Tracking the Bottlenecks in Your Business with Derek Nielsen

[00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the Aaron LeBauer Show. I'm your host, Aaron, the big tall red headed dude with a beard. Today my special guest is Dr. Derek Nielsen. Derek is a physical therapist.

[00:00:13] He's like a marketing conversion specialist as well now. Derek, I forgot to look it up, but Derek has been on the podcast before. It's been a while. He's back on like CashBG Lunch Hour podcast.

[00:00:26] I could probably go look it up. We'll probably have that in the show notes. But Derek was the first CashBT resident. We talked about that in the podcast. Derek came and worked with us in

[00:00:37] I think 2017, and then went and started his own practice in a town where he knew nobody. He had a little bit of help along the way, but Derek did like just about 100,000 in his first

[00:00:51] year. And we looked back and I've got the whole thing, but it was like one of those things where and Derek remembers this well. We had just raised our rates and Derek's like, no, I'm going to stick

[00:01:00] at the old rates. And that caused him to just miss like 100K in his first year. But what Derek did was I think by the eighth month, Derek was seeing 15 people a week. And we looked at my schedule and

[00:01:12] what it took. And it took me five years to get to that consistently. So and now, I mean, that's been so long. That's been a while. Now things are different. Derek ran his practice for a while.

[00:01:23] We want to catch up with him, talk about some of the new things he's doing, etc. And Derek, welcome to the show. I appreciate you a ton. Yeah, thanks for having me. It has been a long time.

[00:01:37] Yeah, it has been. Do you remember? I remember we talked about how you first found out about me, but I guess like it's, I think you graduated. I'm looking, I found the podcast episode,

[00:01:49] but it doesn't have a number. But it's we, it was back in 2017. You reached out to me, I think. And you were like, hey, I'm graduating soon. I want to come, you know, learn from you work with

[00:01:59] you or do something like that. Do you remember what that first like message was a request or how that came about? Well, I had initially so before I even graduated school, I enrolled in Greg Todd's

[00:02:12] program. Yeah, back in 17. And I was like, Greg, hey, who can I reach out to? I wanted to cash. I know Greg doesn't do cash. Who can I reach out to? I want to study under somebody because

[00:02:22] I don't know what the heck I'm doing. Right. And he said, he said, reach out to Aaron Labauer. Like, alright, cool. So reached out to you. And, you know, I initially asked you and you reminded

[00:02:32] me of this the other week when I spoke at your mastermind event. Reminded me that I initially reached out to you and wanted to shadow. Yeah. You're like, hey, yeah, I don't think you can

[00:02:42] really do that here because of legality purposes like, oh, crap. Okay. You had me look it up. I looked it up. Nope, not going to work. All right. What's the next step? And you and I just continue

[00:02:53] talking back and forth. And somehow I got you to let me in the door and work for you for a year and then train me on systems and cells and all of that stuff so I could start my own thing.

[00:03:04] Yeah, that's awesome. Cool. I just looked it up. It was like, we were like, we're episode 39 and 40. We did like a two-part thing. And there might've been another one where there was episode that, and then there was another one where we talked about the residency episode

[00:03:20] 83. So if you guys are want to go back and check that out after you listen to this. So Derek, just thinking back to that time working here with me or going through any of the

[00:03:33] trainings that we did together, we, you know, things that we built, like what was the number one thing that you learned? What was the biggest lesson that you had? What's the thing that's like,

[00:03:41] I don't know, that you've, that you, that you got out of that time together in 2017, 2018? Well, there were a couple of things. First of all, it was treatment, what courses to take.

[00:03:57] Then second of all, it was confidence, being able to actually sell PT and trust that my skills are worthy of, you know, charging $150, $200 an hour. And then it was the backend systems. How do I,

[00:04:12] what do I use for an EMR? What do I use for scheduling? What, how do I follow up with people, email, text, all of the systems you introduced me to that as well. So that I actually felt like I

[00:04:24] was walking out and having a business as opposed to, I'm just kind of willy nilly going and providing workshops. I don't have any followup systems. I don't know. Hopefully people become patients. But what if they don't, I don't have anything on the backend. So it was,

[00:04:39] it was all of that, but really what I think more than anything, what it comes down to is, is the confidence. Yeah. That's awesome. Did you, you didn't get that in school? That was a trick question.

[00:04:55] No. Yeah. Neither did I know. I had no confidence in like my ability to prescribe exercise or anything like that. No, I felt like school was good for, they taught me what not to do. Yeah. They taught me not, they taught me how to not kill somebody.

[00:05:10] Right. Other than that, it wasn't like, it wasn't really how to solve somebody's pain. It was how to not hurt them. Right. Right. And I think that's, that's the job that school has. But I also think

[00:05:22] that, you know, when you were a new grad, I mean, you were still able to help people though, right? I mean, I think a lot of new grads think they can't help people. Did you feel that way?

[00:05:32] I don't think I would have felt that way unless I took courses out of after, you know, like you had me go out and fly to California and take an SFMA course. I went to somewhere else and took a myofascial

[00:05:44] release course and then eventually took dry needling. Like you told me what steps to take so that I was ready clinically, which was extremely helpful. Yeah. Did you feel like you needed to go do an OCS certification specialty to feel confident?

[00:06:00] I'm not going to say that that wouldn't help, but I don't think I needed it. Was that ever a consideration for you? No. Yeah. And the reason it wasn't is because I was

[00:06:09] listening to what you guys were saying. I was listening to you and other people and, you know, it's, I don't need to spend like an extra year. I can go, you know, take courses. And the other

[00:06:19] thing is like feeling, you know, you, you take the course, you implement it, then you retake it. Like I took the SFMA course. I went back and retook that thing four times because you go in and you

[00:06:31] learn something new every time, even though the course doesn't change, you change. And so being able to go back and revisit that information is crucial. And that's the same thing philosophy I

[00:06:40] take with business. I'll go back and read the same stuff over and over and over. Even like a year later, I'll read it again because again, it's not that the information doesn't change,

[00:06:51] but where I'm at does change. And so I can see things a little bit differently than I would have a year ago. Yeah. Right on. So cool. So you left, you went and started cash practice in

[00:07:03] Durham. Were you in Durham or Raleigh? I think you're Durham, right? Correct. Specifically Durham. And then, um, you did that. Did you do that? You did that for like five years? Yep. Almost five. Almost five. And so, um, five years. I mean, I know from what I know,

[00:07:20] you know, it was pretty successful, but it sounds like you just got more interested in more of the marketing stuff than treating patients. Can you, you know, like what changed for you over time,

[00:07:29] you know, and you know, what do you like, how'd that kind of influence what you're doing now? Uh, well, I found, I finally realized one day that it was a problem when I was treating a patient

[00:07:39] thinking about marketing. Like, uh, you know what, this pro this is, this is going to be a problem. I really need to, I'm falling in love with marketing. I've always really, really enjoyed

[00:07:49] sales. Um, and so, you know, the week before I left, if you remember, Aaron, uh, I convinced you to let me, uh, do an in-person workshop in your clinic. You emailed your list. We got people

[00:08:03] to come in that, uh, I think it was a Saturday morning. Uh, Tyler, who was replacing me came to the clinic and I ran the workshop and I think you were actually going out of town. So you weren't

[00:08:14] even there. Yeah. And so I took that workshop that I'd been working on and I, you know, I built slides and keynote, uh, and I took that workshop, presented it on a projector inside your clinic and,

[00:08:27] and got new patients for Tyler. Uh, and then I took the recording of that and I ended up turning that into a webinar, uh, for myself and started testing that with ads. Um, uh,

[00:08:39] and if I back up before that, uh, initially how I filled my clinic was workshops just like most people do, you know, going out and doing, uh, movement screens, pain screens, reaching out in

[00:08:51] the community. Uh, and I realized that I didn't like that. Um, I kind of got tired of it. Not that it wasn't, I mean, it's very productive. Like if you can get in front of people, there's

[00:09:01] nothing better than that. Uh, but there's a fine line between, okay, now I have a full schedule. Well, how am I going to get out in the community, uh, to continue doing this? And then, and then

[00:09:14] all of a sudden your schedule starts dipping. It's like, okay, I gotta get back, back out in the community. Um, and I just hated playing that cycle. Um, and so I started running Facebook ads

[00:09:24] and quickly learned that, uh, you know, running ads to a discounted visit wasn't producing the type of leads that I wanted, always trying to get them on the phone, get them on the phone,

[00:09:33] not being able to reach them, uh, and having to chase leads around. And so I did, I ended up taking that workshop that I performed, uh, at your, your clinic, uh, and turned it into a webinar and

[00:09:44] started running ads to it. And it took me a while to get that thing working, but I eventually filled my schedule. Uh, and I used it for about a year. So what'd you say? You have like a, an

[00:09:54] online workshop where people register, they give you their name, phone number, email, they watch it. And then somewhere in that workshop there is called action to book in a call with you to solve the

[00:10:05] problem. Something like that. The call to action was actually for a, uh, a discounted visit, but it started with a phone, a phone console. Yeah. So it wasn't like it was, it was, you know,

[00:10:17] they knew what they were getting into that. It was going to be a, I think I ran a $49 visit nowadays that I would recommend people do 99. Um, but I think I ran a $49 visit. And so they, you know,

[00:10:29] that if they wanted that, they'd start by booking directly on my calendar for a 20 minute console. Nice, nice. And so you were able to run that in the background while you're treating patients and

[00:10:38] almost like really stopped doing the in-person workshops. Yep. Yep. Um, I really relied on that and referrals. Yeah. For context, how long did it take you to get that to where it, uh, you know,

[00:10:51] like where it was working, like in quotes working, like you can spend, you know, $10 on Facebook and get $20 back in new patients or however it was like a year. Yeah. Yeah. At least a year. I had a bunch

[00:11:04] of iterations on that workshop because I use the software that's called vitality, um, where it tracks the amount of time that somebody watches a year video. And then based on that tracking,

[00:11:16] you can set it up to where if they don't ever see the offer, Hey, come in for the visit. They don't ever see the offer. It can automatically, if you, if you, uh, also use Zapier to integrate, it can

[00:11:28] automatically kick them into an, an email, uh, workflow that tries to push them back to the video. But anyways, long story short, I can view how long people are watching it. And I know you can

[00:11:40] know pretty quickly if people are leaving, you know, instantly, they're only getting a couple minutes in when it's a 30 minute workshop. All right. This thing's not going to work. Yep. So did the people that watch the whole thing, were they the ones more likely to come see you?

[00:11:53] Or is it people that only watched part of it? Oh, the whole thing. Yeah. The whole thing, which is interesting. Cause I remember we talked about that. I remember, um, I think Frank Kern

[00:12:02] put out something a year or two ago. Um, and if y'all don't know who Frank Kern is, he's like old school and he's not as super old school marketer, but he's like, it was kind of more classic

[00:12:11] marketer. And then there's the old school guys, but Frank was talking about how people that watch his whole videos are less likely to buy than people that watch the first, you know, 10 seconds.

[00:12:20] And, and I don't know which promotion this was, but it was it for that was, this is different. This is for people in business and people in pain, but it was people in business.

[00:12:29] If you have the whole time to watch, if you have time to watch the whole thing, you're not busy, but the people that didn't have the time to watch the whole five minutes

[00:12:36] were busy and they needed a solution to their problem versus people that had time to watch the whole thing. And I thought that was really interesting. Um, but it seems like maybe there's like this, you know, difference with, you know, patients like, did you find anything else

[00:12:50] unique like that? Well, I, what I would love to know from Frank is the follow up, the follow-up system. Right. You know, when did they purchase, was it from the email they came in for that

[00:12:59] webinar, but they didn't purchase right. If they didn't, did they purchase right then or did they purchase later? And I think this was like, and I think this was like from an ad, like, so like

[00:13:10] we're and also we're talking about like who watched the webinar versus like, I think he was talking about like, if you watch the whole two minute ad, you're less likely to buy than if you watch the

[00:13:17] first 20, 10, 20 seconds and click on the button, you know, which is, you know, I don't know where they're in. And then I don't know where they were going, but I just thought that was an interesting

[00:13:27] concept. You know what I mean? Like you're right. Like we got to know all the details about like that funnel before we really analyze it. Um, but you know, like that's a behavior like,

[00:13:36] so I guess then is, is it like, so if people are watching it, they're really interested, they're more likely to, to need a solution to their problem. Is that kind of conclusion? Yeah, absolutely. And then your followup changes based on that. So if I know somebody who watched

[00:13:52] the entire video, I can talk to that person a little bit different, or I can even, you know, pick up the phone and call them or send them a text. Um, you know, sometimes they're not a good

[00:14:02] fit and people are, a lot of people are just interested in pain. You know, they're sometimes they'd be like, Hey, you know, I really don't have a problem, but your ad, your ad spoke to me and I

[00:14:10] was just interested in what you were saying. Um, but sometimes I would, you get on the phone and have a conversation with this person that did not inquire from the video. But once you have a

[00:14:20] conversation with them, they end up coming in for a visit. A lot of times there's just one question that wasn't answered in that video that if you can answer on the phone, the next thing you know,

[00:14:28] you've got a brand new patient and a lot of it does come down or some of it does come down to insurance. There's just a lot of uncertainty around that question. How are you able, like,

[00:14:38] what was it? Is it vitality that was tracking whether someone watched the whole thing or not, and that would tag them and start the new automations or something else, some other software that you're using for that. So it was combined with, uh, the PT marketing machine.

[00:14:52] So it was analytics with, uh, Zapier and then the emails and the contact information and all of the backend systems was within PT marketing machines. So the three of those would talk back and forth.

[00:15:04] Yeah. That's cool. Cause I use webinar jam and webinar jam will, I think instead of using Zapier, it's got more of the direct integration and it will, uh, it'll trigger like, did you sign up and

[00:15:16] not attend? Did you attend? And I can say, didn't watch past 20 minutes. And then I can send, you know, like I can tag them differently. And, you know, so I can see like, if I know my offers

[00:15:25] at 45 minutes and left before they offer, I can do that, which is cool. Um, I did a couple of those webinars for the clinic, like you had shared with me, but I, but I did them, but I didn't run Facebook

[00:15:36] ads to them. And I, you know, I never felt like I got it right, but I also didn't at the time I was doing it, the clinic was busy and it wasn't like my number one focus, but, um, did you do them live

[00:15:47] or did you just record it and then have it up on the, as a replay? I re I recorded it and then it was as a replay. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. And so you're running webinars, bringing patients in, um,

[00:16:02] and you're running, did you run Facebook ads to anything else or just ads to the, to the webinar, get them on a call, get them into this like discounted, like first visit type of thing.

[00:16:11] Yeah. So, I mean, like I said, I tried Facebook ads to a discounted visit and I just found that that was a pain. Um, I'm not saying that that can't work because obviously people do make it work,

[00:16:23] but if you're a solo practitioner, it is very challenging having to call all of these leads. Um, and sift and filter through who's warm, who's not. Uh, whereas the video can start to do that

[00:16:35] for you. You know, if, if the main thing between who I choose to work with as a patient really comes down to, are they motivated? How motivated is this person? And if somebody's willing to watch

[00:16:45] a 30 minute video that they've already, they've already raised their hand and said, Hey, you know what? I'm motivated. Yeah. And that's who I'm looking for. Yeah, dude. That's awesome. So you've run, um, ads, uh, for other people. Have you done, you've done the webinars for

[00:16:58] other people too, or help them build them? Have you gotten, have you done that yet? Or is that? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I help people build webinars. We started with the shoulder

[00:17:08] and then we moved on to a hip webinar. I actually hooked up with a guy that's, uh, in Austria that, uh, is an animation. I call him an animation specialist. He's like a puppet master.

[00:17:20] Yeah. When it comes to animations, he can do anything you want. Uh, when it comes to building any movement with an, an ad, an anatomy man or woman, I don't know. That's cool. Anatomy man.

[00:17:30] What's the, so like when you're running it for someone else versus for you, what's like the biggest bottleneck or what's the thing that most other like PTs are missing before, you know, we

[00:17:39] can get Facebook ads to work or like a webinar. What's the thing, like the one thing that either they need to work on or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or,

[00:17:50] that's missing or that needs, that's like needs to make sure that like that part of the funnel is like tight. Yeah. Good. It sells. Yeah. It really is cells. It's a different, like being able to get

[00:18:02] in front of somebody. Uh, like if I do a pain assessment of energy screens, or if I do some sort of workshop in front of somebody, it's way more powerful and way easier to turn that person

[00:18:14] into a patient than if somebody that comes from a Facebook ad. And so it really, it really comes down to cells. How well is the sales process? And that's what I have found throughout here is that,

[00:18:27] um, you know, while running this for myself and while helping other clinics perform their marketing as well, is that everybody wants more marketing. They want more marketing. They think marketing is going to solve their problem, but they don't have a solid sales process

[00:18:43] in place first. And if you, if they don't have that, then it really doesn't matter how good the marketing is. So that's what I have. And I'm sure you can tell me too. Um, but that's what I

[00:18:54] have learned along the way is that it really, you have to have that foundational piece in. Right now, uh, two, okay. Two questions. Why do people think marketing is a solution and why are

[00:19:04] they so hesitant to do sales? I think there's just this belief around marketing that if I put up an ad, people are going to say yes. Next thing I know they're going to be my patient. Uh, and there's a,

[00:19:14] there's a, there's a hesitation around cells, uh, because they don't know how to, they don't, they don't know how to approach that conversation. And, and the conversation around cells, um, is less like almost, almost nothing around PT itself. Yeah. It's around, it's around the person that I'm

[00:19:35] speaking to and understanding the right questions to ask that person so that they identify themselves as a good fit for my clinic, as opposed to me trying to convince them on why my treatment

[00:19:47] approach is better than everybody else. So why do people feel like they have to convince people that their thing is better or that Dean, do you have an insight to that? Yeah. Well, it's because

[00:20:00] that's what they know. Yeah. And I did this too. Like this isn't me trying to point fingers at anybody. This is, this is miss. These are mistakes I made. It's because that's what we know. We know

[00:20:10] our treatment process and we know physical therapy, but what we don't know is really, um, the sales mindset and how to ask the right questions to the person, uh, to get them telling us they want to

[00:20:22] work with us. Sales is a lot of cells is trying to build a gap between where somebody is today and where they want to be. I remember having a ton of conversations with, um, potential patients

[00:20:34] and I would ask them, Hey, what are you doing for the pain? They would tell me. And then I'd say, well, are you taking any pain meds? And they wouldn't even tell me that until I asked it.

[00:20:42] And so if I didn't ask that, I'm not building this gap between my solution or where they are today and where they want to be. And if we're going to charge cash, then we have to, we're forced

[00:20:54] to build that we're forced to build that gap because if, if they don't see our solution as solving a big problem, then they're not going to be willing to pay our prices. So we have to,

[00:21:04] we have to really make that problem a little bit bigger. Yeah. What's the, I mean, in, in your, from your experience, you know, working with patients, what's the big, what are the biggest

[00:21:14] problems that you could help people solve? Like what were the big things that made people say? Yeah. Like when you could stretch the gap and get to the real problem, we all know it's not,

[00:21:24] well, maybe not all of us, you and I know it's not range of motion in their knee. Like that's not the problem they want solved. Like, what are the big problems that people were coming to you

[00:21:30] for versus down the street for the copay? Man, I, a lot of it, I think comes down to uncertainty, uncertainty of their future. You know, like I was listening to a call the other day and, and

[00:21:44] the PT was talking or the lady on the phone was talking about, she wanted to squat deeper and like, and I'm listening to it and like, that's not really what she wants.

[00:21:52] Like what, what she wants is, is to not have to worry about this problem or to age. And this problem, you know, what does it look like in two years from now, if this problem continues getting

[00:22:02] worse? So one, one thing that I always ask on the, on the phone was, Hey, is this problem getting worse? Because if somebody tells me this problem is getting worse, I know that they're more likely

[00:22:12] to want to do something about it. What are the keys to getting the, getting the gap, getting this transformational, like goal? Like what's the number one question to ask that, that people like,

[00:22:21] would it be helpful for people listening? Um, I think the best piece of advice I can give is not really the question to ask, but it's more about listening. Yeah. Like really try and get outside

[00:22:34] of your head and listen to what the person is saying and just have a conversation with them about their problem, as opposed to thinking what you're going to say next, like get, try and get

[00:22:47] away from all of these canned questions or canned responses, and just let that go and get on the phone and actually have a one-to-one conversation with somebody. And instead of talking about your

[00:23:01] solution, really try and figure out who it is that you're talking to and what it is that they want, what it is that they've tried, how long has this been going on and really have a deep conversation

[00:23:12] with them and connect with them. Um, and the next thing, you know, they're like, Hey, can I schedule? Yeah. Yeah, dude. Um, very cool. So, um, let's see. Hey guys, just, Hey, we've done a lot of sales

[00:23:25] stuff, but I think this is really good because, um, Derek came to our two-day platinum mastermind retreat. It was a bit about a month and did a presentation on sales and I learned some great

[00:23:35] stuff. Um, and it, uh, is super helpful. Um, but sales is important. And I do think that we all think that, you know, like when we're not comfortable with sales, we feel like it's, it's hard to sell

[00:23:48] ourselves and sell something that I don't have like a finite, like amount of time or a thing to give you, but that's the nuance in healthcare. Um, and so I think Derek just to transition from that,

[00:24:04] you know, I think that my next kind of question is, you know, as we're, I know from talking to you, it was like, okay, Derek, Derek's like, I can drive leads to a practice like with some Facebook

[00:24:15] ads. And, but it's like, how do we, you know, and people was like, yeah, I can do the sales. We fix the sales. Okay. But what's the real bottleneck. And Derek, you and I have chatted about this,

[00:24:24] like, you know, whether it's in a clinic or coaching business or anything other business, I got to find like, where's the bottleneck and everyone thinks it's the marketing. But if we really look at all the metrics and numbers, we can find out where the real bottleneck is. And

[00:24:38] it may not be the marketing. Derek, can you like just talk about like, what are the big like categories or areas that people need to look or what are the numbers we need to know or measure

[00:24:47] in our business to be able to understand where the biggest opportunities are bottlenecks are in our, in our business, our marketing, our funnels? Yeah. So that's a really good question. Cause yeah, you're right. Everybody, most people should never say everybody, but most people do

[00:25:02] think it's a marketing thing. You know, I've had numerous clients that I'm like, okay, how's your sales process? Oh, that consistently they say, you get them in front of me, I can sell them.

[00:25:13] And then we get them in front of them and that's just not the case. And so being able to actually have data, like you said, that, that shows us that identifies and not, not just data over,

[00:25:25] you know, three weeks, four weeks, this data over three months, four months, five months, and then being able to look back and say, okay, how are we doing? And if we're not doing well,

[00:25:36] what are we going to do to change that? So that's the metrics that we really need to look at is what, what metrics are going to give you insight into it. If it's not good, what behavior can you change?

[00:25:48] Cause if we just look at it at a metric, but that doesn't really tell us what behavior we can change to improve it, then it's not really a valid metric. Right. So I've really listed it. I put it in kind of four categories of the business and it's

[00:26:05] product. So product is more like top level metrics. Okay. It's revenue. How many visits have you had? How many packages have you sold? Top level metrics. Then you have marketing, which is where

[00:26:18] are you getting the people coming in to your world? Not necessarily in for a visit, but even into your website, where are they finding you? And then we do have sales, which is the obvious.

[00:26:31] And then the fourth one is customer satisfaction. So this is finished plan of care, drop-offs, even things like a referral program. How was your referral program doing? Because if you're tracking how your referral program is doing and you look back and you're like, well, we're not getting

[00:26:47] referrals. Well, let's change it and let's see if we can start getting referrals. So that's where tracking all of this really comes into play to really pinpoint, okay, how are we doing across

[00:26:57] the board? What bottleneck do we identify? And then how are we going to improve that and actually writing it down? Like how are we going to improve so we can go back to it and say, did it work?

[00:27:08] Yes or no. Okay. What are we going to change? Right. I think one of the most frustrating things I hear from people is that I tried Facebook ads and they didn't work. And the two things that I

[00:27:16] hear from them is they tried it for two, maybe three months max and expected it to work quickly. But it brought them a lot of leads, but they were like, I'm not growing my business. And

[00:27:26] so the Facebook ads aren't working. But what it really is, is a couple of factors of not only target audience, but what's the sales and onboarding process? And do we have something

[00:27:38] that works for people that are a colder audience than just a word of mouth referral that they might be used to? And it just becomes this bottleneck and just like, oh, well, Facebook ads

[00:27:46] don't work. Which to me is similar to someone saying, I had back pain when I tried physical therapy, it doesn't work. You're like, but you didn't come to see me. So how do we...

[00:28:01] If there's one thing to measure, which is the first thing that we need to start with to know, is it really a new patient and a marketing issue? Or is there more of a sales or systems or delivery type of issue? I would start by measuring sales process.

[00:28:17] Because I know from myself, working as a PT, that was the number one problem, was the sales process. And I think that's where everybody starts. Like I said, it's a lot easier to sell somebody from an in-person workshop than it is from advertising. It's a completely different

[00:28:35] game. So if I could make one recommendation to start measuring, it's your sales process and then breaking it down by where did this person find us? And how are we doing across each of these

[00:28:48] sources? Like if they found us on Facebook, how are we doing with that? If they found us on Google, how are we doing with that? If they found us through our website, how are we doing with that?

[00:28:57] So that you can break... Because you'll have different conversions for each of those. And you should have different conversions for each of those. But just because Facebook is worse than Google doesn't mean Facebook can't work. It's just what is that number? And you're always trying...

[00:29:14] Aaron, you running your clinic, running Facebook ads, me running a clinic, running Facebook ads, we could have two different measurements. So it's not like we'd necessarily comparing ourselves to each other. But over time, if you track this, you can compare yourself to yourself. And then you can

[00:29:29] start making changes to try and improve. But that's the one thing that I would tell people to measure, if anything. Yeah. And we got to have what? Like 100 data points in probably

[00:29:37] months of time. We got to have like three months of time plus... I mean, we got to run ads for a while if we're going to run ads. And I think that's one thing that people have a hard time

[00:29:46] stomaching. They're like, well, it's expensive to run ads and I'm not getting an ROI. But that ROI is over time and we have to see where the baseline is, run ads, improve funnels, improve sales process

[00:29:57] and keep running until we figure out where the bottlenecks are and how do we fix them? And give it time to see did the fix take place? Right? Yeah. And track it. Because if people

[00:30:10] don't track, then it all comes down to emotion. It's like I feel like this is the problem. And then if anytime somebody starts a response with that, I feel like it's like, uh-oh, we got an issue because I feel like it's going to get us in trouble.

[00:30:26] Yeah. So in sales, we need to hit emotions. But if we're looking at business and metrics, we need to keep the emotions out and we need to look at the numbers. Yeah, very good. Absolutely.

[00:30:35] So what are the numbers or areas? What are the things we need to look at? Where the leads are coming from? What conversion rates? What are some of the... What are the things that we need to measure in the sales process?

[00:30:51] So I have something I call a six-layer funnel that I measure for people in what I call the scorecard system, which is what I set up for clinics. And it starts with leads. And then,

[00:31:03] okay, the way I look at it is a funnel. It starts with leads. We have all the leads. Okay, the next step of that, of those leads, how many of them inquired? Of those that inquired, how many of them scheduled a visit? Of those who scheduled a visit,

[00:31:16] how many of them showed for the visit? Of those who showed for a visit, how many of them scheduled a follow-up treatment? Of those who scheduled the follow-up treatment, how many of them showed

[00:31:24] for the follow-up treatment? And by measuring each stage of that funnel, now we can start to identify where the bottleneck is. Because if we're getting a bunch of leads, nobody's scheduling. Okay, we got a marketing problem. But scheduling a phone call rather, not necessarily scheduling

[00:31:41] an eval, but if they're not scheduling for a phone consultation, we've got a marketing problem. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the ad, but it could be our follow-up. How are our emails? Are we actually getting people clicking on our emails to even go to the scheduling page?

[00:31:55] And then if we go back down and we say, we're getting people to schedule an eval, but some of them aren't showing up. Well, that could be a sales process or that could be what happens after

[00:32:07] they schedule. What are they seeing after they schedule? Is there something that we can improve there? But those are the kind of the six stages that I really look at and then dive in from there.

[00:32:17] Yeah. And is this something that you call on the phone and you write it down on a piece of paper? How do we track this? What are the ways to make sure that we're getting all the data in?

[00:32:31] Yeah. That is the bare bones way to do it, caveman way, is to just write it all down, which it's better than nothing for sure. And by writing it down, that's going to keep you on top of your

[00:32:46] game. But no, what I do is build a system that's with forms so that all they do is fill out a quick form and then it puts it into the data and displays it. Yeah. And I think so you've got it.

[00:32:59] What I saw was it's more like after a call or visit, there's a couple of clicks and buttons and you put some data in and it triggers some follow-up emails, but it populates the spreadsheets

[00:33:10] and there's a quick view where you can see how's the business doing from one page. I think that's kind of how you had it, where it's color-coded. I want to be able to log in every Friday

[00:33:26] and go, oh, here's the metrics. And I've had that before and I had to have someone still manually count somewhere at the front. Amber would have to manually or Sarah manually count where this was

[00:33:40] and then enter it every Friday. And sometimes they would forget to do that because we still had this manual piece to it, but I could still look in and be like, okay, this category isn't doing

[00:33:50] great. How do I resolve that problem? Which was nice, but I didn't always get the data because it had to be still manually calculated a lot of times on a piece of paper and then move from that

[00:34:02] to a spreadsheet. Yeah, it is displayed. So what I use is I use a three-system approach where it's Google Tag Manager, which Tag Manager kind of shows us what clicks to track on the form.

[00:34:20] So if we're pressing the form button that says this person's scheduled, it tracks that. And then it sends that data over to Google Analytics, which Google Analytics is a good storage. That's what it does is stores the data. And then I use Google Looker Studio,

[00:34:37] which it displays the data. And then you can go into Looker Studio and you can start clicking around. Like if I identify there's a problem with drop-offs, I can go to the drop-off page and I can

[00:34:50] click on each therapist and say, okay, which therapist is having the drop-offs and it will filter it by that. Nice. That's dope. Yeah. So then you can say, because I did that with Chris,

[00:35:01] we were tracking phone calls at one point and I could see when Chris started, he started answering phone calls, his conversion rate was low. We worked on it and his conversion rate went up like another

[00:35:11] 20%. And I was like, that's awesome. So it was just having that data to know which therapist is getting the drop-offs or whoever answers the phone, who's getting more conversion rates.

[00:35:24] That's super helpful as the clinic owner to be able to go in and how do we address it with the right person too. Yeah. And so it also immediately by tracking that, it holds people accountable.

[00:35:35] Without you having to say anything as the business owner, if they know they're being tracked, then they know that they're being held accountable. And like you said, we don't necessarily

[00:35:44] have to have a conversation with Chris. He sees it and he's like, oh crap, I need to solve this. Whereas if it wasn't there, he may have not really connected it and seen it. Yeah. That's awesome. And so with the scorecard, you're building that out for yourself,

[00:36:01] you build that out for other clinics so that they don't have to go worry about Google Tag Manager and stuff like that. It's just like I can work with you, get the data and you set that up for

[00:36:12] people. Is that how that works? Yeah. So I've got all of the forms already set up. I've got the backend set up. There is some customization that needs to occur based on

[00:36:22] the clinic. But yes, absolutely set it up. And then as long as them and their teams are willing to fill out the forms at each stage of the journey, when we get on the phone with someone,

[00:36:34] there's a form we need to fill out. After a post visit, there's a form that we need to fill out. So as long as we fill out a quick form at each stage of the journey, it'll automatically track

[00:36:43] that and then display it. Yeah. And that's a form on the computer screen, not like a handwritten form. It takes like 30 seconds to fill out. It's like click, click. And then so if someone

[00:36:55] is thinking like, okay, is that scorecard for me? What kind of business, what stage of business, what size of business is this good for? Who would something like that be a waste of time for?

[00:37:05] I'll leave that up to them to say if it's a waste of time. I don't think it's a waste of time really for anybody. Because when you're ready for it, you're going to want to look back on the data.

[00:37:17] Right? By the time you're ready for it, that means you're going to wish that you had six to 12 months of data to be able to start making decisions today. So it is, it's about looking back.

[00:37:28] But obviously it comes down to cost. If you're not in a situation to be able to pay for something like that, then it's probably not the right fit for them. But anybody who's serious about growing their business, and especially if you already have employees,

[00:37:42] and you're the treating therapist, and you find yourself overwhelmed with everything you've got going on, and it's hard to keep things straight. That's where something like this can have a bird's

[00:37:54] eye view for you. And then all you have to do is log in and look at the metrics. And again, as long as your employees are filling out those forms, because without them filling out the form,

[00:38:03] nothing is going to work. Right. So that's cool. So we've got some metrics, we got some sales. What are some of the other bottlenecks besides knowing your metrics and sales? What are some of the bottlenecks you've seen in marketing? What are some of the areas that maybe recommendations

[00:38:24] you have generally for people to look at or that might need some improvement? I think at a bare minimum, you obviously don't have to hire me. But at a bare minimum,

[00:38:35] I think you should have Google Analytics set up on your website. Because a lot of people I find are posting on social media and they have no idea if it's working. It's not bringing any

[00:38:46] patience in. But just because it's not bringing patience in doesn't mean it's not working. It could be people could still be clicking the links finding out about you and learning about your clinic. And does that mean it's not working? Well, I guess that means

[00:39:00] it's not working if I don't have something on the back end of that. Maybe some retargeting on Facebook could be something useful. But at least Google Analytics can start to identify, hey, are people clicking my links on my organic posts and going to my website?

[00:39:17] And it can start doing that with a source medium report. So if you look under source medium, it'll say Facebook organic. And it'll tell you where that person came from so you can identify if that's even worth worthy of time. But you don't put analytics into like,

[00:39:33] you know, like it's not installed inside social media. It can just tell you that they came from Instagram or they came from Facebook and landed on your page, but it won't necessarily say which post they came from, right? Correct. Yeah, it'll just say Facebook organic.

[00:39:47] If you're running ads to your website, it would say Facebook. I think they use CPC, which is cost per click or Facebook paid social, something like that. Facebook's paid. Yeah. And it also tells you what keywords they search for on Google and ended up on your page

[00:40:05] as well, which has always been helpful for me to create blog posts and content. Analytics is really powerful and it does so much more than like I've ever used to. Right out of the box, it's good. It's valuable right out of the box. Like

[00:40:20] GA4, which is the new analytics that they use, it will show you how much time people are sending on your page right out of the box. It'll also tell you how many people are going at 90% down the page.

[00:40:32] Like I said, it'll show you kind of where people are coming from. I don't think it would show you like you said about searching, but Google search console will show you how people are finding you. Yeah. At least analytics used to have a tab where

[00:40:44] it was like it would have like a key under the organic or part of the organic. It would have keywords and it would show the keywords. Maybe they've moved that to a different location. That's it. Yeah. If you're running Google ads, it will show that.

[00:40:56] Okay. Okay. Yeah. I've just been, it's like I've been on Google using their stuff for so long. My stuff's all messed up because I had it where, you know, now you can have multiple accounts for

[00:41:06] one login on Google. But when I started it, you had to have a different email login for every business. And so my stuff just got spread out and then it got confusing when they updated.

[00:41:15] And I was like, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not looking at it. Someone else do that. Yeah. Awesome. What, let's see. I think if there was one strategy for someone to grow their business long-term, not just like, let's get some money

[00:41:34] tomorrow, but like what's a long-term strategy to grow your business over time and make sure that it's sustainable besides like tracking your metrics and, you know, doing workshops and running ads. You know, I mean, those are all great strategies. There's something that you can do to help people

[00:41:51] and, you know, helping other people in the last few years, running their ads and doing their marketing with them. Is there something else that is working or that people should be looking at

[00:42:00] doing that's coming down the line with AI stuff? I mean, is there some other recommendation you have? I mean, yes, there's other things that people can absolutely use, but I think that

[00:42:11] what I would say is, you know, if you're a business owner, you want to make sure that yes, there's other things that people can absolutely use. But I think that

[00:42:21] what ends up happening is we get too deep into the weeds. I feel like, you know, one thing you've taught me Aaron is simple scales. And I've had to relearn that over and over again, you know,

[00:42:34] wanting to deliver the world, but delivering the world is easy, is good to one person, but delivering the world to a hundred people is extremely hard. And so simple scales is, okay, do you have the systems in place? That's absolutely the other thing is

[00:42:51] what are we doing with everybody so that they're not dropping off? Like, do you have a placeholder for everybody in your business no matter how they come into your world and or do they drop off?

[00:43:03] Like what happens after a finished plan of care? What happens after somebody does drop off? What happens after somebody becomes a lead? Really there needs to be a place for everybody at every stage in the journey, no matter where they start inside of your business.

[00:43:19] Yeah. And how do you go about doing that? Like what are the first three steps to making sure that you have something like that? We use the PT marketing machine, which is if anybody's heard of high level,

[00:43:32] it's a program that's based on high level. It's just our version of it. And, you know, we give them some systems to start with, you know, the bare essential systems to at least get going, get rolling. And then they can always build from there.

[00:43:49] Yeah. And this is like, you know, okay, we got new patients come in. Let me send you some texts, emails. How do we follow up with them? We've got prospects, people from the webinars,

[00:44:01] people who've been patients for a while. What message do we need to send them? But this is like another version, an upgraded version of what I've been talking about while where it's

[00:44:11] how do we send you the right message at the right time without me having to sit behind the desk and do it all day long. Right. Plus, go ahead. I was saying, but plus it also does a whole lot,

[00:44:22] a lot more. So besides just sending emails and messages, you know, what else are you talking about? What are some of the other features and things that are useful for people to make sure

[00:44:32] that they're able to kind of keep up with the patients and people in their world? Well, you can build pages too. So you have your website, but then you also have pages that you

[00:44:43] don't really want on your website. Like if I'm running Facebook ads and I'm trying to get somebody into a webinar, or even if I'm trying to get them into, you know, a discounted visit, I don't really

[00:44:54] want to drive them to my website because I don't want them clicking all around my website. What I want to do is take action on what the ad said. And so you can build pages in there to be able to

[00:45:10] have a hidden page that wherever the traffic source comes from goes directly to that page. That's another thing that you can put in as well. So like you have a different page, one for Google, one for Facebook traffic or one for the workshop traffic and something else?

[00:45:24] Or yeah, you can. You can have, or you can have one page for all. It just depends on what is the call to action. Yeah. So it's more of like a hidden page. Like it's like, it's just more

[00:45:34] of a landing page that it doesn't have like your menu bar from your website on it, but it's part of your website and it's hidden, but it's where we send people after like a marketing campaign or,

[00:45:44] Hey, here's this, I made a special video for you and we have a place for it to live. So it doesn't have to live at YouTube and people get distracted and they go down to YouTube rabbit hole. They stay

[00:45:53] on our website and they're going to opt into our thing and request more information. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of the mindset I take of with people in their websites and how they put their Facebook icon

[00:46:06] or their U type tube icon on their website. And I'm like, is it the goal of the website? At least the way I see it, the goal of the website is to get a lead. If they come to the website,

[00:46:16] I don't want to be pushing them to my social media. What I want to do is push them to my form to fill out a form or to pick up the phone and call me if they're on my social media,

[00:46:25] I'm trying to push them to my website. My website's really where the warm traffic comes and that's where they start making decisions to reach out to us. Yeah. So that's really more of

[00:46:35] like, that's the funnel. Like once they hit your website, we don't want them to go anywhere else, but into our clinic or into a phone call with us. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm not trying to push

[00:46:44] them anywhere. Which is a traditional website has a big, says big fancy pictures. And it's like, Hey, look how good I am versus like, here's the place you're in the right place to solve the

[00:46:54] problem that you have. And if you have this problem, you know, you feel good. This is the right place. Here's where you need to do next, which is really what the marketing is all about.

[00:47:03] Yeah. Right. Yep. Yep. So marketing's job is to get people into position for a sale. And then the sale gets them into the right people, into the plan of care. And then after that we have

[00:47:14] to use some software and followups to make sure that people feel confident long-term that they're in the right place and that they're there in the right place to get a solution to their problem.

[00:47:26] Yep. Yeah. And that's where that PT marketing machine comes in as all on the backend. Yeah. And also that also manages referrals and what is it called? Like online reviews and all kinds

[00:47:35] of stuff. Yeah. It also, you know, one thing that we leverage on there that works really well is a missed call text back so you can manage your phone too. So I have a lot of people port

[00:47:47] their existing phone number into the software. We set up a missed call text back. It comes default with a missed call text back that basically says, Hey what question do you have or something like

[00:47:57] that? But what I recommend setting up is build a page within the software, a scheduling page that has your calendar and then send a missed call text back that says, Hey chances are I'm in with

[00:48:10] a patient right now. If you're a prospective patient and you're looking to schedule with us, click the link below and schedule a call. And some people will click that and schedule a call

[00:48:19] that you otherwise would have missed. So that's a huge advantage of having this software as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like the way that we've got that set up or we're building it is to say,

[00:48:31] Hey, if they're already an existing patient, send them this message. If they're not in our list, send them this other message. And we kind of like differentiate who people are, who's calling because if a patient's calling just to change the time, I don't necessarily

[00:48:46] want to send them that. And I can with the different tags, I can kind of send them this like custom curated message. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Good. Awesome. Cool. Derek, is there anything else you think would be helpful right now for people to know, or

[00:49:01] is there somewhere they should go to get in touch with you if they want to learn more about the scorecard system or get some other ideas about how they can get help to grow their business?

[00:49:14] I would say, if I could say one thing is just start with one thing, like take this show, whatever that we said and just start with one thing, whatever that one thing is that you think

[00:49:24] that you need, just start there. And then I'm in the middle of, by the time you hear the show, it'll probably be out right now. I'm putting together a toolbox. That's actually going to

[00:49:33] show you how to set up your GA4. It's going to show you how to use Google search console so that you can start seeing where, how people are finding you. You can see how your

[00:49:43] social media is working. If you're using that, you can see how people are getting to your website. I will have that out shortly. If you go to ptmarketingmachine.com forward slash Aaron, that will go to my website. You'll see the toolbox on there. You'll also see the scorecard

[00:49:59] system if you're interested in getting that set up. I do have a free training on that as well. Very cool. Derek, thank you for joining us today. This is awesome. And again, dude, it's been awesome. Well, I've known you since 2017, but it's been awesome working again with

[00:50:19] you in the last few months and building out some really cool stuff for my business as well as other people. So I'm looking forward to having you back on the show soon. We can talk about some of

[00:50:28] the stuff we're doing with my clinic and we'll dive into some other things as we move forward. Sound good? Yeah. Sales systems and scorecard. I appreciate you having me on here, Aaron. Absolutely. Well, hey guys, thanks for joining us for the podcast today.

[00:50:43] If you got anything out of it, I'd certainly love to hear but you know what? That's cool if you don't want to give us a shout out, but just send me a message. But really, what's the most

[00:50:53] important thing is that you take one tidbit of information from this and you take action on it. That's really the important thing to us. If there's anything that you need some help with,

[00:51:02] don't hesitate to reach out to me or to Derek. The links will be in the show notes. And we've got some great episodes for you coming up. So be sure to tune in, subscribe, like, and see on the next episode. Peace out.