E561 | Avoid This Marketing Trap

Today, I am talking about how to avoid the shiny object syndrome that we have all fallen for at some point in our entrepreneurial journeys. To be more specific, I am discussing this in regard to the marketing of your practice. I use a real-life example to elaborate on what I am talking about. Enjoy!

• If something is working, why change it
• Doubling down
• The value in knowing if something is not working

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: So there's all kinds of hidden fees within your business that are just part of doing business. One of those is credit card. Processing and for us, we didn't even realize how much we were paying in credit card processing with the first management software we were using for our practice. And when we switched over to PT everywhere, we just realized we were saving literally hundreds of dollars a month with credit card processing with their partner with Card point versus who we were using with our prior.

Software. This has made a massive difference. It's more than paid for itself. It allows us to decrease our overhead. It allows us to have more cash flow to reinvest in our people, in our technology, in our facility, in marketing and everything that's gonna drive the business. So don't get abused by credit card processing companies.

Make sure you're paying what you should pay. And if you're looking for a management software, I highly recommend PT Everywhere directly integrates with a. Processor makes it very easy and their rates are super, super competitive. So it's saved us a ton of money and it probably will do the same for you if you don't know what you are getting charged.

So head over to PT everywhere. Take a look at what they've got. I think you really like it. So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't wanna work home health and have real student loans create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about?

This is the question, and this podcast is the answer. My name's Danny Matte, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

Hey, what's going on guys? Dr. Danny here at the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today we're talking about sticking to what's working and not getting shiny object syndrome. So this is something that I think is a really challenging skill to develop as a entrepreneur. Something that I've struggled quite a lot with especially when it comes to things like marketing.

I'm gonna give you an example of what we're talking about here. But oftentimes what happens is we. Try to develop new business. We get out in the community or we start doing content, or we start to do maybe do digital ads or something like that. And as something starts to work, we then start to look for other channels of marketing that could work as well.

So here's a good example. I had somebody that's in our mastermind that has had a lot of success with. In-person events and is in the golf niche. And he sent me a message and he was like, okay like what other things should I look at doing? Because it's the It's the winter, right? So it's not golf season right now, it's not truly golf season most places right now.

And when I kinda went back and forth and it turns out like this is where most of the success is coming from, right? In person events at golf golf courses with their like health and wellness staff, with their pros and just getting in front of his target audience. And instead of turning your attention to something else, it's if that's working, what other things can you do in that same interaction, in that same setting?

Even though it's not the season isn't going on. So think of it this way, right? Okay, if we look at a traditional sport, we have off season preseason and end season and the training that you do for these are gonna be dramatically different. So instead of looking at that oh man there's not really a lot of people at the golf course right now because it's gotten so much colder.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they don't want to be there. They, maybe they can't play as much as they, they would, but what a great opportunity to take the off season seriously and get ourself in a better place so that when the season starts back up again, when the weather is right to play more, you are ready to go and you're gonna be in the best position possible.

You're gonna have your body in the best shape possible. You're gonna have your moving patterns in the best shape possible so that you can do really well. In season, right? And then talking pre-season, okay, hey, we got about a month leading up to this. What do we want to change in terms of how we're training or accessory work that we're doing or whatever else or maybe even like provider time that you have in place that you're seeing and being able to take that same thing that's working of an in-person event.

And be able to do more of it, but with a slightly different angle based on whatever season, whatever things need to be addressed, need to be worked on. That could be very different than whenever somebody is in season. So instead of looking to try to find other, Elements that might work. Like for instance, let's say you, you're like, man, I'm killing it with workshops, the timing isn't right now or whatever it might be.

You start to look for other areas of marketing. And not to say that you don't have diversification, but if you find something that's working, you really wanna double down on it. So you decide, all right, I'm gonna really start to do a lot of education on Instagram instead. So you start doing that and the challenge is that could work.

That could actually work really well. You just don't know until you have enough time to test those things. And usually that's gonna take a couple months. So it may be a couple months of you organically putting stuff out and trying to build a following on a platform. And it could be three, six months before you really get a good idea of.

A if what you're saying is resonating with anybody, you know your schedule of like how you wanna go about doing that, how much time that might take you versus if man, I do really well when I get a chance to like, educate people face-to-face, or maybe over a Zoom workshop or an educate or like a lunch and learn maybe at a business, something like that.

And you've already found that, like you have good conversion with that. Let's say you're in that, you know that golf niche, right? And. You're working at like golf clubs with people and the season changes. Where do those people work? Where maybe more people are there that are like them necessarily they're into golf, but are into just being active in something outside of that.

Maybe there's an opportunity for you to take one of those relationships you have and say, Hey, it would be great. What if I do a lunch and learn for your company? And we can talk about something that's, really gonna benefit them, which would be, maybe it's like managing your body while you're stuck at a desk, right?

Something like that. And then all of a sudden you have a chance to do something very similar. Educate people on a topic, be able to take the next step where, hey, we wanna chat, we wanna talk more. Let's set up a free call and get a better idea of what you're working on. And all of a sudden you're doing lead gen with something you already have a skillset in.

And even with a slightly different market. So what I see over and over again is even if something is working, and let's say you have this one channel of like local marketing, let's say that's what you're doing, and then you decide. All right, now I gotta do something else On top of that, oftentimes it's not necessarily the best thing to do until you've flatlined where you're at with that one marketing channel.

It would be like if you were, let's say you were doing paid ads and you were getting people in your door for 20 bucks. Let's say you're paying 20 bucks for somebody to come in for a $20 30 minute visit or something. So it's basically pay for itself. Would you do that as much as you could?

Or would you be like, okay, I'm getting about 10 of these a month. Let me go ahead and try to do this like organic social media thing. Or, Hey, you know what, let me go ahead and try to teach workshops now. No, you should double down on the thing that's working until you prove that you can't scale it or that it stops working because then you can focus your attention on this one proven channel.

And get more people in a predictable manner. That's actually a very hard marketing channel to find predictability in marketing is like the golden goose. That's it. If you can figure out a predictable marketing channel to get clients in the door and you understand your numbers and you understand what's working and conversion percentages, you can be very predictable about how you're spending your time, where you're putting your effort and with.

Better probability know that it's probably gonna be a good use of your time. There's nothing worse. There's nothing worse as a business owner than putting a bunch of effort and time into something. And it doesn't work, or that you don't know if it's working or not, that's probably even worse. I would actually rather know that it doesn't work than if I don't know if it's working or not.

Because if I don't know, then I don't know if I should stop or if I should keep going. And what if you're wrong? What if what you're doing is exactly what you need to do? And that one channel could bring your company to, multiple six and seven figures in revenue a year because you are acquiring, new volume new patients.

Through a channel that's very predictable and that you've done a really good job with, but you don't know cuz you don't know what you're tracking. Or you move on too early and all of a sudden you have to start over from square one, and then you lose momentum in the thing that you were doing really well at.

So make sure that if you find something, if you're doing something that's working, I want you to think about, all right what other things around this are similar that I could be doing that are gonna help me, stay on this path. Of predictable success that I'm seeing and not necessarily try to start a whole new, marketing channel, marketing initiative that eventually you probably do need.

Let's say you have a really big business. Let's say you have a seven figure business. You probably need, people will make the case that you really still only need one strong acquisition channel, but you probably need at least two because there's definitely stability and protection in having multiple acquisition channels.

That are not not all your eggs are in one basket, but many people have grown very successful companies off of putting all their eggs into one basket on from a marketing sense, because they find what's working and then they just work on it and that's it. And they don't get this sort of shiny object marketing syndrome of the next big thing that they have to do just because they hear somebody else say that's what they're doing.

Find something that works. Stick to it, track it, make sure that you're right, and then focus on that until either a completely it flat lines and you can't see any more momentum or growth from that. Or it stops working and you end up having to like switch and try to pivot to another acquisition channel.

So stay consistent, stay focused. If you find something that works double down on it, put all your eggs in one basket until it's not working anymore. That is where you're gonna see tremendous momentum and growth and all this sort of diversification of your effort oftentimes. Especially early on, all it's doing is it's slowing you down and you're not gonna get as much momentum and traction as you should.

So hope this helps. Hope this helps you avoid a costly marketing mistake. And as always, guys, thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next week.

Hey, Pete, entrepreneurs. We have big, exciting news, a new program that we just came out with That is our PT Biz part-time to full-time, five day challenge. Over the course of five days, we get you crystal clear on exactly how much money you need to replace by getting you. Ultra clear on how much you're actually spending.

We get you crystal clear on the number of people you're getting to see, and the average visit rate you're going to need to have in order to replace your income to be able to go full-time. We go through three different strategies that you can take to go from part-time to full-time, and you can pick the one that's the best for you based on your current situation.

Then we share with you the sales and marketing systems that we use within our mastermind that you need to have as well. If you wanna go full-time in your own practice. And then finally we help you create a one. Page business plan. That's right. Not these 15 day business plans. You wanna take the Small Business Association, a one day business plan that's gonna help you get very clear on exactly what you need to do and when you're gonna do it.

To take action if you're interested and sign up for this challenge is totally free. Head to physical therapy biz.com/challenge. Get signed up there. Please enjoy. We put a lot of energy into this. It's totally free. It's something I think is gonna help you tremendously, as long as you're willing to do the work.

If you're doing the work and you're getting. Information put down and getting yourself ready to take action in a very organized way, you will have success, which is what we want. So head to physical therapy biz.com/challenge and get signed up today. Hey, real quick before you go, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and I would love it if you got involved in the conversation.

So this is a one way channel. I'd love to hear back from you. I'd love to get you. Into the group that we have formed on Facebook. Our PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group has about 4,000 clinicians in there that are literally changing the face of our profession. I'd love for you to join the conversation, get connect with other clinicians all over the country.

I do live trainings in there with Yves Gege every single week, and we share resources that we don't share anywhere else outside of that group.So if you're serious about being a PT entrepreneur, a clinical rainmaker, head to that group. Get signed up. Go to facebook.com/groups/ptentrepreneur, or go to Facebook and just search for PT Entrepreneur. And we're gonna be the only group that pops up under that.