the same ad for so many years. And I had this one particular ad that I ran for over 20 years.[00:20:00] And she said, when are you going to start changing it? It is so boring. I said, I will change it when it stops working. And she went, Oh. Oh, okay. and sometimes we just change things because we're bored and we want to spice it up. But if you're measuring, if you're not complacent and you're looking at your KPIs and you're testing and measuring things, your numbers, whenever you run certain types of marketing, you can see the effect it has on your business.

So every time you're doing it, if it's doing really well, then keep doing it. But if you start to notice a dip, Then you give it a break. I relate it to, like horse racing, even a champion horse, like Winx. I don't know if you know who Winx is or Black Caviar, two Australian champions. Even those horses that were unbeaten, undefeated, more than 20 races, these undefeated, they still had a break.

Had a bit of a spell and then came back and kicked everyone's ass again. But the trainer could probably tell by the way they ran when it was time to actually give them, Yeah, looked at the numbers, knew when it was time to give it a bit of a spell and then bring [00:21:00] it back out. And that's what I did with my marketing as well.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Sounds like a winner. It sounds like you weren't getting complacent.

Tyson E. Franklin: No, no complacency from me. Still no complacency. I love doing this stuff. So I think we've covered that subject today. Jim, so I've got nothing else to say.

Jim McDannald, DPM: Yeah, I think we, we talked, at length and I think there's some serious value there, about the consistency of your marketing. But like you said, just, not resting on your laurels is the way that used to be said in the running days. you got to get back out there. You got to train.

It's a marathon and not a sprint. some consistency, in your marketing is going to continue to generate that the revenue, the patient stream. And, I think you touched on that topic really well.