E493 | The Importance Of Your Reputation

The one thing that you have to take with you no matter where you go is your reputation. It's something you should be highly aware of each and every day. After listening to this episode, you should be able to self-evaluate what others may think of you. Enjoy!

• Doing what you say you're going to do every single time
• People will almost always remember what you have said
• How many word-of-mouth referrals are you getting?

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: So one of the best ways to improve your customer experience, which we know will dramatically improve your business, is to have clear lines of communication with your clients. And that's something that can be really hard with these multiple channels between email and text. And what you really need is to centralize that in one place.

And that's something that we've been able to do as we switched over to PT everywhere within our client's accounts. We can actually message right back and forth with them. They can manage their home exercise plan within there, and it allows us to really compartmentalize the communi. That we have with those clients, instead of losing an email in the inbox or missing a text and then you're, it's very hard to dig yourself outta that hole because they feel like you're not very responsive, with them.

And for us, it's made a really big difference. It helps make our staff more efficient. It helps us not miss things as much with the volume of people that we're working with. And it's a really smart way of really compartmentalizing your communication with your clients so it doesn't interfere with the rest of the channels.

You have communication with family and friends and things like that. So I think it'd. Huge for your practice to centralize it the way we have. Head over to pt everywhere.com. Check out what our friends are doing over there. I think it's really cool and I think you really. So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't want to 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 Mate, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here with a PT Entrepreneur podcast, and today we're talking about the one thing that you have to take with you no matter where you go, and that's your reputation. This is something that I. Spoke to our local practice our, all of our employees about at our staff meeting yesterday.

And it's something I wanna share with you as well because it's something that I had a mentor of mine bring up and it really resonated with me whenever he started, talking about this and the idea of your reputation and the importance of your reput. And maintaining as high quality of a reputation as you possibly can in really any context that you want to put this in.

But in the professional world, in the business world or even as a W2 employee, same thing. You have to think about what you do on a day in and day out basis and how that applies to your reputation and maybe what your reputation is. Do you have a reputation of somebody that. Doesn't follow through on things.

Do you have a reputation of somebody that is chronically late always a few minutes behind to show up for things, not punctual, someone that isn't trustworthy because they don't follow through in the things that say they're gonna do. Somebody that doesn't, continually do good work.

You have to think about what your reputation is and more importantly, what you want your reputation to be and start to. Changes towards that start to make changes to where you are increasing and making your reputation more and more positive. Because the reality is, let's say you're a W2 employee right now, you're working for somebody else at a clinic and you may not like your job too much.

Maybe you're just waiting to kinda get outta there and go somewhere else or maybe you to start your own thing. From what we've seen when people go from a clinical setting where they're working for somebody else to then opening up their own practice, we see exponentially faster gains from people that have a incredibly good local reputation, like they are high quality providers that have been in the area for years, that have developed a very strong reputation that then carries over with.

To their own practice. And this is a huge start or for people to get them going faster to where they don't have to have this delay of trying to develop, some of the word of mouth reputation that they need to have a successful practice early on. And the same thing can be said for people that.

Didn't really do that great of a job where they were at. They have to then rebuild that reputation from the ground up with clients that they are seeing in their own practice. And obviously, you're gonna take your own business different. You're gonna, you're gonna treat it differently than you would if it's somebody else's.

You're never gonna have the same level of, care with your somebody else's businesses. You're gonna have with your own you just, you care more when it's yours. It's just the way it. But I want you to think about, what you're doing on a day-to-day basis and if that is going to help you in the long run.

And this is something that it's not easy. It's not something that everybody is great at or really anybody's perfect at. But there's people that. Have great reputations for a reason. People that in particular, they, what they say they're gonna do, they do, almost every single time, if not every single time.

And that actually goes a long way. And I'll give you a couple of really small examples of things that make a big difference. And this really has nothing to do with your clinical skillset. I want you to keep that in mind. Your clinical skillset is important, but you can. Be a less sophisticated, well-rounded clinician and have a superior reputation of somebody that does just by doing these other things that help with the experience somebody has with you.

That's really what it comes down to. We are in a service-based business, a service-based industry where we are working with people primarily face to. And developing relationships. And the more you can do that, and the more you can develop trust with people, the more they're gonna be willing to work with you no matter what the setting is, whether it's in network, at a network, remote coaching, whatever, they're gonna trust that you are gonna do what you say you're gonna do.

And the truth is, the vast majority of people that are in business for themself suck. Like they're average. They are not really going above and beyond for anybody. They're mediocre, but they have a service that people need or a service that, you know, whatever, like they, they know the market has some demand for, and they don't have to be great.

They don't have to go outta their way to try to be great. If you're gonna go into the cash world in particular, you need to be significantly better than whatever experience people are gonna have at in-network. Because at least on paper, they're perceiving that you're vastly more expensive. And that might be the case in certain scenarios without getting into the details of, copays and all the other things.

But that's the way they the consumer looks at it. So you have to be better. And there's a few things you can do to really improve your reputation that are simple and they come down to your customer experience more so than anything else. The first thing, and this is a very simple thing. And that is using somebody's name more often.

I, it's surprising how effective it is to use somebody's name. Let's say you're listening to this right now. Your name is John, and I say, John, you need to use people's names more. John, your reputation is gonna be really important for you to carry on wherever you go. So you need to start to make long-term decisions and how you're interacting with people right now.

And just by using someone's name, it's going to get them to pay attention more. They, everybody likes to hear their own name when they hear their. All of a sudden they, they look or they pay more attention or they're more alert. And it helps you relate to somebody in any setting really. And it's funny how don't say their name like 50 times in an hour but definitely use their name a couple times, especially when you're first meeting them and when you are saying goodbye or setting up their follow-up visit or introducing them to somebody else Use their name.

The name, someone's name is an easy way to really develop better rapport. The other thing, and this is something that just takes some effort, is doing what you say you're gonna do when you say you're gonna do it. So I'll give you a good example. If I tell somebody, if I'm seeing them as a patient, that all let's call this person Sarah.

All right, Sarah, here's what's going on with your lower back. All right, go over what the problem. I'm gonna send you an email that's gonna have exercises that we went over today that are gonna have videos in there of what I want you to do going forward and a detailed explanation of what we went over today, as well as how frequently I want you to do these exercises.

If you have any questions, email me back to that same email and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Now, let's say this is today, right? I'm recording this on a Tuesday. So I see her on a Tuesday and I get busy, right? Like everybody else, I get busy and I just don't have the time I thought I was gonna have.

I have to go get my kids or whatever, early. And I forget, I don't get around to sending her this email until Wednesday morning. The following morning. I get up early, I send it to her. And you think that's not that big of a. I sent her the email, got a to her a little bit later than expected. But it is a big.

Because what you said you were gonna do, you didn't do. And I've actually had patients bring this up. I've done this before and I've had patients bring this up and tell me like, oh man, I was like, I was waiting for the email. I wanted to make sure I could do the exercise and talk to my spouse about this when I got home and I didn't get it till the following morning.

And they're like, bomb. Legitimately, I've had these conversations with patients and something so insignificant, you think it's not that big of a deal. You send it the following morning instead of the day you say you're gonna do it. That's a minus one to your reputation. You've lost trust with that person because.

You didn't follow through with the thing you said you were gonna do when you were gonna do it. If you were gonna be able to send it until the next morning, tell 'em that. Say I'm so sorry, I have to go get my kids. I'm not gonna be able to send this to you until tomorrow morning, but I'm gonna get you everything that you need.

Is that okay? That's completely different than if you say you're gonna do it when you're gonna do it. You better damn follow through with it. Cuz people remember that they. And as simple as that sounds, as insignificant as that might sound, you have to follow through on it. When you say you are going to, if you say, I've gotta send you to to get a second opinion, I'm gonna go ahead.

I'm gonna reach out to their staff and I'll connect you with them so you have a point of contact. You give them the information to call the office and all that. But if you. Actually follow up with them and make that connection because you assume, oh, they'll just call and make the visit again. You've not followed through on what you said you're going to do.

As insignificant as that may seem, it's big because it compounds. It's a compounding effect one way or the other. You either become the person that people don't actually know if they're gonna follow through on what they say they're gonna do, they don't know if you're actually gonna do the thing you say you just said you're gonna do.

You're not very detail oriented. You do not respect their. You do not respect your own word and what you say you're gonna do, no matter how small it is that is gonna stick with you, no matter where you go, do not be that person. And the only reason that you are that person is cuz you're fucking lazy.

You're too damn lazy to do what you say you're gonna do and respect other people's time and what you say you're gonna do. And they believe that until you don't do it. And then all of a. You've lost it. It's that easy to lose, very hard to maintain and continue to do that. And if you don't think it's significant, just wait until you go into business for yourself and you'll see firsthand just how important it is, the words you say, and what you say you're gonna do, and how you're gonna do it.

And it's something that you have to say on top of, and you have. Not give into procrastination, not give into, you being tired because all these other things happened. You have to follow through on what you say you're gonna do. For every single person that you say you're gonna do that for, it's the most important thing you can do.

For your reputation long-term, and you have to hold yourself to a higher standard than the average person, especially if you want to have success in private practice, cuz you don't have a choice but to be better. If you are average, you will not do well in this type of a setting. And this type of a practice, if you wanna be average, go sell something, everybody needs go, just sell hamburgers.

Have an average hamburger. You can get one of those basically anywhere. You cannot do this in the cash world. You have to be light years better, above and beyond everybody else. And here's where you can tell if this is happening or not. And this is the brutal truth as to whether you are actually good at this or not.

Your clinical skillset, most people are gonna be just fine in terms of being able to get people better. And I've seen great clinicians that do not do the soft skill side of things while they do not follow through with people. They're not detail oriented, they're not doing a good job connecting and communicating with them, and they're amazing clinicians and no one sends them friends and family members to come and see them.

Nobody. That is not a good sign. That is a sign that you are missing the mark somewhere. That's a sign that you're not building trust with people. That's a sign that people aren't willing to refer people your way because of fear that you are not gonna make them look good. And that's the truth. People cannot, you cannot buy reputation.

You can't, you have to earn it. And the same thing can be said for people that refer friends and family members to you or any other service provider, especially for something as important as their body, as their physical wellbeing. So if they refer somebody to you and you don't get back to them in a timely manner, or you don't follow through in the things you say you're gonna do for them, it makes them look like a butthead.

It doesn't make them look like they have great references, like they're great for referring people certain places. I talked about this with if you have a friend that refers you to a terrible restaurant, you're probably not gonna listen to their restaurant referral recommendations ever again because they've you trusted them, they broke your trust, not the worst thing in the world, but I'm just not gonna listen to that person. If they say to go eat here it's, I'm not gonna listen to them. So people do not refer to other businesses unless they're damn sure it's gonna make them look good.

And that is because of status. That's the reputation and their status as someone of trust, someone that is trustworthy for recommendations, and people take that very seriously because, You can't buy it. You can go buy a Mercedes, and all of a sudden you have a little more status with your luxury car, but you can't buy reputation.

So people do not, they take their recommendations very seriously. So the barometer for you, as far as if your reputation is good or bad is how many word of mouth referrals are you getting from clients that you have, are currently working with or have worked? How many people are sending their brother your way?

How many people are sending their coworker your way that they have to sit next to you in a cubicle every single day? And if you do a shitty job, they have to hear about it. They're not gonna send 'em your way if you're mediocre. They're only gonna send 'em your way. If you are an absolute stud and you fall through on everything you say you're gonna do, and you are different than everybody else that they would go and see, you have to do the little things.

More and every single time and maintain that. Otherwise, your reputation deteriorates and it happens fast and it's hard to develop. So it's something you have to take very seriously. So sit down and ask yourself, how many referrals are you getting? How many word of mouth referrals are you getting from current and prior customers?

If it's not a lot, then you've got some things you need to work on. You need to work on your details in terms of being a detail-oriented, timely person. Are you constantly late, constantly 10 minutes late for that patient? They know you think they wanna sit there for 10 minutes while are catching up on whatever you're doing with the prior person.

They don't care what happened. They just know you've wasted 10 minutes of their time. So now if they go to try to tell a friend to go see you, they're probably not gonna do it because they don't want you to be late with them. And all of a sudden, they look like a jerk that recommended the wrong person.

Keep that in mind. The barometer is how many people are you getting sent your. It's that simple. And if you're not getting much, you have to work on the soft skills. I guarantee you. It's not how well you're driving little somebody's trap. It's how well you're connecting with them and how well you are following through on the things you are saying you're going to do.

And it's exhausting to be available to people, but you have to do that. You have to ha be available, you have to be timely with the things that you're gonna. In order to develop a really strong reputation, which you can build a multiple employee business off of. Your reputation can, that's the foundation.

You can build a big business off of that by doing the right things for people over and over again. So I hope that makes sense. I hope that this hits the right person with the right message because I do think this is the thing that can make or break people in business. And it's free.

It's free to care about people. It's free to do the right thing for people. All you gotta do is just make sure that you are putting forth the effort to actually complete.

What's up, PT Entrepreneurs? We have a new exciting challenge for you guys. It's our five day PT biz part-time to full-time challenge where we help you get crystal clear on how to actually go from a side hustle to a full-time clinic. Even if you haven't started yet. This is a great way to get yourself organized in preparation for eventually going full-time into your business.

So we actually help you get Crystal. On how much money you're actually gonna need to replace with your business to be able to make a lateral transfer. How many people you're actually gonna need to see based on what you should be charging. We're gonna tell you three different strategies you can take to go from part-time to full-time, and you get to pick the one that seems like the best fit for you for your current situation.

We even show you all the sales and marketing systems that we teach within our Mastermind for people that are scaling to multiple clinicians, past themself that you need to have in your business to be able to go full-time. And the last thing is we help you create a one page business. This is a plan that's gonna help you get very clear on exactly what you need to do and drive action.

That's what this is all about. We want you to win. We want you to take action, and in order to do you have to get really clear on what you need to do next. So go to physical therapy biz.com/challenge. Get signed up for the challenge today. It's totally free. We think this is gonna be a game changer for you and are excited to go through.

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 connected 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.