Welcome to Podiatry Marketing

Tyson Franklin 0:00
How you doing? This is Tyson Franklin and with me today on the podiatry Marketing Show, is Jim McDannald. My co host partner in crime, Jim, how you doing?

Jim McDannald 0:21
I'm doing well, Tyson besides all the snow up here in Canada, like, I think things a little warmer down. Where are you out there in Australia?

Tyson Franklin 0:28
So what's your temperature where you are?

Jim McDannald 0:30
I think are right around like minus five Celsius right now. So for the Americans in the audience, that's about 25 degrees. It's starting to feel like winter here in Canada. So

Tyson Franklin 0:39
Yeah, we're about 34 up here in Cairns. So this is great that you and I have gotten together, we're going to do a marketing podcast together. different sides of the world in obviously, completely different climates. So they if they watch the video, they may sometimes see you rubbed up with a jacket on and they will see me sweating as I am doing a little bit right now.

Jim McDannald 0:59
Yeah, no, I'm excited as well taste. And I think, you know, I've had some conversations in the past about, you know, what the kind of information and educational information is out there for other podiatrists to learn about some basics of marketing. So, you know, there's lots of people trying to sell people marketing and podiatrist or, you know, sometimes get confronted a lot of different options. And I'm really looking forward to chatting with you about some different topics. So we can kind of break down the basics and kind of give a lay of the land for some of the opportunities out there for people practicing podiatry around the world.

Tyson Franklin 1:30
Yeah, well, the concept for the show, like you said, we've been talking about this for a while. And that's, I think that episode we are on with the podiatry legends podcast, I told you, I was gonna get a plug at some stage. We talked about podiatrist, doing things together. And this is a perfect especially if you have an interest in something you and I both have an interest in marketing. We both like talking about marketing, sharing it with other podiatrists and we thought we'll let's put our heads together, create a podiatry Marketing Show. And each episode, people can take something away from it, they can actually apply in the business straightaway. But this episode is more of an introduction. So people get to know us if they've never listened to us before, or heard us or heard about. So give us a bit of your background. So for the people listening.

Jim McDannald 2:13
Yeah, so I grew up in the US and went to the Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, after which time it did a three year surgical residency, you know, a lot of time in the hospitals there in Portland, and then practice in a big orthopedic surgical clinic in Eugene was in private practice for five years before moving to Canada. It's my wife's home country, and had opportunity to practice here as well. And during that whole time, I've kind of been involved in online and digital side projects. But it wasn't until about two and a half years ago, where I decided to kind of combine my podiatry knowledge with some online and digital marketing skills to start my own business. But at the same time, really find ways to help educate my peers and colleagues about these different topics. You know, when we're in school, we learn a lot about the didactics, the physiology, the anatomy, how to treat patients, but when it comes to building a business, especially a private practice, there's not a lot of great information out there. So that's why I'm excited to partner with you in this endeavor, and really bring some worthwhile educational information to, you know, our peers and colleagues around the world. But how about you fill in people a little bit about who you are and your background in the profession.

Tyson Franklin 3:24
I asked myself that every day twice. And so I graduated 1988, which seems a lifetime ago from QUT - Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. And pretty much from day dot, I always had an interest in the business behind podiatry, even though I enjoyed being a podiatrist and the clinical part of it. But I had a real knack for the business side of it. So over a 30 year period, I opened well over 20 podiatry businesses. And every time I did it, I must admit, every single time I opened a podiatry clinic, I learned something new.

And I think what I like about working with you on this is you're more modern than what I am, if that makes any sense. So I've come from old, old school podiatry, where old school marketing and I've been able to adapt that over the last three decades where I've sort of brought it into the analog the modern world, but I'm no expert when it comes to the whole online marketing side, which is why I thought was great sort of teaming up together. But my background was mainly I'm in Cairns now so I started on the Gold Coast, had a practice down there then had a hand problem I was out of podiatry for about two years. And then when I decided to set a practice again in cans, because my hand problem which is still ongoing now so if people see the video, you might see a few crusty things on my hand. I never knew from one week to the next whether my hands were going to be any good. So from soon as I started my practice in cans, I knew I had to put things in place that would guarantee patients coming in so really worked on marketing hard, and also worked on systems. So and employed other people to work with me pretty early on. But the marketing side was something I loved to doing. And that was something I could do in the background, whether my hands were sore or not, I could work the actual business. And that's why I think as we brings together, we are going to come up with some gyms.

Jim McDannald 5:21
Now, I'm super excited, I think you're right, you kind of come from a little bit different background with that kind of old school shoe leather, shoe leather marketing, I think that stuff is stuff that I've gained respect for, and a better understanding by knowing you and talk with you about some different aspects. They're not that I ever like minimalized it because I know that, you know, the basis of any good marketing, you know, option is to really provide excellent care for patients, right, no matter what you do both, you know, old school or new new school, if you're not providing high, high value and a high level of care for your patients. None of these things really matter. That is when you're doing that, and you want to kind of get in front of a specific type of patient, you want to gain awareness in your local area, some of the things we're going to be going over the upcoming weeks. I'm really excited to pick your brain about these things, but also share some of the things that I've been working with different practices in the US about what's worked and what's not worked, and what are some good ways to get started. And and, you know, kind of dip your toes in the water to kind of like, feel comfortable in this area that sometimes feels a bit uncomfortable, because you don't have most, but I just don't have a strong domain knowledge in this area.

Tyson Franklin 6:33
Yeah. So with this show that we're putting together, do you want to explain the format? And what we're planning on doing each week? How we're going to deliver the information on a weekly basis?

Jim McDannald 6:43
Yeah, sure. So the plan with with the podcast is really to kind of like each of us take a different role. Each week, you know, maybe one week, I'm the host, and I'm kind of asking Tyson questions about, you know, his background and email marketing or how he, you know, likes to create sequences of emails, or kind of some old school tactics that have worked well on the practice that he's built. And on those other weeks, maybe he's asking me more things about the digital side, whether that's Google ads, or Facebook ads, or how to build a website that kind of attracts your ideal patient. So this is the kind of format you know, one week you'll get me kind of sitting in the chair and asking Tyson questions, and the next week, maybe Tyson will be on the I'll be on the receiving end of a little bit of ribbing, and a little bit of questions from Tyson about whether that stuff really works or not. And, you know, the real goal, too, is to provide, you know, actionable insights and ways for people to get started and really learn by doing and not necessarily like, you know, feel disengaged from this, they want to feel like this is something you can take back to your practice and test out and see whether it works for you and for your practice style.

Tyson Franklin 7:49
Yeah, and when I'm gonna ask you really tough questions to when it's my turn. When the topic when is your topic, I'm gonna write a list of really, really hard questions and try and bamboozle you.

Jim McDannald 8:02
I'm looking forward to it, I'm looking forward to see

Tyson Franklin 8:03
what like to even though people might listen to go, oh, just Tyson just to old school marketing, no, but I'm going to touch on top because there's some things that we used to do 25 years ago, like you say, a simple newsletter. And, and we're going to talk about that in a lot more depth. But there was a friend of mine recently who was at an event. And this was a like an online event. And somebody said, I yell at some of the marketing things that you're doing at the moment. And this person said, I do old school email newsletters to certain patients. And he got shut down by this person. So that's the dumbest thing you could do. And just and he just went a couple of these, he said that. And to me, I think there's right now there's a great blend of using the old school using new school marketing, bringing it together. And and then people being able to choose what is going to see, like you said, their ideal client, because depending on how their practice is set up, and what they're trying to do, will determine which tactic is the best one, but we're going to, we're going to cover so many different areas.

Jim McDannald 9:06
Yeah, there's so many different options and different ways of doing it out there. And like that's, like you said, we're gonna bring it to you from two different perspectives. And two kind of different backgrounds. I'm really excited to see where this goes.

Tyson Franklin 9:18
So I'm am I. So for the people listening to this, this is like the introduction episodes, we're not covering any particular topic, I just want to introduce you to what it is what the concept of this podcast is going to be all about. So as an introduction, I don't really have too much to say other than a big thank you to everyone who's listening to the first episode, and will keep listening to the weekly episodes as they come out. So if you have anything to say, Jim, before we finish up.

Jim McDannald 9:43
No, like I said, I'm just excited to start this endeavor with you. I think we'll definitely be open to the audience as far as learning you know, oh,

Tyson Franklin 9:49
Questions, questions from the audience?

Jim McDannald 9:52
Yeah, questions will have a website going up soon, that has ability to leave a voicemail message. So if you have specific areas that you wanna learn more about and get our perspectives on and see, you know, how can you use these things in your practice to, you know, increase your patient volume or get more specific types of patients. We're really here to help our peers and colleagues kind of demystify this area of marketing to make it approachable and some of the benefits your practice and your patients.

Tyson Franklin 10:20
Yeah. And that's the thing as people are listening to us talk, if they want to reach out to me, they can reach out to me if they want to reach out to you. They reach out to you. It's not like they have to just send one email, and both of us are sort of going to jump all over and because there's gonna be things I will say, so we'll go Oh, that's really interesting. I want to know more. So that's why I think putting our two minds together should be great. So Okay, Jim, do you want to do you want to say the farewell?

Jim McDannald 10:45
Well, I guess we'll sign off for this time. We'll check you guys later on the next episode of Podiatry Marketing. Thanks for tuning in. Sounds good.