Practice Marketing Success: Foundational Principles for Effective Marketing

This is a transcript from our podcast episode published December 11th, 2022. The podcast episode is offered for .1 ASHA CEU (introductory level, related area). This transcript is made available as a course accommodation for and is supplementary to this episode / course. This transcript is not intended to be used in place of the podcast episode with the exception of course accommodation. Please note: This transcript was created by robots. We do our best to proof read but there is always a chance we miss something. Find a typo? Email us anytime.

A special thanks to our Contributing Editor, Caitlin Akier, for reviewing and editing drafts of our transcripts. Her work helps keep our material accessible.

[00:00:00] Kate Grandbois: Welcome to SLP nerd cast the number one professional resource for evidence based practice in speech, language pathology. I'm Kate Grandbois 

[00:00:09] Amy Wonkka: and I'm Amy Wonka. We are both speech, language pathologists working in the field and co-founders of SLP nerd cast. 

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[00:01:43] Kate Grandbois: Welcome everyone to today's episode. We're so glad to have everybody here. We're um, really excited to welcome a guest Jill Woods onto the show. Usually I am here with my counterpart. Amy. Amy is out today, so I am here by myself, but I am not alone and I am [00:02:00] not lonely. Welcome, Jill. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:02:03] Jill Woods: Oh, thanks Kate. It's great to be here. I'm super excited. 

[00:02:07] Kate Grandbois: I'm really excited. Um, this is a topic that I am really interested in learning more about not only for my own practice, uh, but I know before we hit the record button, we had a really nice conversation about how important it is for private practice owners to feel comfortable and confident in marketing services and how that can create a lot of feelings of discomfort.

And as clinicians, we don't get any business training. So being able to discuss all of this openly with you is gonna be really, really exciting. And I'm wondering if, um, before we dive into the content, if you wanna tell us a little bit about you and how you came to be doing what  you're doing.

[00:02:44] Jill Woods: Sure. So I am a podiatrist qualified in the UK as a podiatrist in 1995, which feels like a very, very long time ago now.

Um, but before that I worked in marketing and PR, so I learned old school [00:03:00] marketing and old school PR. So the real kind of in the trenches, theoretical principles and practices. Um, so when I graduated as a podiatrist and started my own private practice, I was looking around at my competitors going, oh, why aren't they doing that?

And why are they doing that like that? And suddenly the light bulb came on and I realized, ah, that's because I've worked in marketing before and they haven't, and we don't get any of this training when we're trained to be, you know, whatever clinical profession we're training in. We get no training. So I ran my own private practice.

I also taught, um, on a podiatry program for a few years. Uh, and then I ended up my life, literally flipped on its head and I married, uh, a soldier in the British army. And we suddenly started moving around all the time. And so clinically I couldn't practice anymore. And so I had to find something else that I could do.

And eventually through lots of trial and error, I won't tell you the long boring story, but through trial and error, we, uh, [00:04:00] I ended up in a position where I had a light bulb moment and thought, hang on, I could teach the marketing stuff I know and understand and have since honed through a couple of digital businesses and a and hospitality business that I ran, I can now teach all of those skills to my fellow health practitioners.

And so 10 in 2010, I started practice momentum and started sharing what I know about marketing with fellow healthcare practitioners. 

[00:04:24] Kate Grandbois: This is gonna be so great. So your practice is called. Practice momentum. And this is really your primary focus. You're no longer a practicing podiatrist. 

[00:04:32] Jill Woods: No, I haven't practiced in, I haven't, I haven't.

I always say I haven't lifted a scalpel in anger in a very long time. 

[00:04:39] Kate Grandbois: my goodness. That's a very different from our clinical, our clinical perspective is speech pathologist. That's a very interesting phrase. 

[00:04:47] Jill Woods: so I, the last patient I treated I think was in 2005, so it was a very long time ago.

[00:04:51] Kate Grandbois: Okay. Okay.

Well, I'm really excited to talk about this. Um, I, even, as I mentioned before, we hit the record button, we had [00:05:00] such a great conversation, and I'm even thinking now of all of the little, all of little comments and questions that I wanna ask you. But before we get started, I do need to read our learning objectives and financial disclosures. 

Learning objective number one, describe the seven point marketing cycle and how to apply it in your practice to help create effective long term marketing strategies. Learning objective number two, identify the three primary marketing principles that underpin an effective practice marketing strategy to help identify gaps in your current marketing, and learning objective number three, identify three exercises to use in your practice to ensure you are attracting, connecting with, and delivering a service to the right patients. 

Disclosures. Jill woods' financial relationships. Jill is the owner of practice momentum, which provides marketing services for healthcare professionals.

Jill Woods's non-financial disclosures. Jill is a licensed podiatrist. Kate, that's me. My financial disclosure is I am the owner and founder of Grandbois therapy and consulting, LLC. And co-founder of SLP nerd cast. [00:06:00] My non-financial disclosures. I'm a member of ASHA, SIG 12 and serve on the AAC advisory group for Massachusetts advocates for children.

I'm also a member of the Berkshire association for behavior analysis and therapy and the association for behavior analysis international and the corresponding speech pathology and applied behavior analysis, special interest group. Okay. Long, long blurb over. I can't wait to hear everything that you have to teach us.

Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about this seven point marketing cycle or, or what's the precursor? What is the background information we need to have about this marketing cycle? 

[00:06:35] Jill Woods: Awesome. Okay. So the thing that I see all the time when I start working with healthcare practices is that they are doing what I call marketing spaghetti.

They're literally like throwing random marketing things out there just to see if something might work. It's.

[00:06:51] Kate Grandbois: For everyone who can't see my face, I'm laughing because if anybody follows us on Instagram, it's basically spaghetti. That's exactly what it is. I [00:07:00] just, and then marketing is not my strength at all.

So carry on. I just had a little light bulb moment of like, oh, that's exactly what I'm doing anyway. I'm already learning new things. 

[00:07:10] Jill Woods: So I mean, the thing that I want to say right at the beginning is you have trained as a clinician, right? You are an expert in your field. You have not trained as a marketer.

Like you can do master's degrees in marketing. It's an enormous subject. So don't beat yourself up that you're not good at this thing. Okay. That's point number one. But you also now have to take ownership of it and go, right. So now what I, if I am doing marketing spaghetti, what else can I do? How can I do this differently?

Um, and so what I want to do just initially is paint the picture of, um, your, of marketing and what it is so that we understand, cuz a lot of people think that marketing is just promotional. So your social media feeds your website, all that kind of stuff. And it's not, it's a huge subject. So marketing is made up of what we call seven PS.

All right. We've got promotion, [00:08:00] product people, pricing, processes, place, and proof. Those are the seven PS that sit within marketing's lot time in it's a lot. It's a huge subject. So anytime you're in your practice and you're working on your pricing structure, or you're working at developing your, the product that you actually deliver, the services that you deliver, that's marketing, it's not just advertising, it's not just the promotional stuff.

Okay. So as we go through what we're gonna be talking about now, I want you to understand that we are not just talking about promotional marketing. We're talking about all those different seven elements that make up the whole of marketing. Does that make sense? 

[00:08:35] Kate Grandbois: It does. It also really paints the picture.

I mean, I've already let the cat outta the bag that I think marketing is my Instagram feed or that's what I did think it was. Okay. So that really does give the scope of how, how wide, how big of a topic this really is. And I'm surprised to hear that product is in there too. 

[00:08:56] Jill Woods: Yeah Your product. So product development.

So developing that [00:09:00] service, that patient experience that you are selling, that's part of your marketing activity. 

[00:09:06] Kate Grandbois: Okay. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. I'm I'm with you. I'm here. Yes. Okay. Let's do this. 

[00:09:12] Jill Woods:So for all of your marketing, you've got one single objective and that one single objective is to be famous locally for the thing you do.

That's it. Okay. To be famous locally for the thing you do and everything that follows that we're gonna talk about now, hopefully will all lead back to that single thing. All right. Okay. Good. So you're with me so far. 

[00:09:35] Kate Grandbois: I'm here. I'm here. Yes. I'm I'm hook, line and sinker

[00:09:38] Jill Woods: Awesome. Okay. So we've got our seven PS of marketing, so we get how big it is.

And the next thing I want to really talk to you about is this seven point marketing cycle, another seven. It's not a coincidence. I don't think it's a coincidence anyway. Um, but basically all of our potential patients who are out there in some kind of pain, whether that's physical pain, emotional pain, [00:10:00] it doesn't matter.

People are out there in pain and you have the solution. So you owe it to all of those people in your local area who are struggling to get better at marketing so that they can understand that you are the person they should see for the solution to their problem. Right? 

[00:10:18] Kate Grandbois: Yes. And I am, you can see that there are words in my mouth because it's making me think of what we just talked about before we hit the record button, which is how important.

How important market viability is with a science. So in speech pathology, we are providing rehabilitation or rehabilitative services to people with communication disorders. They may or may not be experiencing pain, but they do have a communication disorder of some variety. And, um, we could have the best services in the world.

We could have the best, we could have a life saving intervention, but if we can't sell it to them, if we can't. Tell people how to [00:11:00] access those services. We're not helping to close that gap. Um, and I know before we started talking, I, in my nerdy ways referenced an article, there is starting to be research about this through the field of implementation science.

And I'm just gonna quickly plug this article for people who are interested. There is an article called market viability, a neglected concept in implementation science, and it was published in implement in, um, implement, in the journal of implementation science in 2021. And it's by Proctor et al. I'll have the reference in the show notes, but I, I, what I what's important for me, it, for our listeners to take home aside from every, all the knowledge that you're about to share with us is that,

What I learned from this article is that marketing is not icky. It does not have to give you those uncomfortable feelings. It really is providing a health related service that can improve your community. And without marketing and business savvy, you're not able to do that as effectively. And that's, that's my only soapbox.

[00:12:00] This entire episode is literally all I have to offer is this one research article. So I will make sure it's listed 

[00:12:05] Jill Woods: perfect, but it, but to me in your practice, marketing is one of the most ethical things you can do because it's connecting you and your services to people in pain and, and, you know, with the speech and language patients and clients, they're not necessarily in physical pain, but they're struggling with an emotional pain of some sort because of this communication difficulty or swallowing problems.

So, you know, it, it, it is important, but it to understand that it's ethical, what I'm about to tell you is not snake oil. It's not glass smoke mirrors. It's, it's how marketing can help you help more people. 

Kate Grandbois: I love that. 

Jill Woods:Okay. So the first thing we're gonna talk about is this seven point marketing cycle. So we've got seven points.

I'm gonna go through them really quickly. And then I'm gonna go back and talk to each one of them. So you kind of understand what it is. So the seven point cycle is made up of know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat, [00:13:00] refer. Okay. Those are the seven points that sit on this cycle and every single potential patient, as they convert from being a potential patient into a paying patient, they work their way around this cycle.

All right. Some of them hop maybe one step, but very few hop, big chunks. Most people go at some way around this cycle. Know, number one, know, people have to know you exist. So this means are you showing up on Google maps? Are you showing up in a Google search? Are, have you got something outside your business, your practice, your physical space that says we are in here.

This is the practice and we are in this space. Okay. So people get to know that you exist. That's number one, number two. Like. They need to like you as a person. And we're gonna dwell on this a little bit further down the line, but people buy from people, especially in healthcare. Alright. And so [00:14:00] you have to, through the means of your seven piece of marketing, you have to let people get to know you as a person.

All right. I'm entrusting you with my health for lots of healthcare practitioners. That means you are physically gonna be in my personal space. Like I have to like you as a person to, to entrust my health to you. All right. So that's step number two. 

[00:14:23] Kate Grandbois: There's a lot of, of intimacy when you're a clinician.

Yeah. In terms of, you know, letting someone feel vulnerable, we do a lot of counseling work in speech pathology, even though we don't necessarily get training in it. So I, I think that likability carries a really, a really heavy weight anyway, continue.

[00:14:36] Jill Woods: It's it's really important. It's really important. And we're gonna talk a lot about that bit further down the line.

The third one is trust, and this is, can they trust you as a clinician? So the likability is you as the person. The trust is you as a clinician. All right. So we're gonna look at things we can do in our marketing that will help us. Build that trust. So have we got videos on YouTube that show [00:15:00] before and after, you know, have we got reviews and, um, patient testimonials testimonials on our website reviews on our Google business page.

Have we got that stuff there that will show that we are a trustworthy clinician? Are we talking about our CPD and our continual professional development that we're doing? So people know we're keeping with the times we're up to date, we're current, there's lots and lots of things you can do with your marketing that will help build that trust.

Okay. Then the fourth thing is try, and this is missing from virtually every single practice I start working with in their marketing and try is can a potential patient try your expertise before they buy from you? Okay. So this looks like things like, have you got videos on YouTube demonstrating exercises people can do at home to alleviate symptoms.

Okay. Have you got downloads on your website, information leaflets that they can download that teaches them how to prevent injury or prevent a problem? [00:16:00] Okay. So have you got a blog on your website where we can, you know, month from month, you're sharing new snippets of your knowledge, your knowhow, that's gonna help people from a distance. Podcasts.

Have you been on a podcast? Okay. And done an interview to help people at a distance. And that's what the try is about. No money is exchanging hands, but you are enabling them to take a little bit of your information and try it for themselves. Nine times out of 10, they won't do it. And nine and a half times out of 10, it won't have any impact.

But the fact that you are freely giving builds reciprocity. So there is this sense that I've, I've, I've got something for free from this expert. So now I'm gonna invest a bit more in learning to get to know them a bit more. Okay. Does that make sense?

[00:16:49] Kate Grandbois: I love that. It makes perfect sense. And I, I have to admit that I never would've thought of that.

And even though I'm sitting here on a podcast, That makes a lot of sense. 

[00:16:59] Jill Woods: so [00:17:00] let's try then number five is by, and this is the obvious bit. This is your sales process. This is the actual delivery of the service. So the arrival, if they're coming to a clinic or the zoom call, if you're doing a virtual appointment, but the buy section is making sure that your sales and your payment operations are really slick and easy to follow and that your actual delivery of the service is up to par.

So you're delivering what you say you are going to deliver in your, in your promotional marketing. Okay. Then number six is repeat. Now this is obviously there's an ethical issue around this. And I always tell the story that when I very first qualified the first practice I went to work in, we routinely rebooked our patients every six weeks.

And I was like, oh, I don't need to see this patient in six weeks time. No, that's what we do here. So. Oh, interesting. I like that practice 

[00:17:51] Kate Grandbois: yeah. Yeah, because services need to be provided. I mean, that's a huge comp component of our ethical code too. Yeah. Making sure that our, our services are [00:18:00] matched to the need of the patient.

[00:18:01] Jill Woods: Yeah. So the repeat element is only where ethically necessary of course. But if people are willing to repeat, that's a really good indicator that they've liked what you've done, that you've really helped them, that you've had an impact, you know, the whole experience for them has been a positive one. All right.

So we need to look at repeat, and have we got any marketing activities at all, where we are enabling that to be an easy process, can, can existing patients come onto our website and book their next appointment online really simply, you know, are there things that we can do to facilitate that repeating as long as it's ethical?

[00:18:37] Kate Grandbois: Okay. Interesting. Interesting. 

[00:18:40] Jill Woods: And then the final one is refer, and this is why it's a cycle. It comes all the way around. Cuz remember the very first thing we talked about is know people have to know we exist. And the last one before we get back to know is to refer. So we're going to see if there are ways we can encourage our existing patients to refer their friends, their family, to us, for the [00:19:00] problems that they know we can fix.

[00:19:02] Kate Grandbois: I love this, this whole cycle. And I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm having so many thoughts about this. A lot of what we talk about on this podcast is clinical skill. And I have to, I keep having these thoughts about how this marketing cycle, if you are in private practice and looking for ways, presumably you're listening to look for ways to improve your marketing in your private practice, but thinking about the connection between that and your clinical skills.

So if you don't have patients who are repeating service or who are staying in your service past when ethically and clinically appropriate, mm-hmm, you know, That's a really good indicator that maybe you do need to look at your clinical skills or you, you know, or the component of trying, creating videos, creating materials to help people from afar.

What are your clinical skills? What knowledge do you have that you can share with others? I, I think that there's a really interesting connection there. And probably once this set, once [00:20:00] this cycle is implemented, can give you some really nice feedback in terms of how you are doing as a clinician in your professional development.

Just like a random little side note. 

[00:20:10] Jill Woods: Yeah, I know it it's perfectly true because as much as, you know, our clinical skills are part of our service delivery, our clinical skills and the clinical outcomes that we achieve for our patients are absolutely part of that patient experience that, that service, that product, whatever, however you wanna call it, but they're, they are part of it.

But hopefully you'll start to see as we go through more of this, that they're not the only thing. Too many practitioners cling to their qualifications and their CPD and their piece of wizardry bit of kit, the fancy bit of kit that we've got. Yeah. But in fact, the patient experience is way more than that.

Okay. And so this repeat concept is not, is not purely about clinical skills, but it is about your clinical skills. You've gotta be good. You don't have to be brilliant, but you've got to be good in order to facilitate this process and have good 

[00:20:59] Kate Grandbois: and have good [00:21:00] rapport that like know and trust so that someone feels comfortable, repeatedly being vulnerable.

With you. I mean, even, you know, a lot of what we do requires a lot of vulnerability, but I'm thinking even as my experience, as a person, having gone to PT for my knee, you know, I'm laying on the table, my I'm in these weird gym shorts, you know, it's, it's not, I'm a patient in a clinical setting. Yeah. So I think all of us as humans have had that experience where we're feeling a little bit more vulnerable and wanting to make sure we're cultivating environments where the patient does feel 

[00:21:29] Jill Woods: comfortable.

Yeah, absolutely. And this whole cycle, if you kind of. Stop and go back and re just quickly whiz back around this cycle, getting to know you exist to like you as a person, to trust you, to try your expertise, to buy from you, to repeat and to refer people to you. It's all about relationships. Your whole business is founded on that relationship that you can nurture from the minute they spot you on Google or the minute they walk past your premises and see an, a board outside or the minute they see you doing a [00:22:00] presentation at a local health group or something from that moment, you are curating a relationship with those people.

And this process facilitates that building and nurturing from no somebody who doesn't even know you exist all the way through to being an absolute advocate and referring patients to you. 

[00:22:17] Kate Grandbois: Interesting. Well, I didn't know. I had heard the like no and trust. Okay. But the rest of that cycle was totally new to me.

I mean, I'm not saying that I have implemented any of those things. Or I'm good at any of them necessarily, but, but that seems that the whole seven point cycle seems so comprehensive. Yeah. 

[00:22:36] Jill Woods: And the thing to, to understand is that to move somebody from 0.1 to 0.2, two to three, three to four, and so on, you've got to have marketing activity of some kind so that you've got, there could be gaps.

We're gonna talk about that later, but you need to make sure that you've got a system and a process so that you are facilitating that progress around the cycle. 

[00:22:59] Kate Grandbois: Yes. I [00:23:00] can see unpacking each one of those points and needing to make multiple procedures or processes to support each one of them separately.

[00:23:07] Jill Woods: Yeah. And it, and, and you know, you, we are gonna talk about the safety, but don't overthink it. Like there, there, there's, there's simple ways to do this. You don't have to be flogging yourself, mercilessly with marketing to make this effective. Okay. 

[00:23:20] Kate Grandbois: Okay. I can do better. I'm here. Okay. Let's keep going. I'm learning 

[00:23:24] Jill Woods: so much.

It's great. Yeah. Okay. So the next thing I really want to impress on people is the three kind of marketing success principles. These are the things that people, again, people come to me and say, Jill, can you teach me how to use Twitter? Can you teach me what to do on Instagram? What do I need to put on my website?

They, they they're jumping. They're so far up the curve of marketing activity. They've missed some of the fundamental basics that you need in place before that stuff will succeed. Okay. Okay. So these three success principles are really part that they're part of that foundation to make sure people have got it [00:24:00] before they start wasting time, money and energy on marketing that is not gonna achieve their aim.

All right. So your three marketing success principles are number one, clarity, number two, the human and number three consistency. Okay. Okay. So I'm gonna go back through and then unpick each one of those. So number one, clarity. So there are three things that you have got to be really clear about before you start paying money for Facebook ads.

And before you start rebuilding your website. A- what do you want to create? Like, what is the practice you want to build? 

[00:24:44] Kate Grandbois: That's such a good question. It's like a vision board kind of question. 

Jill Woods: That's it.

Kate Grandbois:Right? I mean like, what is your big picture? 

Jill Woods: Correct

Kate Grandbois: goal. Yeah. And I assume that has many, many facets. I mean, everything from the customer patient [00:25:00] experience to professional workplace culture, to 

[00:25:04] Jill Woods: how much money you want to make, how much time uou want to work each week? 

[00:25:09] Kate Grandbois: Yes. Oh my gosh. There's so many questions there.

[00:25:11] Jill Woods: Yeah. What kind of building do you want to work in? What kind of colleagues do you want to work with? Do you want to be in a multidisciplinary practice? Do you want a single disciplinary practice? You know you, but if you, as you go through building a business, you make decisions every single day and you should be running every single one of those decisions through a couple of filters.

And this is filter. Number one, is it moving me towards what I want to create? Or is it moving me away from what I want to create? But in order to ask that question, you have to know what it is you want to create. 

[00:25:44] Kate Grandbois: I feel like I need to have someone embroider that quote on my office wall in my office because as a business owner, the, the phrase that we use internally here is it's so easy to get distracted by the shiny penny or a great [00:26:00] idea, or, you know, something that is exciting to you, but not moving you towards your goal and keeping you focused.

And if you are listening out there and you are a private practice owner and you've experienced this, you are not alone. I am the shiny penny. I'm constantly chasing the shiny pennies and needing to be reminded to stay focused. I love the way you framed that about putting those thoughts and decisions through a filter related to moving towards your goals.

I think that's such a great perspective. 

[00:26:29] Jill Woods: Yeah. So, so that's really where you need to start. If you are currently throwing spaghetti at the walls, Stop breathe. Number one, what's your vision? Where are we going? What are we trying to create? That's the first bit of clarity that you need. The second bit of clarity and this freaks quite a lot of cl clinicians out is who is your dream patient?

Kate Grandbois: Interesting. 

And I'm saying this in a singular, not patient patient, who is your dream [00:27:00] patient. Okay? Because if you are going to build a practice that serves you as much as it serves your patients and as clinicians, we're hell bent on helping other people and not helping ourselves. So this is the point in the conversation where we start talking about what do we want?

So if the, the patients that are coming into our practice are going to be our dream patient, a life is gonna be much nicer. Much happier, much easier, much, much more flow to it, much more relaxed, much more may be potentially much more, um, uh, effective because they, these might be patients who are coming with very specific pathologies that we're excluding everybody else, because we really want to see these patients with a very specific pathology.

Now in the UK, I work with a speech language therapist and she, we was like, she threw her hands up when I asked you this question, I, 

[00:27:54] Kate Grandbois: I was gonna say, I was gonna say this. I can see how this gives people very uncomfortable feelings. Yeah. 

[00:27:59] Jill Woods: So, but we,

Kate Grandbois: are you [00:28:00] gonna talk me off the ledge? Sorry. 

Are you gonna talk me off the ledge?

Jill Woods: Yeah. totally<laugh> so we, so we talked through this process and we went back really deep. Like what, which, if I said to you, here's a, here's a, is a roster of all of your patients and you just quickly scanned the names. Which name would you stop at when you thought? Oh, they're brilliant. I love them. I love when I get to go and see them.

And when I work with them, Because that's gonna start giving you clues as to who your dream patient is. Okay. But by the time I'd finished working with Ruth, she'd gone from, she wasn't. She had said she was gonna be an adult speech and language therapist, but by the time we finished and her, I want to tell you, her practice is really thriving.

By the time we finished, we'd narrowed that down to stroke, adult stroke survivors, with speech problems, she wasn't interested in swallowing. She just wanted to do speech problems. So she now specializes it and they [00:29:00] were at least 18 months post-stroke. So all the ones that a lot of therapists had given up on, she was that the clinician for those people.

[00:29:10] Kate Grandbois: Okay. I, I hope do I hope we have time to sit and unpack this for a second because I have a lot of, I'm having a lot of thoughts and feelings on I'd like, I, I wanna share them with you. So. I'm thinking first and foremost, about the first of all in our profession, we're often expected to be generalists. So we are expected in a school setting often or in an outpatient hospital setting to treat what walks through the door, treat who's on your caseload.

We're expected to be expert. Our scope of practice is incredibly wide. And we talk about that on this podcast a lot. When you're in private practice, you have a little bit more control over your caseload, but I have to assume that these uncomfortable feelings are either rooted in the expectation that we are generalists or [00:30:00] in feeling that it is unethical to turn someone away who needs our help.

Jill Woods: Mm-hmm . 

Kate Grandbois: So how do you navigate that discomfort with ethics? I know when I first started my practice, I remember getting worried that if I turned someone away, they would sue me for some sort of discrimination against, you know, not providing a service that I was qualified, quote, qualified to provide. I mean, now as a more seasoned clinician, I understand that scope of competence is really important and I cannot just treat everything regardless of whether or not it falls under my license.

But what is the advice you have for anybody listening, who is having that moment of discomfort, because they want, they feel that they're ethically obligated to treat everybody who gets referred to them. 

[00:30:42] Jill Woods:Yeah. So there's, I think there's two things here. There's the personal feeling of, I just wanna help everybody and there's the, the, the ethical piece.

So I want to just backtrack a little bit. So the way that you choose your dream [00:31:00] patient, it doesn't have to be through a clinical pathology like Ruth did. It can be by its person type. So again, let's, let's, let's helicopter above your practice and let's look at your marketing assets. You've got a website, you've got a social media profile.

You've probably got a, a premises of some sort. Maybe you are going out and doing talks and all the rest of it. Maybe you've got a blog on your website. You've got all this stuff going on. I am a patient and I come to your website and I've got about 10 seconds before I decide I'm in the wrong or the right place.

Now, if you are trying to make the homepage of your website attract everyone, it's gonna fail miserably. Okay. You can. This is a fantastic Seth Godin is a marketing God. And he has a quote that says if you're marketing to everybody, you're marketing to no one. [00:32:00] 

Kate Grandbois: Interesting. 

Jill Woods: Okay. So that's, that's kind of point number one is that you don't have to go by, by pathology.

You can go by person type. So what I mean by that is, for example, you might say, actually, I want to target young moms who are inexperienced, maybe it's first child, they're nervous about development, developmental issues. That's gonna be my target audience. Okay. And if you do that, then I can make the homepage of my website really resonate with that woman.

I can make my social media profile resonate with that woman. I can make my physical surroundings resonate with that woman when she walks in the door. It doesn't have to be pathology specific. It can be person type. Does that make sense and answer that question

[00:32:48] Kate Grandbois: does it does. I'm not sure I'm feeling any less uncomfortable 

[00:32:52] Jill Woods: anxious.

Okay. Two, the two other things, 

[00:32:54] Kate Grandbois: keep going, keep going. I know you're gonna get  me there.

[00:32:55] Jill Woods: So ethically let's talk about ethically and ethics. [00:33:00] So in medicine, who are the people in the senior positions in your industry? Usually they're the people that specialize. Okay. They're the people that specialize, and those are the ones who are respected in their industry.

They might be hospital consultants. They might be private consultants. They might be surgeons. They might be whoever they might be. But usually those people have specialized in some area of clinical practice to, to become super good at that very small thing. Mm-hmm okay. Those are the people that we really entrust with our health because they've become specialist mm-hmm , they are day by day, turning away patients that are not their niche market.

If you wanna put it into marketing terms 

[00:33:50] Kate Grandbois: you're right. I’m just realizing that. And that's not, I think the only thing that makes it feel uncomfortable is because it's through the marketing lens, but that's absolutely true [00:34:00] of all aspects of medicine. I do not go to a knee doctor for my elbow pain.

Jill Woods: no, the weird analogy, but you know, no, no, but it's you get the idea? Yes. Yes. 

Kate Grandbois: You're absolutely right. Okay. I keep going, keep going. 

[00:34:13] So I've just had some, some dental work done. I had an abscess behind a tooth, so I went to my dentist and my dentist said, Nope, not my bag. You need to go and see an endodontist.

I went to the endodontist and they said, Nope, not my bag. You need to go see a Perry penny, anywhere that one of them, the other dentist. And eventually I got to the right person who specializes in opening a gum up and taking all the gunge out and all of that stuff. Like I would not entrust that procedure to my dentist.

Yeah, 

[00:34:43] Kate Grandbois: yes. Okay. I see it now. And I think that this is very, this perspective is very complimentary to what we talk about clinically all the time about your scope of competence, that if you are interested in developing a specialty and in speech pathology, we have many, because our [00:35:00] spoke scope of practice is so wide.

And I often talk about how I'm an AAC specialist, and I always put it in air quotes, cuz it's just a, an area of clinical specialty, not necessarily a certification. Um, but I'm no longer qualified to treat someone with a stutter. I haven't treated someone with a, someone with a stutter since I didn't even do it in graduate school, through my clinical placement.

So there is a component of ethical behavior. When you are, in other words, when you first started this conversation, it felt, it felt uncomfortable, but it's actually more it's as you spin it through a clinical competency lens. It's more ethical to turn people away who don't fall within your targeted scope of competence than it is to market and take everybody and put everyone on your caseload.

Jill Woods: Correct. 

Kate Grandbois: So that makes a lot of sense. 

[00:35:50] Jill Woods: Okay. So you're feeling like you were step back to the ledge now? 

[00:35:54] Kate Grandbois: Yes, I'm, I'm I'm way back from the ledge. Okay. And I see a beautiful view. It's a beautiful vista way back from the [00:36:00] ledge. 

[00:36:00] Jill Woods: So the final element of this is if we go back to the marketing, so we've kind of got over the, the clinical thing.

We go back to the marketing. If you imagine three concentric circles, um, there's a red circle and then outside that there's a white circle and outside that there's a blue circle. Okay. In the, in the UK, that's our rural air force signature, um, insignia. But they're in the red circle. These are your dream patients.

They're in the middle. Okay. Now, if you start building a clinical experience, you hone your clinical skills to serve these patients, patients better. You make your website attractive to them. You think about them on your social media and your Google profile. You're gonna start to attract more of those, those patients.

Okay. But what happens? We move out to the white circle. You're going to attract patients who are a lot like those patients too. And the people in the blue circle are people who are quite like those patients. So you're gonna attract them too. So you are not, it's focusing on [00:37:00] one person is not at the exclusion of absolutely everybody else.

But what you are doing is kind of pinning your colors to the mast and saying, these are the patients. I get good results for. These are the patients I enjoy seeing these are the patients who, you know, get a good for me, good for my business. And what I can do is good for them. 

[00:37:22] Kate Grandbois: That's what I was gonna say.

Those are the people that you serve best. Those are the people that are, that's the word I was looking for are best matched to your clinical yes. Products. I mean, I, to just, what's so interesting about this is it's so much of what we already know and do it's just reframed with different vocabulary. Yeah.

Yeah. So instead of targeting a customer, we would say, you know, tar a target patient, we would say. Someone who within with a clinical presentation within your scope. Yeah. Or within your area of clinical expertise. Yeah. But it's the same, it's just a different spin. 

[00:37:53] Jill Woods: Yeah. And so, and so ethically you are the best, you, you are the best person to treat this patient, but you are [00:38:00] not the best person to treat that patient.

Therefore you should be referring that patient on. You shouldn't be seeing some of those patients in your practice. And you probably do that already. You know, you might, if you get a stutter patient, you might say, no, that's not my bag that, but, but I know somebody who can help you. Yeah. Here's a quality referral.

I'm not just shutting the door in your face. Here's a quality referral. Go and see. So and so, and they, they will be able to help you. So it's I, oh, 

[00:38:24] Kate Grandbois: I feel so much better. I feel so much better. yeah. Cool. Good job. high five.

[00:38:29] Jill Woods: OK. So, so you, you need to identify that one person. And I always say to my patient, my, my clients give them a name.

So every single time you are doing something with your marketing, you're saying, would Jennifer like this, would this work for Jennifer? Would this help Jennifer? And you're thinking about doing more CPD. Yeah. And that's exactly it. I get some of my, some of my clients are mad on Pinterest and I get them to set up a Pinterest board for their per, for their dream patients.

And you can put their car and their house and their holidays and their [00:39:00] kids and their husbands and oh, and you can build a real picture of who this person is because the more, you know, and understand them the better here's your second filter, the better your dream patient filter becomes. Okay. 

[00:39:14] Kate Grandbois: Okay. So what's the second, the, the first filter just to recap is the first filter is, is this decision moving me towards my goal?

And what's the second filter?

[00:39:23] Jill Woods: Would this help or serve Jennifer? Would she like it? Would she appreciate it? Would she prepare to pay for it? Does the dream patient filter. 

[00:39:33] Kate Grandbois: Okay. Your, so does what I'm is what I'm doing, going to help my avatar, my dream patient, 

[00:39:37] Jill Woods: correct. Or serve them better. It doesn't have to be help in a clinical term.

It could be, am I moving to new premises that's got better parking, you know, that would serve them better. Do you know? It's a wider picture than, than just the clinical stuff? 

[00:39:50] Kate Grandbois: Yeah. Gotcha. Yep. I see it. Okay. I see, I see the whole vista. Yes, I think.

[00:39:54] Jill Woods: Okay. So, and then we've kind of overlapped with the third bit of clarity, but the third bit of [00:40:00] clarity is how do I help them?

So clarity, number one, what do I want to do? What's my big vision, clarity, number two, who is my dream patient and clarity, number three, how do I help them? And this is where you start looking at that wider patient experience and saying, am I running my appointments at an appropriate timeframe? Are my clinical facilities appropriate for them?

Can they easily get their buggies or the strollers in or whatever it might be. You, you, you are looking to serve that per that patient better. Okay. Okay. And so that is your third bit of clarity. How do we best serve these people? 

[00:40:35] Kate Grandbois: And when you are, out, out of those three is one more important than the other, or do they always go in that sequence?

[00:40:42] Jill Woods: Um, I would, I would personally always put 'em in that sequence because until you are clear about your big vision. What you want to achieve with the practice who your dream patient is, is not gonna be obvious. And then once you, if you don't know who your dream patient is, you can't say how you're gonna serve them.

So they need to come in that [00:41:00] order. Okay. You can't say how you're gonna serve somebody. If you don't know who they are, what they likes and dislikes and yep. You know, and it's down to things like what magazine before COVID what magazines have you got in your waiting area, you know? Right. You would choose those based on who your dream client is.

[00:41:17] Kate Grandbois: Interesting. This is a really important filter. Yes. Okay. You know what, the next I go. The next time I go to the PT office. The next time I go to the endodontist or wherever I'm going, I'm gonna be looking around and wondering if I'm Jennifer. 

[00:41:33] Jill Woods:Exactly, exactly, Exactly. All right. So, so hopefully that's clarity makes sense.

Yes. 

[00:41:40] Kate Grandbois: Yes, it does. I'm here. 

[00:41:41] Jill Woods: Yep. Clear. Okay. Um, so once you've got that clarity, then you can move onto the next bit. And the next bit with the next kind of marketing success bit is to be human. All right. And this is super simple. People buy from people, especially in healthcare, we're invading people's space.

We're asking them to be intimate and, [00:42:00] and, and, and, and, um, vulnerable with us. So this is really important. And I see too many healthcare practices who their, their profile picture on Instagram is their logo guilty. Yeah. I wanna see your face. Like, who am I gonna see when I come to the practice? All 

[00:42:17] Kate Grandbois: right.

What would you say for practices though? Who have multiple clinicians working for them?

[00:42:20] Jill Woods: That's amazing. You can do some really fun stuff. I've got a, I've got a, as an example, I've got a fantastic photograph, which was taken at a, in a surgical unit and they've basically got a surgical light above them and they've all stood around in a circle and it's a circle photograph of all their heads in a circle with the light in the middle.

It's stunning. It's really, really, 

[00:42:40] Kate Grandbois: oh, that's beautiful. So including your staff, including. Multiple human aspects of your business.

[00:42:46] Jill Woods: Yes. Oh, you can do fun stuff. The other one that I've seen that's really good fun is they've got, they've taken a picture on a timer thing and they've got, they've got all their staff out at sunset and they're all just stood in a line and it's just their silhouettes, but they're [00:43:00] real, 

[00:43:00] Kate Grandbois:so nice. But they're people they're not a logo

[00:43:02] Jill Woods: is the real people. Yes. Okay. Starting to remember, it's all about relationships. We need human connection to build relationships. 

[00:43:09] Kate Grandbois: Yep. Oh man. I'm failing in this bad. It's okay. It's a learning moment. We're here. Yeah. 

[00:43:13] Jill Woods: This is why we're here. Okay, good. So don't hide behind your logos and also be, be prepared to share a little bit of you.

Remember people got to like you as a person. Okay, so share a little bit about what makes you tick? Are you a dog owner? You know, do you like yoga? Do you, what do you do? Like crafting for a hobby? Do you love gardening? Do you go hiking? Do you, are you ski? Are you adrenaline junkie? Are you, are you, are you, are you a, and any of those things that you feel you have in common with Jennifer, those are the things that you should be talking about because that's gonna pull more of those Jennifers towards you.

It 

[00:43:52] Kate Grandbois: also goes, this is so funny. It's like world's colliding because we've talked about this recently on an episode, [00:44:00] funny enough about stuttering and how important it is to let down some of those boundaries and be a human in therapy to create safe spaces for people to have more improved therapeutic interactions.

And so again, here we are, it's the same, but through a marketing lens and how important that is for your entire practice. I I'm, my I'm having little brain explosion emojis happen as you're, as you're talking about all of these things. 

[00:44:30] Jill Woods: Awesome. That's exactly why we're here. Why are we doing this? So, so it's it's so it's super important to be prepared.

You are asking your patients to be vulnerable with you. It's very important that you, to an extent can be a little bit vulnerable with them. All right. At the outset, even before you've met them. So some of the stuff you put on social media, here's me on a dog walk, first thing in the morning, look at this gorgeous sunrise, you know, all of that kind of stuff, or, oh my God.

I just dropped the box of eggs all over the floor. Who else has done that when you've the fridge? You know, [00:45:00] just some of those little honest snippets that give people insight into who you are as a P excuse me as a person. Okay. Right? Yes. But this comes with a warning. 

 Kate Grandbois: Oh, oh God. Okay. Okay. 

Jill Woods: You ready? 

 Kate Grandbois: I'm ready.

Jill Woods:The home page of your website is all about the patient. Not about you,

 Kate Grandbois:  right. That make sense. 

Jill Woods: Okay. Because I, Jennifer, I come to your website and on your website, if you're talking about me, be, if you're talking about your moms, toddler tantrums, pathologies that you I'm as a new mom worrying about, right. I am in, I've come home.

I'm in the right place. If I land on your website and all you are telling me is about, I've been qualified for 27 years. And I did my first degree at such and such a university I'm out of here. I'm going somewhere else. 

[00:45:53] Kate Grandbois: Yeah, man. I really got, I have a lot of work to do 

[00:45:55] Jill Woods: okay. Thoughts? Thoughts. 

[00:45:58] Kate Grandbois:This is great. No, it's so important. [00:46:00] I think. And, and again, going back to where, who, how we were trained as clinicians. So thinking about to my graduate school experience, not only was I told explicitly to keep boundaries with patients and tell them nothing about myself. Yeah. I was also told that I was the expert and that I, you know, I, I was the one who knew everything.

And now as an experienced clinician that nobody wants to hear about those things that just says nothing but ego. It has nothing, but there's no human softer element to that at all. And so when you, again, just looking at this theme, the same things that we always say clinically, but through a marketing lens, How important it is to connect with your patient and say things that are clinically relevant, but not, I know everything look at all my degrees, look at all the training I've had.

That's not, you're right. That's not helpful. Cause it's, it's not, it's not humble. At all. 

[00:46:57] Jill Woods: There's a place for [00:47:00] that, but it's not the homepage of your website. Interesting. Okay. Okay. You know, absolutely. If you are, I mean, it's hard work getting a clinical qualification, like you've got your certificate in a big frame on the wall, take a photograph of that and share that on your social media, but don't put it on the homepage of your website and don't ram it down people's throats, you know?

Right. It's yes. Painting. It's those gentle strokes that paint a picture. 

[00:47:23] Kate Grandbois: Another quote, to be embroidered on my wall. I'm gonna have to start writing these down

[00:47:29] Jill Woods: alright so, so, so you, so we're getting a bit sidetracked, but your about your home page is not about you. It's about the patient. Okay. Your about page is where you tell people about you.

Okay. Okay. So the, the key with your about page is this, this a few things, first of all, each of those paragraphs that are about you, about the person you work with about your receptionist, about, about, about, they should be written by that person in the first [00:48:00] person. So I, me, my not Kate, this Kate, that Kate, the other.

Okay. Okay. And the skill in doing this is to write, get them to write it and then read it aloud. And when they read it aloud, does it sound like them speaking. Or are they using long flowery words that they would never use in conversation. Okay. Okay. Try and make it as personal as possible on that page. So about sections written in the first person by the person, some really great photographs.

That's not just you in your polo show or your uniform or whatever it is you wear in clinic, but it's you walking the dog or it's you like being mom taxi to, you know, four teenage kids. You don't have to put your kids in the photographs, but just that whole right. Paint that picture. What have you got in common with Jennifer?

Paint that in some pictures that are on your, about page, on your website. Okay. Okay. Um, and keep the qualifications to the end. [00:49:00] Absolutely put them in that section, but people don't really care so they can just go at the end people. What here's a, a rabbit hole. We just go down another rabbit hill very quickly.

What people care about is I have a problem. I want that transformation. They don't give a what comes in the middle. Okay. If I can see that you understand my pain and I can see that you've done this for other people, and you've created this transformation for other people in my similar situation, then I'm gonna invest a more time in getting to know you better.

Okay. So the qualifications and stuff are, are nice to have, but in that initial engagement, they're not essential. Okay. So they can be on the about section, but they can be at the bottom of your blurb, like, oh, by the way, you know, I've been qualified 27 years or whatever it might be. Okay. 

[00:49:52] Kate Grandbois: Right. Exactly.

Jill Woods: Does that make sense? 

Kate Grandbois: You're qualified for 27 years. Doesn't mean you're a nice person or you're in somebody or you're in a good clinic. You're comfortable, right? [00:50:00] Exactly. 

[00:50:02] Jill Woods: You know,so does that make sense?

Kate Grandbois:  It does. It makes perfect sense. 

Jill Woods: Okay, awesome. So then just another couple of things about that, this being personal videos, if you, if you're brave enough to do videos, videos are a great way of connecting with people.

I can look you in the eye. I can get a sense from your body language, your vibe, your energy, all of that stuff comes through on video. So video's a great marketing tool to use. If you are comfortable in front of the camera, if you're just gonna stand there and read really rigidly from a note like this, it's not gonna serve you at all.

All right. You've got to be somebody who's comfortable in front of the camera and you can learn that that's not, that's not inherent that you can learn that stuff. So that's fine. Okay. Um, and just, just remembering all of this, people have got to get, decide if they like and trust you. So you need both elements, clinical and personal.

Make that combination work. Okay. Yep. Right. So that's number two. And then number three, the marketing thing that you must must, must get right. Is [00:51:00] consistency. And this means two 

[00:51:03] Kate Grandbois: things, no spaghetti. 

[00:51:04] Jill Woods: It means no spaghetti. It means no spaghetti um, but it means two things. You need to be consistent with your branding.

We've not talked about branding at all, but you need to be consistent with your branding. Now, remember back at the beginning, I said, your objective is to be famous locally for the thing that you do. So your branding has two elements to it. It's got visual branding, which are your colors, your logo, your fonts, all of that stuff that you use consistently, hopefully.

Um, and then you've also got your brand messaging and these are your strap line that you use everywhere. You create a value statement that you use as your bio on every single social media profile. Every time you write something you include that strap line or a bit from your bio repetition, repetition, repetition.

Think about the big brands and they are constantly running ads that just share one thing over and over and over and over. [00:52:00] I'm thinking of 

[00:52:00] Kate Grandbois: Nike. Just do it. 

[00:52:02] Jill Woods: Correct. That was exact, it's a perfect example. Perfect example. Interesting. Okay, so you've got to show up consistently with a consistent message.

Okay. In order to be famous locally for the thing you do. 

[00:52:15] Kate Grandbois: Yeah, we can do that. I'm thinking about all the listeners who are listening and I'm here by myself. I'm thinking it. I mean, there's just, there's, you're just, you've got so much wisdom and I'm, this is like, I, I need to be furiously taking notes about all of these things, but I love that.

I think that the consistency piece is so simple, but maybe so hard to do so. 

[00:52:33] Jill Woods: And, and it is hard, but I've got, I've got a little get out of jail free card. So, so consistency, first of all, get consistent with your branding. Before you start running Facebook ads, before you start building a new website and before you do money, time and energy into all the other marketing stuff, get consistent with your branding so that all the stuff you do going out is gonna be accurate.

It's gonna work is gonna talk to Jennifer. It's gonna do the job you need it to do. [00:53:00] Okay. Okay. 

[00:53:01] Kate Grandbois: Okay. I can do that. I'm feeling very motivated. 

[00:53:03] Jill Woods: And the second, second, the second bit of consistency is actually showing up. Right

[00:53:08] Kate Grandbois:. You mean like showing up to work

[00:53:09] Jill Woods: with this is with your promotional marketing and with your PR your, um, uh, project development and all of that other stuff.

Okay. So, but as an example, with regard to your promotional marketing, there's timelines to marketing. So if I say to you, are you showing up on social media every day? Okay in your practice, are you sharing something on social media every day, quick sideline, if you know Jennifer, you know which social media platform she's on.

Just use that one platform scrap the rest. Okay. Interesting. Don't waste your time, money and energy going down all the Facebook or wherever all those other rabbit holes. You only need the platform where the eyeballs of your dream patients. Okay. Okay. So are you showing up social media daily? Are you showing up [00:54:00] on your Google business profile weekly and sharing new content on there on a weekly basis?

Are you sending out email communication to your patient cohort and your potential patients on a monthly basis? Are you creating some kind of new content on your website or on your YouTube channel on a monthly basis? And are you going to live events quarterly? And are you maybe running some bigger marketing campaigns once every six months, those kind of timelines, you need to start showing up consistently with a consistent message.

[00:54:32] Kate Grandbois:That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yes. I mean, it's, I, I can, okay. I can feel a lot of the, the energy and time requirements, but I can also see how necessary and how beneficial that could be.

[00:54:45] Jill Woods: Yeah. So the, and again, this isn't, there's an order to this. So start with your branding, get your brand messaging and your visual branding done, sorted, done, and then move on and start showing up and, and commit to showing up and [00:55:00] start at the bottom of that list.

So start, but I commit to posting something daily on social media. Okay. Or I, if you, if you are already doing that, go up a level. Okay. I commit to posting weekly on my Google business profile. Okay. If you're already committing to that, what's the next one. I commit to monthly getting in touch and communicating with my patients via email.

Okay. And you just work your way up that, that, that sort of ladder, if you like. Okay. Mm-hmm now the thing here is you do not have to do this all you can outsource. You can delegate. This is not all on you. Right. As long as I can still see your face and I can potentially hear your voice in your marketing, it doesn't have to be you doing the doing 

[00:55:44] Kate Grandbois: right.

We like to delegate. We need to embrace delegating de delegation, our in a small private 

[00:55:51] Jill Woods: practice owners and outsourcing and outsourcing. Yes. Because outsourcing is gonna get you, um, people who know what they're doing, they're [00:56:00] skilled at that thing, whether it's Instagram or whether it's video editing or whatever it is, mm-hmm

And you can find people who will do that for a fraction of the price. So outsourcing is perfectly doable within the budget that you've already got. Like, you can start somewhere with some of this stuff.

 That tho those that's my seven, um, my cycle of seven elements of marketing and the three founding principles of marketing that are gonna make sure that your marketing is effective. 

[00:56:29] Kate Grandbois: That all sounds, it makes perfect sense. And I'm, I'm looking at our learning objectives and wondering how this ties into the exercises or, and I assume those are like action steps.

[00:56:39] Jill Woods: Yes, absolutely. Yes. 

Kate Grandbois: Okay, good. 

Jill Woods: Yes. Okay. So number one. So I've got three, three kind of actions or exercises or action steps for you that you can have a go at doing. So, number one, not surprisingly, probably is gonna be to create your patient avatar. Okay. To literally get a cup of [00:57:00] tea, cuz I'm British. We drink tea, but doesn't matter.

Get a cup of something coffee. If you're American, get a cup of tea, get a blank piece of paper. And just sit quietly with no distractions and start to think about who is this person who is the person that I can serve best? Who is the person that I can enjoy spending time with? Who is the person I'm gonna get good clinical outcomes from? Who is the person I can connect with on a personal basis?

Who is that person? And just with a blank sheet of paper, just start writing, write random stuff that comes into your head. Who is she? Who is he? What do they do for a living? Do they have a family? Are they married? Are they not married? Do they? Where do they live? What kind of house do they live in? What hobbies do they have?

What blogs do they read? What podcast do they listen to? You know, just, just brain dump, all of this kind of stuff onto, onto a page. So you're starting to really scratch the surface on this person so you can understand them. 

[00:57:58] Kate Grandbois: Okay. [00:58:00] And that, I mean, I, I would imagine that this exercise is critically important for your second filter.

Right? I mean, all of those steps that you've taught us through, because you can't ask whether or not something you're doing helps, Jennifer, if you don't who Jennifer is. 

[00:58:14] Jill Woods: Correct. So that's, that is the first thing I would encourage. If you've never done this before, there'll be some resistance. Often clients are like, oh, can I not have five?

No, you get one, you can have one dream patient and you need to get, literally get inside their head and learn who they are. And you can lit, you can do it with a piece of paper and a pencil. And just some time to figure out who this person is. And once you know her or him or them, it doesn't matter. You can then use that information to make sure that your, your, your, your promotional marketing, your product development, everything can be run through that filter so that you are going to become famous locally for the thing that you do, because you are serving that person with real intent.[00:59:00] 

[00:59:00] Kate Grandbois: Okay. I, I love how all of these things come full circle. Yeah. It's like magic. It's all connected. 

[00:59:07] Jill Woods: Any you just thought I might have planned this? Maybe. 

[00:59:12] Kate Grandbois: It's not like you do this for a living or anything. of course. 

[00:59:15] Jill Woods: Okay. So that's, that's, that's kind of like that's number one. That's the, the activity number one that you can go away and have a go is really spend some time getting clear on who that person is, because that is really gonna serve you well, going forward.

All right. Okay. And I say, you can, you can be specific about the person and or pathology. It's entirely up to you. You get to choose. 

Okay. 

[00:59:35] Kate Grandbois: Okay. Okay. Action step number one. I can do that. 

[00:59:38] Jill Woods: Yes. Okay. Number two, we're gonna run an audit for personality and human touch

[00:59:47] Kate Grandbois: love it. Like looking at your own goodies.

Jill Woods: Yeah.

Kate Grandbois: Oh boy. 

[00:59:51] Jill Woods:So we're gonna look at your website. We're gonna look at your social media. We're gonna look at your very first [01:00:00] patient email. What's the very, like, what's your welcome email that you're sending out to your patients. Are they, do they get a sense of you or is it really formal? 

[01:00:08] Kate Grandbois: Well, well, as of this moment, they don't get one at all.

So maybe that's something I have to do too. I hope everyone listening is having many of these light bulb moments so that I don't feel so alone and vulnerable as I sit here and learn with you. Anyway, move on.

[01:00:20] Jill Woods:. You are, you are not having done this for over 10 years. I can guarantee you are not alone. Not alone.

[01:00:27] Kate Grandbois: It's like email. Whoops. Okay. Just  totally forgot.

[01:00:28] Jill Woods: So, or this, so this is gonna blow your mind then. So your new patient information pack. Yep. Okay. That is, does that feel personal? Can I see a photograph of you in that information pack, whether that's digital or a paper thing that you're sending out in the post and new patients, you know, so you need to audit all of those kind of touches that you are doing in your marketing and see, is there, is there an element of personality.

Okay, because don't be afraid to, to share some of your personality. If you [01:01:00] are a bit hyper like me, all right. If you, if it's not there at the moment, but if you'd have gone to my website, literally a few weeks ago, the, the picture on the front page is me hula hooping in a field like, you know, that's me, that's, that's kind of like who I am and I'm not hiding behind a stiff shirt and a, and high heels and being very corporate marketing.

Like you get who I am in my business. Right, right. That's so important. So run an audit of what you are currently doing. And the two kind of elements you're looking for are personality. And human touch. So human touch is, can I see you? Can I hear you, but also personality. Am I getting a feel that you are fun, that you are relaxed, that you are outgoing or that you are a details person or that you are into your research, and that's a big thing for you doing research based medicine.

What, it doesn't matter what it is, but you need to be starting to portray that in your marketing. 

[01:01:55] Kate Grandbois: Yep. Yeah. I can see how all of that is connected to all of the things, [01:02:00] all of the filters, all of the mm-hmm the, the foundational perspectives. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Okay. All right. Well, you've given us two action steps.

I haven't done either of them. And I have, I have with the third one I'm dying to know. 

[01:02:13] Jill Woods: And the third one we've already touched on the third one, but the third one is to look at, um, your, the list of consistency, consistent marketing and commit. I would love if everybody listening to this podcast in the comments.

Could leave a comment that basically said today, I commit to and commit to one of those levels of marketing. Okay. Because it's that commitment to consistency. So is, is it gonna be every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every six months. What, on that scale, can you, are you going to commit to put it in the comments?

Kate. I'm sure we'll watch. I might look I'm 

[01:02:58] Kate Grandbois: and I thought you were gonna say, [01:03:00] I'm gonna have to comment. 

[01:03:03] Jill Woods:I'm gonna come I'll I'll come back. And now what people doing, but, but, but it, you've got to start being consistent. And the only way you're gonna start being consistent is to make a commitment.

Now, whether you make that commitment to Kate and I, or whether you make that commitment to somebody else in your practice or somebody in your family or your best friend, it doesn't matter, but you need some accountability so that you are then gonna do it. Otherwise you'll procrastinate. You won't do it.

It'll get lost. It'll get lost in the Melay of everything else that's going on in the practice. And it won't happen. But this well, and marketing is consistency. 

[01:03:36] Kate Grandbois: And I I'm sorry that I interrupted you, but I have to assume that those who are listening may have the same experiences that I've had in that it, the marketing piece genuinely feels a little uncomfortable or feels a little unnatural.

So I just don't do it. I, or, or I avoid it or it gets pushed down on my to-do list or it's not as important as my billing or [01:04:00] the patients that I have scheduled, or my employee who needs my support or, you know, add it to the list when you're an entre. When, when you're a small business owner, you wear a million hats.

I see. So, but, and I know, go  ahead.

[01:04:10] Jill Woods: That's why the vision, the starting point is so important. Mm-hmm because if I am hell bent on achieving that. Then that becomes my filter. And that means that I understand that I am gonna have to create some new digital content once a month, because I need something to talk about on my social media.

I need something to talk about on my Google business profile. I need something to email my clients about. So if I know that, because I've got this big vision, this is where we are going, guys. This is what our practice is gonna be. And it can be practiced stroke life. The two are very closely intermeshed.

Um, but I've got a, you probably can't see I've got a vision board on my wall. 

[01:04:56] Kate Grandbois: No you don't. It's beautiful for everybody listening, who can't see, there's this [01:05:00] beautiful thing hanging in her office. That's got a frame and all of these photos and some beautiful quotes that I can't quite read, but I'm sure are very inspiring 

[01:05:09] Jill Woods: in the, in the middle.

It just says, it always seems impossible until it's done. 

[01:05:14] Kate Grandbois: Yes, it does. It always seems impossible until it’s done. 

[01:05:17] Jill Woods: It's the point? The point I want to make is that vision board is a mix of my business and my personal and home life. So it's a whole mele of, because the two are so closely connected.

[01:05:29] Kate Grandbois: You're so closely connected when you own a business and your business.

The way I explain it to people is that the business sometimes feels like my third child, you know, it's, it's something that I I'm up at night worrying about and I am constantly trying to make sure it's okay. Um, and I think I have taken away so much from everything you have shared, and I also need to find someone to embroider some things from my office and now I need to also get a vision board. So to keep me focused, cuz as I have already admitted, the shiny [01:06:00] penny gets me every time and staying focused can be really, really challenging. I, I have, 

[01:06:06] Jill Woods: if you've got that clarity, like of what you're trying to achieve and you anchor everything to that, it takes away some of that chasing rabbits and squirrels.

Yeah, because is this, but you've gotta have an awareness like watching this YouTube video of America's got talent. Is that moving me towards my vision or away from my vision? it's not certainly not moving me towards it. Right. 

[01:06:28] Kate Grandbois: Not told exactly, exactly. But I think you, even your recommendation of taking a minute to write down the vision or really consider the vision. I mean, I think a lot of us get into private practice because we wanna help because we want the flexibility because we wanna be our own boss because we wanna, we we're interested in business because we have a clinical expertise that we think is, is a value to our communities.

But the actual exercise of sitting down and writing down what we want, I mean, I've never done it. I'm sure there's someone listening who has done it, but I'm also willing to bet there are a lot [01:07:00] of business owners out there who haven't done it. No. Um, I think even starting there is such wonderful advice.

[01:07:05] Jill Woods: Yeah. That's, that's my experiences. Often, if you ask people, what do you want? They can't tell you. They don't know. 

Kate Grandbois Don't ask me 

Jill Woods:but every day, but, but every day they're getting up and they're dedicating hours of their life that they'll never get back money. That they've, you know, hard earned money to build something that they don't actually know what they're building, right.

And what they're working towards, but yet unwittingly, every single day, they invest time, money, and energy in the thing.without actually thinking through what is it?

[01:07:38] Kate Grandbois:  It needs a name and it, it needs a, it needs some legs. It needs some structure. It needs, it needs a vision board. Now I, I'm never going to snarkily laugh at about a vision board ever again, the rest of my life.

I so appreciate all of this. Before we wrap up. Do you have any final words or words of advice, parting words of wisdom [01:08:00] for people in the audience? 

[01:08:02] Jill Woods: I would just say, I know we've covered a lot of ground today, so I'm very aware that probably people's heads might be exploding just a little bit. Um, but I would say, no, nobody is born knowing this stuff, you have trained to be a clinician.

You have not trained to be a marketer. I was very fortunate that I trained in marketing before I trained to be a podiatrist, but you haven't got those skills, but you can choose to start somewhere. And if you choose today to be that day, then I am gonna champion you. I will be here cheering you on all the way, because I know what an impact good marketing can have in your practice and in your personal life.

Like if your practice is flourishing, you are less stressed, you've got more available cash. Like you can take more time off. Like if you've got a flourishing practice that comes from good solid marketing, your life is transformed. 

[01:08:55] Kate Grandbois: That's again, such wonderfully Sage advice and [01:09:00] I'm so, so grateful. Thank you so much for being here and teaching, teaching me so much, teaching our audience so much.

Um, everybody who is listening Jill is obviously a wealth of knowledge. You are available to our audience for questions. This is your business. This is what you do. All of your contact information and practice information will be listed in the show notes. Um, you also have a YouTube channel that I, I will admit I was creeping on it before I had a chance to, to meet you and ask you questions.

Um, your YouTube channel has so much more information on it, um, in case anybody does want to learn more. Thank you wo, so, so much for joining us today, this was a real treat. 

[01:09:40] Jill Woods: It's my absolute pleasure. I, I love what I do, and I feel very blessed to be able to do this as a job. Um, and so, yeah, just thanks so much, Kate for inviting me.

I'm very, very grateful.

[01:09:49] Kate Grandbois: Well, it was wonderful to have you. Thanks again.

 Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. [01:10:00] You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study.

Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@slpnerdcast.com

Thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon.

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