How A Strategic And Professional Brand, Website, And Marketing Strategy Elevates Your Clinic With Corey Hiben

[00:00:00] If I was to go back and talk to my younger self and give myself advice at that moment when I was trying to figure out how to get more patients into the door, the problem was is that I was taking a shotgun approach as opposed to a sniper approach. Is that I was doing all of the things, none of them with any sort of systems, none of them with any sort of processes. It was like one day I'd write letters, another day I would send a bunch of emails, like it was just all over the place. And then I wonder why none of it worked. It's pretty obvious why none of it worked, right? It's like because it was very scattered. There was no systems or processes around it.

[00:00:29] So eventually, I figured some of this stuff out on my own in terms of just narrowing in on one specific thing and getting good at it before jumping to the next thing. And then also through this process that more patients in the door. Welcome to the Private Practice Owners Club. Your hosts and coaches, Nathan Shields scaled his practice and exited for millions.

[00:00:51] While Adam Robin went from working 60 hours a week in one clinic to scaling to multiple clinics while working less than four hours per week remotely. This podcast is meant to share with you exactly how they did it and how you can build a business that supports the lifestyle that you truly desire. And don't forget to join the Private Practice Owners Club community on Facebook, where we are obsessed with providing even more resources that help owners just like you win the game of private practice.

[00:01:23] Hello and welcome to the Private Practice Owners Club. I've got my friend Corey Hyben, OT, joining me today. He is the founder of Andro Brand, which specializes in branding and marketing for healthcare providers, especially physical therapists. And self being an OT helps OTs as well. He's also got another podcast.

[00:01:46] So he's a podcast brother of the Health Business Builder Show, where you can learn all about building your business as a healthcare provider. Thanks for joining me today, Corey. I appreciate it. Podcast brother. I like that. I got to start using that on my other podcast friends. That's clever. Yeah, we're brothers in arms here, man. It's not like everybody has a podcast, right? I think everybody tries to have a podcast, but very rarely do they succeed. But yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, thanks for joining me, man. It's great to have you on.

[00:02:15] And I'm excited about talking about marketing today. It's a pain point of mine. I hate marketing. I'm not good at selling myself. It's something I'm trying to improve on. So I'm glad to have experts like you come on and talk about how to do it right. Appreciate that, man. Yeah. I heard something recently that I think there's a lot of truth to it. That is if your business is making less than $3 million a year, you should be marketing at least four hours a day every day because nobody knows you exist. Nobody cares that you exist and they have no reason to care you exist.

[00:02:45] So if you're not telling people, no one's going to know. That's a great benchmark. I love that. But it's true. Even to the point of like what we were talking about before we started recording of branding is like it just takes that much work and energy and time to build a strong and sustainable brand that can continue to sell itself. And so until that happens, that's where marketing is like if you're not consistently marketing, especially as a practice owner, you're going to be continuing to go into famine or feast and famine where it's like I market. I get patients. Oh, I got to market again.

[00:03:15] I get patients. And so it's like if you're just consistent on the marketing piece day in and day out, that'll save you a lot of pain down the road. Yeah, I noticed that personally. I would experience that, number one. Number two, it wasn't until I just invested in someone to do the marketing for me that things started smoothing out. Because I recognized I was not the best marketer. I was not the best face for my clinic, even though I had physician relationships and I was able to procure those. And we did grow because of what marketing I did.

[00:03:44] Man, once I got someone to do the marketing for me who actually enjoyed going to doctor's offices and enjoyed putting together marketing materials, that things kind of improve and smooth out. And she could push and run and be okay with it. Whereas for me, it was just an energy drain. Totally. I think that's true for most practitioners, honestly. It's like even as an OT myself, I think most of us, for the most part, get into it because we enjoy the health, the practice side. We want to help people. We want to serve people. But in order to run a business, you need sales and marketing.

[00:04:13] And so oftentimes, if you can and if you're in a position to be able to do so, that might just be the first thing to get off your plate because cash flow is everything to a business. And if you can have somebody else do that and you can focus on providing good care and actually running the business, that might be a better position for you. Did you see this in the OT side? Because I see some of the comments in our Facebook group and in other groups as well. Well, if we just provide great service, then that should speak for itself.

[00:04:39] And I think, dude, that's just so myopic or just so narcissistic. Like everybody should recognize how amazing I am. Did you see any of that on the OT side? Yeah. And I think it only lasts so long because like I think what happens for most practitioners, PT or OT alike, is that you tap into your immediate network, which will always be your best form of initial contacts is like your warm contacts, your contact list, the people that follow you on social media, maybe old emails that you have.

[00:05:06] But once you deplete those people and you've provided them or if you connected with all these people, it's like, what do you do next? That doesn't mean there shouldn't be a referral strategy. I think without question, there should always be some form of referral strategy. I actually just wrote a whole newsletter on this topic about how important it is to incentivize, not with just discounts. But like there's many ways to consider incentivization, but that's a whole nother rabbit hole we don't have to get into right now. But in terms of like the practitioner side of things is like, yeah, like you need other forms of generating these leads that are outside of just your initial network.

[00:05:35] And that's where like other forms of marketing come into play, whether it's creating content or running ads or cold outreach strategies. I mean, there's really four ways to do it. But yeah, I think that you need other outlets for sure. Right. You've already shared some great information thus far. But to get us started in the conversation, take me back to your experience as an OT and what some of the pain points were around marketing that you experienced, that you had to deal with that eventually led you to start this marketing, branding, website development company.

[00:06:06] So you can address the same pain points that other owners are experiencing. Where did this come from? What were you experiencing that led you down that path? Yeah, I was working in an outpatient orthopedic clinic and a big part of my position and actually a big reason that the company even hired me in the first place is because they knew that I had a little bit of marketing experience going into the position. So a big part of it was like actually building the caseload and getting people into the clinic. And if I'm honest, I was horrible at it. I didn't have any idea what I was doing. You just had more than the owners did. You had more experience than they did.

[00:06:36] That's all. Well, I mean, I had hustle and like grit and desire to become a better practitioner and to build the business and to get more patients and to do that. But like from a skill standpoint, it was zero. Like I really honestly didn't for the most part. And so a lot of it came from just like the pains of trying to figure it out on my own. And it was like I would go to local gyms and network with gym owners and I would send gift baskets to people and I'd write handwritten letters to doctors like thanking them for referrals.

[00:07:05] At one point, I actually like sort of snuck into a hospital where there was other physicians and I could just like kind of like walk the hallways and just like meet and greet with some of the physicians and hope that they would refer me new patients. Don't recommend anybody does that. Yeah, I think you have to have clearance to do that. Yeah. And I was trying everything I could. And to be honest, like none of it was working and I couldn't figure out why.

[00:07:26] And to be frank, if I was to go back and talk to my younger self and give myself advice at that moment when I was trying to figure out how to get more patients into the door. The problem was, is that I was taking a shotgun approach as opposed to a sniper approach, is that I was doing all of the things, none of them with any sort of systems, none of them with any sort of processes. It was like one day I'd write letters, another day I would send a bunch of emails, like it was just all over the place. And then I wonder why none of it worked. It's pretty obvious why none of it worked, right? It's like because it was very scattered.

[00:07:56] There was no systems or processes around it. And so eventually, like I figured this, some of this stuff out on my own in terms of like just narrowing in on like one specific thing and getting good at it before jumping to the next thing. And then also through this process that like more patients in the door and here's the crazy thing that happened. I also eventually realized that I actually don't really like the patient care side of things. I actually so much more like the business and marketing side of things. And so at some point decided that was the route to go.

[00:08:25] I mean, I actually got fired during COVID was actually kind of a blessing in disguise when that was really kind of like the first initial point of like maybe I should be doing something outside of patient care or practitioner care. And my first business actually technically was just website design and development for health professionals. That was kind of like the start of the business. But yeah, I'm really glad that I made the decision. I'm really glad that I had the experience as a practitioner. So I understand the healthcare industry very well, especially from working in it.

[00:08:51] But yeah, I'm way better at the marketing side of things than I am patient care side of things for sure. Well, thanks for sharing your experience. It's cool to see how that came about and how that came to fruition because you're kind of like me in that. But if I would have had my dream scenario, just even a few years after coming out of PT school, it would have been, well, I'll just treat patients the rest of my life. And then as I get this exposure to other things and business ownership, I get the entrepreneurial slash small business bug. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to see another patient.

[00:09:20] I want to work on this kind of stuff. This is really exciting. I've never dreamed of that, right? So it's kind of cool that you followed that path. Yeah, man. I had no idea. Like literally, like from all the years through school, like my vision was I'm going to be a practitioner for all my life and I'm going to eventually retire doing this. And then as life happens, it's like, nope, other plans for you. That's so cool. So as you're working with clients, they come to you. They want some website development help. They want marketing help. They want to refresh their brand. Where do you start with them?

[00:09:50] I'm assuming you're not sitting them down and saying, hey, listen, you're taking a shotgun approach because most people are. You know, they're just trying this or trying that and never doing anything consistently and not following up on what the returns are for their efforts. Where do you start with them or where do you see the major faux pas happening in the people that you work with? Yeah, I would say that there's kind of probably two or three clients, depending upon what stage they're at, that come to me. The first one is maybe a brand new practitioner.

[00:10:17] So brand new practitioners, generally their scope of thinking is that I just need a website to get leads. And sadly, unfortunately, we get to have a fun conversation that it's like, well, probably not actually. You probably don't actually need a website more often than not, especially if you're just starting a business. If you're just starting your practice, your business, and you're just making those initial steps, the only thing that you need are patients. And the best way to get those patients is kind of like we were talking about earlier, is that you tap into your immediate network.

[00:10:47] People that already know you for whatever reason, they have some reason to listen or care about you. Those are the people that you should be talking to. And just to give people numbers around it, I think it's helpful, too, is that when I ask people and I'm like, well, how many patients do you even think you want to see or could see a week? And they're like, well, I don't know, maybe like 20 or 30 because they're probably like cash based and they're probably trying to charge a pretty decent price for it. It's like you don't think, you know, maybe already 20 people at this moment that you can connect with and maybe potentially help. And that brings people down a little bit of like, oh, maybe I don't need to do maybe all these other like branding website things.

[00:11:17] Because to be honest, like when I first started my agency, I made the mistake of actually taking on clients like that. And then when they didn't get a bunch of leads from their website because they had no traffic and they had no content and nothing ever came from it, it just didn't turn out well for them. Like I felt bad because like they weren't getting leads and they didn't get the leads that they wanted and it just didn't work out well. So when you're in the earlier stages, it's honestly probably not that important, to be honest. There's exceptions.

[00:11:41] Of course, if you already have a bunch of traffic or you've built up a very strong social media presence and we have traffic to drive, that's a different conversation. The other type of patient that comes to me, which is way better, speaking somebody that knows their target market, they probably have a decent amount of patients under their belt. They've maybe have a DIY website or branding just like to get something out there because like they just wanted to know, just wanted to make sure they had a website and branding. So like if somebody did find them online, they can get a new patient. And then they come to somebody like me or our team and they're like, yo, we did this ourselves.

[00:12:10] We recognize it's not up to standard. We actually need a lot of help with this because we realize we need an expert in this position. And they come to us in terms of like to do a full rebrand design development and to make sure they're in the right position. Just to give an example, I just had a client like this recently where they are more or less a general practitioner or PT in the Knoxville area. They came to us. We rebranded them so that they're very positioned to help runners specifically. And we did all the branding, the designing, the wording, the messaging, everything around that. He's creating content around that.

[00:12:38] And so now he's getting new clients that are specifically runners with injuries looking for PT. And that didn't happen, though, until he kind of figured out that that was a good person for him to be serving. A lot of people don't know that earlier on in their practices. And then I would say the third type of person to us that comes to us is like they have multiple locations. For example, I had somebody come to me that's actually just north of L.A. Hopefully their practices are actually all fine.

[00:13:00] They have about, I think, four opening their fifth location in California and similar scenario where they probably have a little bit of a DIY. They have some sort of social presence, but they just know that it's not up to par in terms of being able to grow and expand their business. And so we step in, do all the rebranding, the designing, the development, positioning them in the market. Very similar scenario. I'd say those are probably the three most common types of people. And the biggest mistake that they'll run into depends, obviously, where they're at in their business. I got you.

[00:13:30] Yeah, it's interesting what you said about the first class of client that you work with and with the new providers. I guess I would fall into the line of thinking that if you don't have a website, you kind of don't exist. Like because the first thing, if you were to get a referral outside of your network of those people who know, like and trust you already, that's probably the first place they're going to go is try to find you on the web, especially if it's a physician referral. That's they're going to be like, do you actually exist if you don't have a website?

[00:13:56] Now, I do have a friend who in rural New Mexico existed and was hugely successful without a website for the past eight years. Like he just got one. But I think that's the outlier instead of the norm. Yeah. And I think it can play into a strategy. I think where I was trying to hit with that is just like most people think that it's just like build it and they will come. I see where you're going. Yeah, right.

[00:14:24] It's like they're like once I have the website, now all of a sudden I'll have leads and clients and customers. Like that alone is my marketing effort. A hundred percent. That's crazy. Yes, exactly. But it's very common. And I get it, right? It's like I get you think like in your brain it's like I have this website and there's I think like six billion users on the internet or something like that. All of a sudden like these people are going to find my website and discover my services and want to work with me. And unfortunately, it's not that simple, right? Like, God, I wish it was.

[00:14:50] Like one of my favorite things is like people who are like concerned about annoying people on the internet or like spamming or like what if I create content in the same thing too many times? Isn't that just annoy people? And I'm like, listen, if I can even get a couple people to notice a post once in a while, it's a freaking miracle. So like you think your once a month post is somehow annoying people. Ninety nine percent of the people that are following you didn't even notice it in the first place. So you're fine. Like everything's OK. But but yeah.

[00:15:18] But to your point, like it definitely can play into a marketing strategy in terms of an early practitioner. I will say, though, like more often than not, it depends if you're a local practitioner or an online practitioner. I'll say, though, like if you're a local practitioner, nine times out of 10, my initial advice for most of them is to literally just get a Google business profile. Start gathering reviews because when someone's searching for like back pain PT near me or I don't know whatever the hell the search term is, then you're more likely to show up in a search term and they'll see like your phone number.

[00:15:47] And then maybe that could direct to a website or maybe that could direct to a social media page. But that's always like the lowest hanging fruit for most practitioners. If you're local, if you're online, then we're talking more of like a content strategy of like a social media page, whether it's like your Instagram or your LinkedIn, just as like the low hanging fruit. Obviously, these things can all direct to a website for people to find out more. But yeah, the first step is like getting some traffic, whether that's like Google search profile or a content platform, like start there and then we can talk about directing it to a site.

[00:16:17] How many of the owners are you coming across that actually have a well laid out Google business page or actually signed up for it? Very few. That's what I'm wondering, because I mean, the number of people that don't take advantage of that is pretty outstanding. And it's a simple way to get noticed. And I'm sure it helps with the Google algorithm to get up in the search engine. Am I wrong? 100%. Yeah, it's shocking. And like if anyone's listening and you don't have it, like do it yesterday because like it's free.

[00:16:46] Like it's a great place to start hosting reviews. It allows you to rank higher on Google. Like you said, if somebody happens to be searching for X service near me, you're more likely to show up, which automatically is like free traffic. It's just such a low hanging fruit. There's no reason not to have one, honestly. Yeah, we talk about it. I'm assuming that you haven't heard our podcast around marketing, but we talked about the four buckets of marketing.

[00:17:10] And in our system, there's the past patients and your current patients, physician referrals and direct to community marketing. And so it sounds like you're following along those same lines that we talk about. When you want to increase your number of new patients, the easiest low hanging fruit tends to be amongst the past patient, current patient list. It's the cheapest way to get patients. They already know, like and trust you. You don't have to build rapport with them.

[00:17:40] You don't have to spend a significant amount of money to reach out to them and encourage them to come in. If you really want to get those that the greatest return on your marketing investment, it's that network. And that's what you're talking about with your the closest people to you. Start reaching out to them right away. And it sounds like we're on the same page in that regard. Totally. Yeah. You nailed it. Like the people closest to you in your immediate or warm network, they already, as you said, know, like and trust you. And so they're always going to be the highest conversion rate.

[00:18:07] But then you have to have also a long term strategy, like I was saying before, is like, yeah, those will for sure turn into and provide the most incredible service humanly possible in terms of like because obviously you want referrals, you want good reviews, which can create a flywheel effect of getting more patients, which you want that. There's not a business on the planet that doesn't want that. That doesn't want that reoccurring flywheel effect. I call it a hybrid approach of also having a way to attract other people that don't know about you. I mean, that's what marketing is. Marketing is really just making known.

[00:18:36] And that's where the hybrid approach comes in of like the other thing that you were talking about, those other buckets of like whether it's community outreach or it's a cold messaging people or it's advertisements or like some other way for your non-immediate network to find out that you exist. I mean, one of the other ways just to tap into this, and obviously you probably talk about this as well, is like finding other practitioners that share your audience or I guess even content from that standpoint as well as other audience that share your audience.

[00:19:01] Those are such great ways to find new connections and new leads is to partner with them is create symbiotic relationships. Like if you're a like one of my favorite ones is actually when PTs go to like Pilates studios. So I don't know if you're aware of this, but like Pilates has become like sexy again. It's like the new fun, amazing thing. And everyone's doing like Pilates again these days. Yeah.

[00:19:24] And so like partnering with maybe a local Pilates studio or something of that nature is like an incredible place to just like create a symbiotic relationship where like you can refer to them, they can refer to you. And now you're tapping into new leads that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. Hey, it's Adam. I'm serious about one thing. Growth. Personal and professional growth.

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[00:20:46] One of my friends and connections that has a very successful practice down in Florida, they got wiped out by a hurricane back in the day, like 10 plus years ago. And then they decided as we're reopening, we want to see the people that we want to see. So their focus was on female athletes, like and specifically like CrossFit athletes that are in their 30s. Like they might not be professional, but these are women who really focused on their health to the point where they're really want to do well in CrossFit.

[00:21:14] And to your point here in as far as not taking the shotgun approach, man, have that focus has then carried over into other athletes. Because, well, in this situation, a lot of those women are mothers. And so they're going to have their teenage athletes go and see their physical therapist and then other athletes find out about them. But they still have this large contingent of Medicare patients because they're in Florida, right?

[00:21:40] So once we're able to really focus in and hone in on that message and reach out to the people that they want to see, that has carried over to other aspects in terms of getting referrals across the spectrum. Yeah. And what I feel like you're hitting on here is just that aspect of understanding your ideal client avatar. I mean, that sounds like really what they were able to do. But just to give people, I want to give people a little bit of grace, though, because like there's this concept that I recently learned from another agency owner. He calls it the niche hourglass.

[00:22:08] And so I feel like this person you're talking to is probably a great example of this. But if you imagine an hourglass, right, wide at the top, narrow, wide at the bottom again, is that when you're just starting your practice or your business for that matter, you don't really know who that person is. Like you don't know that like female athletes is like your ideal person that you want to work with. So it's OK to stay wide and to keep a wide base and to have your opportunities and potentials open because you're not really sure. You don't know where the opportunities are yet.

[00:22:35] But once you figure that out, once you've been practicing and you've seen enough people and you're kind of a little bit in your business, now you can start to narrow that approach. And that's where things honestly start to get a little bit more fun because like now you know who your person is. You know how to position yourself in the market. You want to create a brand around this thing. You want to create design and messaging and all your content around this thing because you know this very specific person that you're trying to attract. And that's when they're like, oh, I already know Susie only works with female athletes. I know exactly where to turn. That's a fun place to be.

[00:23:02] And then the top of the hourglass where it gets wide again is like now you can actually start tapping into rather one adjacent industries or adjacent services. And so you can like widen yourself out a little bit again and get a little bit more broad again. But there's a process to it, right? It is like so many marketers always talk about is like you got to have your niche. You got to pick your niche. And like, yeah, that's great if you know what that is. But if you don't know what that is, it's also okay. Like there's a process of figuring that out. Yeah. I love that you use that word grace.

[00:23:28] Just giving ourselves some grace to say maybe I don't know just yet. And maybe it does take a few years of actually practicing and getting comfortable with, man, I'm really good with shoulders, throwing athletes. Well, it might take a few years for number one, your skills to get to that point. But number two, you actually see some results because your skills are good enough that you're worthy of being able to niche down. Right.

[00:23:52] And so I love the fact that you're using the word grace at that point and giving yourself some time to find that niche, if you will. And it seems like that's the class two type of client that you're seeing is maybe they have come to that point where they've developed the certifications or they have a better idea of who they really are and what they really want to see. They've got a lot more clarity as to their avatar. Now they're going into the rebranding stage and saying this is who we see. Maybe they're even more clear about their purpose and their values.

[00:24:21] Maybe that's a big part of this. I know for us, as Will and I merged our clinics together, I mean, it's a natural time to do this, but that's where we sat down and said, OK, what is our mutual purpose now that we've merged? What are our combined values? You know, we had our own. Now we're combining what are our combined values and what do we want? Who are the who is our avatar? Who do we want to see and how do we want to present ourselves to the world? So it came with a name change and new purpose and values and logo and all that kind of stuff.

[00:24:51] And it sounds like that's where you're talking about the number two client that you're working with. Yeah, you nailed it. And I think also, too, just to add to exactly what you're saying, I would also say, too, is people need to zoom out a little bit on their time horizons. Is that I remember when I first started my business, another friend of mine who is a PT that I actually used to work with at the same company that ended up leaving. And he also left, started his own business and actually had him on my podcast show way back, like friggin three years ago or whatever, when I first started the show.

[00:25:18] And he's like, had you asked me when I first started my PT practice how long it would take to build this business? I would have told you like a couple of years. He's like, I think like six years into this now and he's still like not even close to where he wants to be. And so I think there's a degree of just like understanding time horizons, right? Is all the people that I know that have reached their degree of success that they're hoping to achieve are like 10 plus years. It's the classic 10 year overnight success.

[00:25:46] A buddy I just got coffee with recently and again, another agency owner, he's on like year like 13 or something. And he's only within maybe the last like three or four years. Is he like doing very well? It's like understand time arises. Like good things take time. I will say this from my perspective. It took me 12 years of repeating the same year 12 times instead of seeing 12 years of growth until I got some coaching.

[00:26:12] That's the one thing that I tell people who trying to decide if they want to get some business coaching or not, because we don't have the business background as therapists. We don't know what we're doing inherently with the business. We don't inherently know our KPIs. We don't know how to lead a team unless we had some previous director responsibilities. We don't know how to put systems and processes together and recruit and hire and fire and all those things.

[00:26:35] Sometimes when I finally got some coaching, and this is what I tell people who we talk to are considering is you can figure it out and it could take 10 to 12 years. I know that I made significant changes within two years after getting coaching where my business was completely different and that can accelerate the path. So, yeah, the time horizons are there because I experienced it. Like I said, I was 10 to 12 years before I really saw some changes. But now we're seeing coaches.

[00:27:03] We're seeing some of our clients that within two to three years are significantly different than they were when they started with us or even less even within the year. Yeah, I 100% echo that statement. I've had the same experience in my own life as well to be super transparent because you pay in two ways. You pay with your time or you pay with your money and the choice is always yours. Yeah, you're going to pay the tuition some way either by mistakes or to someone who's going to guide you. There's going to be a tuition for it.

[00:27:27] And so, you know, how purposeful do you want to be and how quickly do you want to get to that point where you want to get to, right? I want to take just a little different tact right here because it came to mind and I saw it recently maybe in some kind of LinkedIn or Twitter post. But where do you see AI coming into play in terms of website design and guiding people towards these marketing strategies that you're talking about? Because if you ask some people, they're like, well, website design is not going to be around anymore because AI is just going to do it for you.

[00:27:57] Yeah, it's so funny. I've actually tapped into a few other designers and agency owners to ask this exact same question. Honestly, my buddy that I actually got down to get coffee with who's been in the industry for over 13 years now. And that was literally my first question for him. So he's actually technically a coach or a mentor of mine. He's really helping me out a lot. And that was my first question was like, before we even talk about how I can continue to grow my business, I was like, where do you even see the future of the agency world? One could say.

[00:28:25] And his pretty much blanket statement was like, it's not going anywhere. And to answer your question directly, website design, development, branding, that piece of it. Also, there's always going to be people that are going to be needed to do that because I think AI, it's already become an incredible handholder. It's been an incredible way to narrow your thinking. It's been an incredible way to ideate. It's an incredible way to put together concepts and wireframing and thinking through things.

[00:28:50] But the nitty gritty of like what it actually takes to literally design it specific for a person with a very specific need and to put all the pieces of pie together to make that possible. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Like based on what I'm seeing anyways, it's like some of the software that's come out about it. I'll be honest, most of it's pretty trash. I've tried almost all of them because like I would use it if it worked. I would. There's no reason why I wouldn't use it. And I've tried a lot of the designers and the builders and the mid journeys that wireframe.

[00:29:20] And I've tried all these things and it's like a one out of 10, two out of 10 in terms of like what it actually needs to be to hit standard of what I believe is an actually effective branding, design and development. And so like from what I'm seeing in today's age at this exact moment, like when we're talking right now, I think we're still quite a ways off from it, like completely replacing the industry. Even past that, though, is like all my clients will tell you that my value is actually so much more than the branding and the design.

[00:29:46] It's actually just like consulting is like helping them understand their uniqueness, their position in the market, like how they should be having conversations, what sort of marketing strategy is going to work well. Like so much more of it is actually the consulting piece of it than it is the actual like visuals, which is what most people think it is. Yeah, I love how you say that because it makes me think, you know what, I'm going to a website designer and I don't know what I need and I don't know what I don't know. And that's why I'm going to an expert to ask me the right questions and kind of like pull it out of me.

[00:30:15] And I don't know if AI, pretty certain AI is not at that point. If I had the specifics in mind, like I want to use these colors and these types of designs and I want this kind of content and then maybe it could get you there. But I know there's a lot more of the human aspect to get to represent my ideas on a design. Are you familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect? No. So it's a lot of what this is.

[00:30:40] So the Dunning-Kruger effect is that like whatever the endeavor is, so let's take website design, for example, is that you go into it thinking like can't be that hard. You're pretty optimistic about it, right? You're like, it's just a website. It's just like text and colors and layout. And then you get a little bit into it. And then all of a sudden like this peak goes into a dip where you're like, oh, whoa, there's actually a lot more here than I thought there was. And then the dip gets a little bit lower and you end up in the Valley of Despair is what it's called, where it's like there's so much here that I had no freaking idea.

[00:31:08] And then all of a sudden like three or four years go by and you're like, wow, I didn't realize how much I didn't know. So it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. But this is true for everything. My girlfriend and I literally just built a sauna out at a chiropractic clinic. And you would think when they ship you all the pieces of exactly how to build this thing, it'd be very simple, right? You just put it together like Lincoln logs if you're familiar with that. No, there's a ton of nuance to this. And there was a ton of things, mistakes we made and errors that we made.

[00:31:32] But it's the classic Dunning-Kruger effect is like no matter what the thing is, anything, the microphone I'm talking into, the screen you're looking at, you're like, yeah, it's not that complex. And then you get into it and you're like, oh, okay, way more than I thought there was. Yeah. It's more than a four minute YouTube video here. Exactly. It's true for everything. I like it. Hey, you spent a lot of time with me today. I do have one more question. Do you have time? Yeah, go for me. Cool.

[00:31:59] I want to ask this because as people are looking at, number one, they might be asking themselves, man, do I need to refresh? Do I need to rebrand? Do I need to update my website? Or people who are starting off have the same question. What should it look like? What should it entail? What should they expect if they're approaching someone like you? If it's not you, there are other website designers in the space. But what should they expect out of you if they were going to get a good service?

[00:32:29] Not just a completed website design, but beyond a good looking website. What should they expect out of you? So, yeah, if I was a practitioner and I was looking for somebody to help me with this piece of their business, the branding and the marketing and design piece of it, the questions I would hope that my person would be asking me, I would hope that they were asking me deeper questions about the business than just the visuals. If their initial questions are like, what sort of colors do you want? What sort of font do you want? Do you need a new logo?

[00:32:58] Those are very superficial questions that actually aren't even remotely close to what's more important about the business. What's far more important about the business is like, what are your actual business goals? How are you getting there? What are the systems and processes and campaigns that are in place to get you to this number that you're hoping to achieve? Cool. Based on this information about what you want to achieve in your business, and where you want to end up to be. This is what I think we should do in order to get you there.

[00:33:25] And then that's where we decide, okay, this is how we should position you in the market. This is the type of clientele that we want to attract. This is the type of colors, wording, vocabulary. That's when all the other stuff starts to come into play. The very first thing we do with all of our clients is we have what's called a define phase, where we get very clear on what it is you're hoping to accomplish, who your ideal person is to be able to attract that person. And then every other question down the road gets a whole lot easier of like, what sort of color should we use? Well, it depends on who we're trying to target.

[00:33:55] And it's like, what sort of like layout should we use? Well, it depends on what sort of marketing campaign we're running. So all those other questions get answered once you get clear of like, what are the goals? What are the objectives? And now we can build a process to be able to get you there. Do you also tie in like, okay, we're done establishing you with this brand and the website. Do you also give them some elements of a marketing strategy to go forward with after they're done with you, quote unquote, done with you? Yeah. I like the way you said that.

[00:34:22] So yeah, at the end of every project, clients have the option. So I always maintain as somebody that's willing to stick around and offer consulting services and maintenance services to be able to provide advice and to make updates and changes as they need. But if they don't want to, that's also an option as well. So like at the end of the process, there is roughly speaking, a beginning and an end point for most projects, but it's always an open ended conversation that we have at the end of it of like, yo, if you feel good, you feel confident, you want to move forward, go for it.

[00:34:51] I usually send people some resources and I have a video of a, like a quote unquote, it's called moving forward. But basically it's like a video that goes over, like, here's some ways to drive more traffic to your website. Here's some ways that we can continue to like increase lead count and conversions, but it's totally up to them if they want to continue to work together or not. And in working with you going forward, would your focus be more on maybe that fourth bucket that I was talking about, like direct to community type of stuff, whether that's Facebook, Google,

[00:35:18] SEO, or do you also like to help out on the, whether physician relationships or emails to current and past patients or text campaigns, or do you focus on that much? Yeah, I would say it's mostly anything adjacent to branding design and websites. So like if it's local community stuff, probably not so much, but if it's more like email marketing campaigns or landing pages, social media posts. Yeah. Things of that nature. Yes. Got it. That's very cool. Awesome. Yeah. All right.

[00:35:47] Well, we covered a lot of stuff and thank you for sharing. Was there anything else that you felt like maybe you wanted to make sure you got off your chest before we wrap things up? And the only other thing, which you mentioned the beginning of this show is that I also have a podcast show. It's called the Health Business Builder Show. It's a little bit more broad than this one. What I love about your show is that it's very specific of like who we're talking to, which I think is incredible. But if for whatever reason, there's like other health industries people are interested in, that's more what we talk about on my show. Because I've had people from in the startup space.

[00:36:15] I mean, honestly, anything in the health industry for that matter to gym owners, to coaches, to tech companies, SaaS companies, to everything in between. So it's a little bit more broad than yours. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If they wanted to expand their perspective a little bit on business outside of the clinic. Yeah. I had a few people on that like grew really interesting product businesses, like Iconic Protein. That was an interesting one.

[00:36:40] But yeah, so if you want to expand their health industry business knowledge, by all means, check it out. Oh, that's super cool. And if people wanted to get in touch with you, where do they find you? Everything's on my website, Coreyhi.com. C-O-R-E-Y-H-I.com. Incredibly active on LinkedIn, which is where Nathan and I met. But so if you're on LinkedIn, I spend a lot of time on there. Gotcha. Well, do you have a website? Yeah, it's all at Coreyhi.com. Okay, because the name was Andrew Brand. And I was wondering if there's an Andrewbrand.com out there or something. Nope.

[00:37:08] I've just done it all based on the back of a personal brand at this point, which is kind of like what we were talking about before we were recording is I'm actually in the middle of funny enough of creating my own quote unquote branding for my own business outside of my own name. You're rebranding yourself, right? That's a hundred percent what I'm doing. That's cool. I know a guy. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. Yes. He's okay at it. That's cool. Well, hey, thanks for your time. It was great having you on the show. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

[00:37:38] Thanks for listening to the Private Practice Owners Club. If you enjoyed this episode, would you mind doing us a huge favor and leaving a review? This helps us get the podcast out to more clinic owners to help them create greater freedom and profits so they can own their future. And visit our website, ppoclub.com to find more resources and connect with us. I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.