After 11 years in online marketing, Facebook continues to be one of the most amazing marketing platforms that I’ve worked with, but I realized that you MUST know how to use it correctly.
Facebook’s entire algorithm is designed to do one thing for it’s users….
Build CONNECTION.
That’s why as marketers, we love it as a platform. But you must understand the platform and how it works, especially for how it’s changing in 2018.
In order to connect people to other users AND to the platform itself, Facebook loves to show you what YOU WANT TO SEE.
We all have our favorite shows, and websites that we read on weekly basis. If you’re into exotic birds, and click on information for exotic birds, guess what you see in your feed.
“We all have our favorite shows, and websites that we read on weekly basis. If you’re into exotic birds, and click on information for exotic birds, guess what you see in your feed.”
Love Guns? Facebook will show you an endless supply of ads for Gun Shows, Gun Shops and other Gun Users.
Facebook does this because they want you to engage with other users and advertisers that you connect with.
But guess what happens when someone clicks on your ad for Stem Cells, Disc Pain, or Dental Implants?
Facebook stores this information and shows them MORE information about what they just clicked on.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several conversations with doctors who were frustrated by their practices and how they currently see themselves and their businesses.
And what I noticed is that it came down to either they were burned out OR checked out of their businesses.
And the reason why I bring this up is in both cases either, doctor burnout or doctor checkout, are dangerous places for the business to operate in.
Let me first explain what I define as doctor burnout.
Almost all business owners at one point or time, have experienced burnout. It comes from taking on too many activities of the business, overworking themselves and not delegating properly.
Most of us have felt this, but the key is identifying it and then developing a plan to step out of those activities or delegate them to other team members. Some doctors LIVE in this state of burnout every day, and stay in this state for weeks, months and in some cases, years.
You can hear it in their voices when they communicate.
I usually have more sympathy for doctors in burn-out state, because I know it’s from their own belief system, but once their mindset is fixed, they move past it, and in most cases, it rarely comes back.
On the other hand, doctor checkout, is an even more dangerous place for the business to operate in.
I am a huge fan of MMA. And one of the things about the sport that is well known is that once the fighter looses his or her passion for what they do, their days are numbered. They cannot afford to walk into a cage to fight someone when their mind is no longer in the game. That’s how they get hurt.
Your business is no different.
Name anything in life worth having and think about IF you’ll be able to keep it once you check out mentally.
Marriage
Relationships
Friendships
Most Jobs
I recently suggested to a client to start working with a business coach, and after 30 minutes of conversion, he finally admitted to me that he was pretty much done. He knew that it could help, he know that it would help his business but that he didn’t care anymore.
“I just don’t care anymore.”
And there you have it. I actually thanked him for finally being honest with me.
Now the humorous aspect of this was that this same business owner expected his team to care.
He expected his staff to care, when he didn’t.
He expected his marketing team to care, when he didn’t.
He expected his patients to care, when he didn’t.
And what was even more surprising was that he thought no one else knew that he had checked out.
But the signs of doctor checkout were all there.
1. Decreased growth and profits
2. Inability to keep solid team members
3. Keeping staff members on board that should have been fired months/years ago.
4. Lack of vision and leadership
5. Reactive business decisions VS pro-active ones
I want to end on this. It is okay for any business owner to decide they don’t want to do what they are currently doing anymore. Change is apart of life. Our interests and desires change as we go through life. Business models that once worked, also go through changes.
But once you checkout and stop growing, it places your business in a weak position, and its days are usually numbered.
I hope you all had a relaxing holiday weekend and some time to spend with your friends and family members.
The summer months are upon us, and even though I love the summer and what it brings weather-wise, as a business owner, it’s not my favorite season of the year.
Why…
If you’ve run a practice for any length of time, you know what summer means:
Vacations and travel
For a lot of patients, this means that they will be traveling to see family and friends or just taking time off from their normal work schedules.
(As a friendly reminder, If YOU are taking some time away from the office this summer, please let your marketing manager and/or call center team member know ahead of time so we can plan around your time off)
For practice owners, summertime usually means that you have a drop off in patient visits and/or an increase in missed appointments or rescheduled appointments.
So we wanted to give you a few strategies to prepare the practice over the next few months to be the most effective you can be.
1. Reminder Calls – Everyone does these the night before for new patient appointments, but if you have active patients that have not been in sometime and they have scheduled out a few weeks, give them a reminder call a few days before their appointment, maybe 3 days prior.
2. Travel Announcements – Make sure your staff and patients know when you will be out of the office. For physical medicine offices, make sure your time away is covered by associates or other team members. For dental practices, just schedule around travel time.
3. Produce More Content – July is the month to produce additional content for your practice. Emails, blogs, live videos, anything that you can do to put out more content on your social channels or list, this is a great month to do it.
4. Get more Video Testimonials – July is typically a great month for getting video testimonials because your team usually has more time to ask for them and record them. Set a goal of generating at least 2 testimonials a week.
5. Schedule promotions around holidays – The week of July 4th is typically a slow week for marketing or promotions, so for most clients we pause ads that week. Let your marketing manager know your preference for running ads that week.
If you and your team plan ahead of time, you can all have a very productive and busy summer.
“The organization is only as good as the person or people who lead it!”
It’s not easy leading people.
I don’t care what anyone says about business ownership and being an entrepreneur. It’s not easy. I know that there a whole lotta shows out there that glorify being a business owner; Shark Tank, The Profit (one of my favorites). But despite what most people think, it requires way more work than the majority of people are willing to put in.
And not only does it require work and effort, it requires us to step into roles and duties that often times, we’re not comfortable doing. And for real continued success, it almost always requires us to step out of our comfort zones. (Almost daily)
Business demands this.
And that’s why only a few are really good at it.
Where you see a reflection of this the most, is with the team members. If the owner is willing to come out of their comfort zone, tackle new challenges, continue to innovate and improve, and provide structure and systems, the entire business will do the same.
All team members will continue to come out of their comfort zones, take on new challenges and work on continuing to improve who they are, and what they can contribute to the business to make it better.
But when a staff is unwilling to change, unwilling to innovate, unwilling to improve upon their systems, it’s a slow death march into non-existence.
And it almost always comes from an owner who is unwilling to grow, unwilling to change, and unwilling to lead by example.
(I see this a lot. More than I want to.)
Your org, your company, and your team, are only as good as you. Period.
And any time that you decide to mentally check out, stop innovating, stop training, and stop working toward your purpose and your goals; you can rest assured your team will too.
The universe does not allow for lazy business owners.
If you are currently practicing in a state that still has decent reimbursement for these services, I want to warn you… your days are numbered.
Insurance reimbursement for chiropractic services died a few years ago. Even reimbursement of physical therapy benefits and integrated medical services has all but dried up.
In the last 16 years of business, 6 with just the agency, I have seen friends and clients go from making $400,000 a month to bankruptcy in a matter of a few months, just from depending too much on 1 or 2 covered services. They put all of their eggs into diagnostic testing, DME or a particular type of insurance covered service, only to find that first one company removes coverage for that service, then another, then everyone.
Insurance companies are not going to lose money. They are experts at tracking every service they pay on. And when they find they are losing money on any one particular service, they remove it.
Having your practices insurance collections at 85% or higher of your total gross revenue, is a disaster waiting to happen. You have to diversify your practice collections and make sure that you have a solid percentage of cash collections, coupled with personal injury and insurance. This mix makes you much less dependent on insurance as your sole revenue source and prevents the practice from being affected if insurance changes occur.
What are the best cash services that we see doctors around the country offering in their chiropractic and integrated practices?
#1 SPINAL DECOMPRESSION / DISC PAIN RELIEF!
You may be reading this and thinking to yourself that decompression was just a fad that was popular years ago; if that’s the case, then I have to say you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. It’s back in a very big way. The incredible opportunity with working with a disc case is that the problem is a long-term, chronic condition. There are not many solutions other than surgery. If you can design a comprehensive program built around rehabilitating the disc and surrounding structures, patients will pay out of pocket for this service. In addition, this is a perfect service to offer baby-boomers, who are moving into retirement and looking to stay healthy. They’ve worked hard their entire lifetime and are now ready to enjoy retirement. In order to do that, they will need a non-invasive solution to their back problems and that’s why Spinal Decompression is such a great solution. We see our clients charging anywhere from $3500 to $6000.00 per case. The key is finding these patients. What we’ve seen work most are newspaper ads, and social media.
#2 FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE
Now, more than ever, people are looking for solutions outside of their medical providers. One; because it’s so expensive to go their medical provider; and two, because their medical providers are NOT offering them any solutions. There has never been a better time, (Since I’ve been practicing for the last 15 years) to market solutions for chronic health problems. Low Thyroid, Fatigue, Digestive Problems, Fibromyalgia, and Diabetes; are all conditions that are chronic in nature and the TYPICAL medical solution does nothing but cover up symptoms. What is so amazing about the time we’re in, is that patients are realizing that their MEDICAL PROVIDERS can not offer them a solution! We’ve seen functional medicine doctors around the country filling up their practices with patients looking for a solution to the conditions we listed above. The fees charged can average from $4000 to $7000 for a 6-month wellness program. Adding functional medicine or lifestyle medicine to your practice can not only help serve these types of patients, but add to your profits, which is a win for everyone!
#3 STEM CELL THERAPY / REGENERATIVE MEDICINE
There has been a virtual explosion of interest in regenerative medicine recently; and stem cell therapy is on the forefront of what baby boomers are looking for to stay active and enjoy their retirements. Stem Cells can help chronic joint pain sufferers find relief by treating chronic inflammation and rebuilding joint tissue. You must employ either a medical doctor or nurse practitioner to be able to provide this type of treatment, but it’s definitely a hot topic in pain management.
In addition, the number 1 marketing condition in any market, on the majority of platforms (newspaper, direct mail, TV, Radio, and online) hands down is knee pain. Why? Because it’s one of the most used joints of the entire body, AND because it’s so affected by weight and activity. Patients need their knees to do the activities they want to do; Golf, walking, running, biking, you name it and you pretty much need your knee joint to do it. Creating a protocol to address knee pain and knee arthritis can not only help these patients get their life back, but create a flood of new patients for your practice.
#4 PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY
Over 60% of the US population is either obese or overweight. Type 2 Diabetes is not a condition that is going away anytime soon. One of the biggest symptoms that Type 2 patients suffer with is Neuropathy. Neuropathy is another condition that baby boomers struggle with. And there is virtually no medical solution other than pain relievers. Creating a protocol to address blood sugar (diet), lifestyle (activity), circulation and nerve inflammation can not only help solve their nerve pain, but can actually same their limbs. The protocols that we’ve seen clients use are:
Class 4 Laser Therapy
Infrared Socks
NeuroMed Nerve Stimulation
NeuropathyDR Protocol
Vibration Plate Therapy
Supplementation
Activity Recommendations
Chiropractic Adjustments
Because of a lack of medical therapies available to treat neuropathy, patients will pay out of pocket for these services. We’ve seen clients charge anywhere from $4000-$7000 for a neuropathy treatment package. With so many seniors suffering with this condition, you will virtually never run out of patients to help.
#5 WEIGHT LOSS
This is pretty much a no-brainer here, but I find that very few chiropractic offices offer a weight loss solution for their patients. And when they do, it’s usually not a comprehensive program. Offering patients a cookie-cutter solution to their weight control issues will not really provide your office with a flood of weight loss patients. However, doing a functional diagnostic workup on them, and creating a customized program involving lifestyle, diet and supplementation can not only serve them better, but give them a long-term solution for their weight control and health issues. We’ve seen some amazing functional testing with Metametrix Labs that not only provides a diagnostic workup, but also the supplementation protocol. We’ve seen clients charging anywhere from $2000 to $5000 for a 6 month weight loss program.
No matter what niche that you’re in; pain management, chiropractic, stem cell/regenerative medicine or implant dentistry:
The Market is getting crowded.
And I’m not just talking about the Facebook platform.
In Denver, which is currently the wild west of Stem Cell Clinics (along with Dallas and Orange County) there is someone on every corner selling Stem Cell/Regenerative Products. Newspaper, Radio, TV, Morning Shows, Facebook, Adwords, and add any other media platform you can think of and someone is on it.
So how do you compete in a crowded marketplace. Simple…
DATA!
This will be the trend moving forward for 2018 and beyond. Your DATA will be the weapon that you’ll be able to weld against any and all competitors.
Currently, we get data from 2 sources; Google & Facebook analytics. (These only tell us general interaction, they don’t track by the INDIVIDUAL)
But moving forward, using the Marketing Maximizer (Phase 2 Rollout) we’ll be able to track and score every single lead’s engagement with your content.
Why is this important?
Because once someone is in your marketing funnel, you (and your team) will have the ability to watch them, and know when the right time to reach out to them is. Which helps you MAXIMIZE every cent you used to capture that person’s information.
For example:
Susan Smith(not a real person) has been on your email list for a few months now. She opened one of your emails yesterday, she clicked onto the Free Consultation button in your email. Your front office, immediately gets an email notification to call her. She hops into the Marketing Maximizer and sees the Susan’s actually opened emails and clicked on a few blog articles over the last few weeks. Your front office reaches out within 30 minutes and calls Susan to offer her a consultation appointment.
And that’s just the beginning.
Want to send a Seminar Video REPLAY to everyone who missed?
Guess what, you can track WHO opened the REPLAY email AND how much of the video that watched. Susan couldn’t attend your seminar, but she watched 100% of your video replay. You can get a notification of EVERYONE who clicked on the REPLAY link and reach out to them.
This SYSTEM is Baddass and it’s only gonna get better as we roll into next year.
And it won’t matter how much your competitors spend on their marketing, because you will have data that they can’t ever possess… ENGAGEMENT!
The first stage is moving you onto the new Marketing Maximizer system and then first quarter, we’ll be rolling out more of the automations and engagement score tracking.
