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No One Gets Out Alive! Networking for People Who Hate Networking · No Appointment Necessary

• 0:00
  Michael: And welcome to the latest episode of No Appointment.
• 0:02
  Michael: Today we have Jonathan Shearer, who is a podiatrist.
• 0:05
  Michael: Keep getting all these bloody podiatrists on on the podcast.
• 0:09
  Michael: We've got another podiatrist uh who owns Footsteps Clinic.
• 0:12
  Michael: Um, and we're gonna talk today about two things.
• 0:16
  Michael: One briefly, uh, and and the rest is gonna be all about networking.
• 0:19
  Michael: Because I think networking is one of those things that uh everyone hates or thinks they hate, gets wrong, doesn't know how to do.
• 0:26
  Michael: And Jonathan's what have you been described as the networking king?
• 0:30
  Michael: Yeah, I think so.
• 0:31
  Michael: The people in the hive call me that.
• 0:32
  Michael: Yeah, the the networking king.
• 0:34
  Michael: So today we have the networking king.
• 0:35
  Michael: I don't know if I'd like that title, but anyway, the networking guru.
• 0:40
  Michael: Whatever.
• 0:40
  Michael: So let's uh quickly introduce yourself, Jonathan, and uh then we'll get into some some questions.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm a podiatrist, so I work in Tamworth um um town centre and Staffordshire.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've been in podiatry for um nearly 30 years, and so trained at Southampton Uni and NHS seven years, and then I ended up in the private sector, set up a clinic um 20 years ago from scratch, um, and started the clinic, and then um the rest is history, and I'm I'm working in a uh five-chair clinic now, and we work with sports therapists and podiatrists, and we we very much are local, although we get people who travel to see it as well.
• 1:16
  Michael: Do you do um a bit of upper limb as well then with the sports therapists?
• 1:20
  Michael: Yeah, we do loads of upper limb.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they do, all from the head downwards.
• 1:24
  Michael: Yeah, so very quick personal question.
• 1:26
  Michael: So we're about the same age, and I spent a lot of time when I was younger in Southampton around the time you were at uni.
• 1:33
  Michael: Did you ever go out and get absolute wasted at the square balloon?
• 1:35
  Michael: I'd heard of it, I didn't actually know, but I've heard of it very well.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard a lot of people went there at the time.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a nightclub called Icon that everyone used to go to in Southampton at the time.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right, let's get into it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start that though.
• 1:53
  Michael: Let's get into it.
• 1:55
  Michael: Um, and this is something that's really close to my heart.
• 1:57
  Michael: So you worked as a fruit store seller, little known fact about you.
• 2:02
  Michael: And you wanted to I wanted to ask you about your experience there and how that relates to presentation and patient experience.
• 2:10
  Michael: Because it's something that I will always talk about is the presentation of of your business in in both aesthetically but digitally as well, but then also in terms of that patient experience.
• 2:19
  Michael: So talk to me what you learned from your your humble start as a fruit store salesman.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, when I was a teenager, um, one of my first early jobs um was McDonald's, and then I ended up working a lot of fruit and vegetable, and I've really enjoyed the fruit and vegetable um a lot more because you could um have a lot of flexibility with it and you could actually communicate a lot more with people and you were just part of a machine.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we used to work um um on a Saturday or Thursday and we'd sell fruit and veg, you'd get up really early in the morning and you'd have a lot of stock.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with fruit and veg stock is if you don't sell it, it rots and it's gone.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got really a couple of days, two, three days to sell the stock off, um otherwise it's gone.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the challenges um for me was that at the end in the afternoon, the people that uh ran the stall, they used to leave me to sell all the stock off and they'd go down the pub or something.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time they came back, I'd sold like 90% of it, and the other 10% that was left I would take home.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the the key way I did it was connecting with people.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone that walked past, I would try and communicate with, and there's a really good offer here.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a really good product, and and we try and um sell it to people because it was to me everyone needs is fruit and veg.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I'd connect and and I'd just find out a little bit about the person, and I would also keep moving the fruit and veg around so I could present it because if if things aren't presentable, people just won't buy into your service, but they won't buy the fruit and veg.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you put all the oranges in a nice position and a nice place, they always sell.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the one thing I learned from doing the fruit and veg store where you've got to present things, you know, it's essentially it's your shop window, and uh it's hard when even when it rained or anything, I would always be good at trying to sell the stock off.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the guys on the stall actually got me to uh sell some watches um once on Christmas Eve, and he's he had 25 watches that he'd bought um stupidly, and he said, John, could you sell these watches for me?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought there's no way I'm gonna sell 25 watches on Christmas Eve.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, to cut a long story short, um I sold every single one bar one um on that on that day, and it's because I connected with people, and also I think communicating and seeing what people need, and also people feeling like they're getting good value for money was key as well for me.
• 4:29
  Michael: It's interesting because I have a friend who started off selling flowers, I think they were knocked off flowers outside of a station in uh Wimbledon, and he was a diamond of selling selling flowers, and he learned a lot about connecting with people, he learned a lot about presentation as well.
• 4:47
  Michael: He then moved into property and estate agency, now drives around in Bentleys and Ferraris and doesn't do any work.
• 4:53
  Michael: But it was really interesting because he bought that into the estate agency business, and you know you've had the experience, you know, when you say I want a one-bed flat or sorry, a five-bedroom house with three bathrooms and a garden, they take you to a one-bedroom flat, and they're like, It's quite nice.
• 5:08
  Michael: And you're like, Yeah, he never did that.
• 5:10
  Michael: He realized that um if you give the people a great experience, they will keep coming back to you over and above anybody else, and you want to present things properly.
• 5:18
  Michael: So he was one of the first people that I know back in the day that hired professional photographers to take pictures of the house and would get people to actually change what the house looked like before taking the photos.
• 5:28
  Michael: So if you walked in and there was a pink room, he'd say, No, we're not getting we're not doing this until you've painted it white.
• 5:33
  Michael: And he made a little bit of money by providing a painting service as well.
• 5:38
  Michael: So it was a kind of dual problem, uh, quite clever.
• 5:41
  Michael: But but the reason that's so important, I think, in the industry is that a lot of clinic owners don't really think about presentation so much.
• 5:50
  Michael: There's a lot of clinics where you've got weeds walking on the way to the door where you've got a bit of chip paint.
• 5:55
  Michael: I went to a dentist recently and they had a broken door and it just handwritten note that said push.
• 6:00
  Michael: And I'm like, come on, you know, you can do better than that.
• 6:02
  Michael: It doesn't take long to fix a door.
• 6:03
  Michael: And I know it's been like that for about three months as well, because it took my son.
• 6:06
  Michael: And and I think it's so important the presentation of the clinic, the presentation of the stuff, but then also, and we spoke earlier quickly about some of this, um, presentation of everything you do, such as answering the phone.
• 6:18
  Michael: You know, answer the phone in the right way.
• 6:20
  Michael: Uh, you don't answer it with yes, how can I help?
• 6:22
  Michael: You don't say, not the right appointment on Thursday, sorry.
• 6:25
  Michael: You've got to do more than that.
• 6:26
  Michael: And I think that's I guess you learn a lot of that on the fruit store, right?
• 6:30
  Michael: What's interesting uh question for me is did you find, because I know in clinics it does, did you find that the more you connected with people, the more they would come back?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely, because it's a relationship, it's a relationship with you and the connection with you that brings people back.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's the main and they've stay loyal to you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not 99% is that, you know.
• 6:48
  Michael: Well, if you can get me 25 knocked off one quid Rolexes, I would be very happy.
• 6:54
  Michael: Easy.
• 6:56
  Michael: Um, cool.
• 6:57
  Michael: Okay, so let's move on from patient experience into the main topic of the day, which is networking.
• 7:02
  Michael: Um this is something that is also close to my heart.
• 7:06
  Michael: And I I promise I had this conversation about two weeks ago where a clinic only was saying, you know, I've I've tried tried networking, but it just hasn't worked.
• 7:14
  Michael: And I was like, Oh Christ, why what did you do?
• 7:16
  Michael: He said, I sent letters to all the GPs in the area, and I was waiting on Baked Rath.
• 7:20
  Michael: Okay, and no, I sent letters.
• 7:22
  Michael: Okay, well, I'm not sure that's networking, that's sending out letters.
• 7:25
  Michael: So let's first of all, because I think everyone gets it wrong.
• 7:28
  Michael: So let's define networking first of all.
• 7:30
  Michael: How would you define it?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you network is essentially, I would say it's your connections, so who your sphere of influences are and who your connections are.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the first thing who you who you're connected to, whether it's um as a close relationship or whether it's a longer relationship, there's diff everyone's got a network, and then the most powerful things.
• 7:50
  Michael: Okay, and then what does that look like for you?
• 7:53
  Michael: Let's get straight into the meat of it.
• 7:54
  Michael: What does that look like for you on a week-to-week basis?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think your team essentially you've got in in the building is your first network in a business, would be your first network, is your team members.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so not staff, team members.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the second then it's the people then you're connected to as a business.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your clients, they are part of your network too, whether you like it or not.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your suppliers are part of your network.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it goes much wider than that.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then you start looking at, okay, I'd look at people who are referring to us, um, or people that I want to be connected to, or people that I actually know.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so people I know, and I might have a loose connection, but what you find is that if I don't know someone, someone else will.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're six social connections from each other.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Someone actually quoted once.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think in this digital world it's three or four.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Three or four connections to every person in the world.
• 8:44
  Michael: Was it seven degrees of Kevin Bacon or something?
• 8:46
  Michael: Are you?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Six degrees of separation.
• 8:49
  Michael: Yeah.
• 8:49
  Michael: Um, interesting about the team.
• 8:51
  Michael: What do you mean by your team being a network?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you've got you you are socially connecting with them every day.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you you you're not treating them because it's it's you're not just uh if people just think you're in a transactional relationship, so my uh if my team just think I it's a transactional relationship, that I don't care about them, I'm not meeting any of their needs or anything, I'm not interested in them, I just want you to work and earn me money.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a transactional relationship, it's not transformational.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be in a transformational relationship where we can build relationships with people so they can be all they can be, because otherwise, why would people stay with you?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think um and some people will move on, and but I think it's so for me, it's um the team members are really important because they're the people that are front-facing and connecting with your clients.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're not part of your network and that they don't hold the values that you have and the the the heart of the business, um, you haven't got a business, you've only got you.
• 9:41
  Michael: So talk me through uh because I I know everyone's gonna be kind of interested in revenue streams here, or at least making revenue.
• 9:48
  Michael: So talk to me about what that looks like from a networking perspective.
• 9:52
  Michael: How are you um not just you, but how are you generating money?
• 9:55
  Michael: How can you generate revenue from networking relationships?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the first thing um I can give you some examples.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the first example I'll give is we go to all these local sports clubs and um we connect with them.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and a lot of them we weren't involved in 15 years ago, but we worked really hard at building those relationships.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing is I have a rule which is go the extra mile, go and help people, find out what their needs are first, and go the extra mile.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So things aren't always convenient.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: We we live in a convenience world.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: People turn up when actually or need help actually when it's not convenient.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I find in life.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to be prepared to go the extra mile when it's not convenient and when it hurts, and when it's not the right time when I'm actually out, about to go out with my wife and the kids.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you've got to say, actually, I'll be there in 20 minutes, or just hold the dinner, I need to just help this person.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we we helped a lot of sports clubs, and I'll give you an example.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one one of the guys from the local football club, Samuel Football Club.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: He um someone connected me, the commercial manager came in to try and get me to sponsor, saw our clinic, and said, I need to get you to connect with the um sports therapist there who runs the medical service.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh great, yeah, get him to come down.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think the next, very next day he's coming down.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: He brought a player with him that had a foot problem.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think the sesamoiditis, he was in Australia under 21 international, had sesamoiditis, and he they needed him to play the next day.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, um, just bring him in, that's fine.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, you can come in and had a look at him straight away.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I could have said, Do you know what?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: He hasn't got an appointment, you know, I haven't got time today.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I it was really inconvenient, actually, when he did it, but you know what?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I helped him, I padded him up, and it built a level of trust.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't interested in in monetary transactional, I wanted to make a difference.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason the camera product is to make people better, not to be a billionaire.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be great if we all were billionaires, wouldn't it?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But um I went the first thing is always want to make people better and get people out of pain.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's always my primary goal.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um, the thing with me with him was that um my former colleague Chris, he he brought this guy in, I treated him, built the level of trust, and then he started referring players to me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: We got him better.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I went the extra mart, I saw him a couple of other times, and um I actually saw him for free.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you might think that's mental to do that.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what kind of business is that?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, off the back of it, Chris came and worked with me and we built the sports therapy side because we built a level of trust.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I had a foot health practitioner that came and knocked my door once, and um, they're used to people rejecting them.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, come in, come and observe us.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I've done that with several foot health practitioners, and it's had a massive impact on my clinic because they refer people that they can't treat.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: We can either see people as the enemy or we can look for symbiotic relationships, and there'll be things that they treat, or they might do home visits we can refer to.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: We can pull up the drawbridge and say, you know what, we we know best, we're the podiatrist, they should have done this, they should have done that, or we could say they're there, let's make the most of this opportunity and let's connect with people.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But to the sports clubs, what we did go rewinding, sorry, I went on a bit of a run then.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: But so what we did was we went to a lot of sports clubs and went to their training nights, and we took um we took a couple of other members of the team, we've done their open days, and we'd offer free sports massages and free injury checks.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Off the back of that, that helped to build break any mystique or the uh disconnection you connect with people and it kind of breaks any barriers down.
• 13:16
  Michael: Yeah, so so a couple of things that are interesting.
• 13:18
  Michael: First is the kind of patient network.
• 13:21
  Michael: We're using patients to to generate interest, and and I I literally said this yesterday to someone.
• 13:27
  Michael: If you get someone in that's a C-level exec at a big company near you, talk to them and see if you can't get an intro to their wellness department or their HR department or whatever.
• 13:35
  Michael: Because I I know clinics, I know one particular clinic that was treating a very senior person in the big bank.
• 13:42
  Michael: He loved her and she said, Well, is there anything we could do with your big bank?
• 13:45
  Michael: It was an investment bank.
• 13:46
  Michael: And he said, Yeah, I think you should be treating all of our patients.
• 13:48
  Michael: And she got a 20 grand a month retainer.
• 13:50
  Michael: And it was just on off the back of that one question.
• 13:52
  Michael: So I think patient referrals are huge, um, and you can get those in numbers away, a number of ways.
• 13:58
  Michael: But obviously, if they're really happy with you, just ask, right?
• 14:01
  Michael: There's there's no harm in asking.
• 14:02
  Michael: Um, another interesting part there was doing things that that help people, and we had Adam from Foundation's physio on recently, and he said pretty much the same thing.
• 14:12
  Michael: Not everything has to be commercial in the same in the first instance, right?
• 14:17
  Michael: You do things because they're good for people, you do things because they help people.
• 14:21
  Michael: Inevitably, you are going to get over time a good response.
• 14:25
  Michael: Not every time, but that shouldn't stop you.
• 14:26
  Michael: Just because two people have have blanked you and and and haven't done anything, you shouldn't just stop because ultimately it will pay off, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a um, I mean, in World War I, I'll just give you an analogy.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: World War I, they fought um in the trenches and loads of people just went over there, the trenches got machine gunned down, horrific, horrific, hundreds of thousands of people died.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: The same idiots that ran the World War I were in charge in World War II.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened was they built this line called the Magellow line between France and Germany, and they thought it's gonna be fought in trenches again.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: We know what's best.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're the first World War generals, they're in charge again.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: The British uh generals or whoever, or the French generals, it's gonna be fought like this.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is how it's gonna be done because we're British.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the Germans did a thing called Blitzkrieg, and they did lightning war, which is land, sea and air, attack, attack, attack, and they were behind them and didn't play by their rules, didn't fight over trenches, weren't interested in playing football on Christmas Day, they were just into world domination takeover.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to use this analogy too hard, but you've got to try lightning war, land, sea, and air, blitzkrieg.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the Bible it says ask, seek and knock.
• 15:32
  Michael: Don't just do one thing.
• 15:33
  Michael: As a German, our internal motto at H and D G is Blitzkrieg.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think because it's like boxing, you don't just throw one punch in a boxing match, or that didn't work, or you throw have one shot, oh that didn't work, we're gonna give up.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: You look at Liverpool, they have 30 or 40 shots in a game, and you're like, this is crazy, or Man United.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Man United back in the 90s were having 25 shots a game.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: They don't just have one shot.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's like we we give up, get get alive, get back up.
• 16:00
  Michael: I think that's key.
• 16:01
  Michael: And and we we as a business, I've got to say, we grew solely from networking, actually.
• 16:06
  Michael: And I I remember meeting Jack Chu and doing MSKR with him, and uh, I think we didn't quite do it for free, but we did it for about a 50th of the cost, and and you start building those relationships, and then other people get to know you, and you can you can really dominate just from just from those relationships, and and it is about building that trust and it's about building a really nice relationship going forwards.
• 16:28
  Michael: What I'm interested in though is that I hear a lot of people saying, Oh yeah, I've approached sports clubs, got nothing.
• 16:33
  Michael: Is it as simple as just doing something for free for them?
• 16:37
  Michael: Because I think lots of people try that, or is there another piece of magic?
• 16:41
  Michael: I do hear it all the time.
• 16:42
  Michael: Oh, I I approached the local golf club, running club, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:44
  Michael: No one was interested.
• 16:46
  Michael: Yeah.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: What does he so and what I what I was so uh what you've got to draw and do is differ different tactics.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've got chairmans in, captains in, I'll I'll get them to come in, come in for a chat, come in for treatment, because they can it breaks down the bar of your clinic.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you people just think you're going to sell, they're not interested.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's fair because they're used to people to come in to sell and things, or here's some give us some money.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think actually we want people to come because they're in pain or problem.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we as long as people know we're there, we've done our job.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's I always sell it to my whole team, anyone who goes, our job isn't to hard sell people, it's to let them know we're there and they'll use us as and when.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now I might now I also have another rule, which is no one gets out alive if I go to an event.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone gets a leaflet, everyone gets a voucher because there's a call to action.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you you take a leaflet and a voucher, and literally every single person takes energy, takes calories, go and do it, go and give it to every single person that is present there.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: We always do the warm-up in the if we take go into a sports club, we always do the warm-up.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: During the warm-up, we have a two-minute slot to introduce ourselves and we say if anyone's injured or anyone wants to talk to us, we're at the side of the pitch.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Loads of them come over.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have about eight to ten people each session come over.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a big club, so the hockey clubs um we always try and work with.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: If people see other practitioners, other physiotherapists in the town or in a wider area.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I never dissuade them from seeing them.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Great, you know, if that's working for you, keep going.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll still see them, still talk to them, because they at least know them that they're there.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: If their physio moves town, moves to Australia, we're here.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we're we we we we want to connect with people, and we also sponsor a lot of the clubs, so it's symbiotic.
• 18:24
  Michael: Just on that, because I think this is really important, and it's kind of called the um honesty and confidence sale.
• 18:30
  Michael: Yeah, and it's all about uh I think a lot of this people think they need to sell and they need to sell hard.
• 18:40
  Michael: What we find as a business is the more you take things away from people that they don't need, and you're doing it you know, ethically, you're saying, Yeah, we get clinics all the time saying, Oh, I I I I want to do social media ads, and I'm like, Oh, you don't.
• 18:52
  Michael: There are better things for you to do.
• 18:53
  Michael: I've probably said this to you.
• 18:55
  Michael: Um, there are better things for you to do.
• 18:57
  Michael: And when you are really genuine and honest, and you say, Listen, if you're seeing another physio, go and see that other physio.
• 19:03
  Michael: You've probably find more people go, oh, that's interesting, and they'll come back to you, right?
• 19:06
  Michael: It's that sort of scarcity side as well.
• 19:08
  Michael: But I think it's really important to be really honest with people, to be really genuine, not do the hard sell.
• 19:14
  Michael: Selling is not necessarily um saying, I've got this, do you want it?
• 19:18
  Michael: It's positioning and it's showing people what you have.
• 19:21
  Michael: And and a good example would be uh, I know a number of clinics now where um we've encouraged them to go into running clubs on a Saturday morning with their cool kit and their biomechanics kit, and they just stand there and they let everyone use it.
• 19:34
  Michael: And and it works so well because people are like, oh my god, this shit's really cool.
• 19:38
  Michael: Um, how do I get more of it?
• 19:39
  Michael: What uh and and you find that it actually turns people into patients quite easily without having to do anything other than come run on this treadmill and we'll show you a fancy video, right?
• 19:48
  Michael: Um, so yeah, I think that's that's super important.
• 19:51
  Michael: Too many people try and sell, they go straight in, we're a physio, we're a podiatrist, and we have this great service.
• 19:56
  Michael: Instead of hey, come and have a look at what we've got, we'll give you a free treatment.
• 20:00
  Michael: And see where we are.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh 100%.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it m it makes such difficult.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: It breaks down the barriers, breaks down the mystic um of who you are.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're just a normal person, and they're a normal person too.
• 20:12
  Michael: Which was completely relevant in a podiatry clinic.
• 20:15
  Michael: Well, uh actually across MSK.
• 20:17
  Michael: In podiatry, I suppose lots of people don't know what you do.
• 20:19
  Michael: So it's really interesting to show them the more high-end MSK work that you do.
• 20:23
  Michael: But even for a physio, I I imagine many, even the very top elite sports clubs, are sat there thinking physios are really great for massage rather than actually there's some pretty cool shit we can do that isn't just massage.
• 20:36
  Michael: So I think educating is is another piece, isn't it?
• 20:38
  Michael: It's it's another part of it.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what one education makes a big difference.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Quick story just to tell you on that, the education.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I used to get um we had used to have two businesses.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: We had one that um we ended up doing a Medispar Beauty a long time ago, me and my wife did, and in in the middle of the credit crunch is a learning curve.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um two quick stories I'm gonna tell you.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So one is that um basically um I used to get booked out to do talks.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Receptionists would book me to go and do talks for ladies' groups and things like that, and any group she could get a hold of, I'd go and do a talk on feet and how to make your feet better and healthier, and I'd go there, and one time she booked me one where there's six people, and it was just like in the back of beyond, and I was thinking, what am I doing here?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to walk straight out, and I thought, do you know what?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna walk out, I'm gonna give them an all.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I talked to um, did my talk and explained what I did, and and I talked to a few of the people afterwards.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, one of the ladies that went to that talk became one of our best ever clients at the Medispar, spent a phenomenal amount of money, and and it's not just about the money, but just a phenomenal amount of money.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: We never asked her to, and it's like and started using every week she was in you doing something.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, to cut long story short, um she was well, probably our best ever client there.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I've talked to five people that I didn't really want to do, and after that, any talks I'm actually asked to do, no matter where it is or how many people, I always give 100%.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I work hard on the smaller talks and the bigger talks, but the I always make sure everyone has a leaflet at the end and a voucher.
• 22:08
  Michael: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Michael: Oh, it's interesting because my my other half did something um somewhat similar many years ago when we when I first met her, where I encouraged her to we we know the local pub owner who's a big fan of dogs.
• 22:21
  Michael: Like his he does loads of dog charity stuff.
• 22:23
  Michael: So she said, Listen, I'm gonna give 500 quid to your dog charity, um, but I want you to get all your red.
• 22:27
  Michael: I want you to open the pub at like 10 10am, put on coffees, and I want to get all the locals there to talk about blah blah blah.
• 22:33
  Michael: And it worked.
• 22:34
  Michael: He was like, this woman's giving me a load of money.
• 22:36
  Michael: I'm gonna make some money off the coffees as well.
• 22:38
  Michael: We've got them to do them for free in the end, but I'll get yeah, I'll get a load of regulars in, and it worked brilliantly.
• 22:44
  Michael: And yeah, you can I I I think one thing I will say though is that there's a massive increase in some of the marketing and business gurus in the industry pushing clinics into doing ready-made talks within the clinic and marketing the crap out of them.
• 22:59
  Michael: So are you suffering from SATIC coming in?
• 23:01
  Michael: I'm not sure that that is the way that a clinic should necessarily operate.
• 23:04
  Michael: I think that's the wrong way to do things because you end up having to upsell, right?
• 23:08
  Michael: Because the moment you spend money on a marketing technique and you bring people in, you know that that's wasted money unless you do treat those patients.
• 23:16
  Michael: And now you're in a situation where you're thinking, probably doesn't need treatment, but I'll bring it.
• 23:21
  Michael: And you uh I often see otherwise very ethical clinicians starting to become less ethical because they've they've employed a marketing and business tactic which inherently sort of predisposes them into doing things that are not necessarily ethical to make money or at least to get some ROI.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it is a danger, all of a temptation that all of us can track to fall into.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the uh the hard selling and selling yourself out as well, I think that's always a danger.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I always I always do things that I know people are gonna benefit from.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there are medical professions, I I won't mention any, that you go in and they come out with the same plan no matter what you went in with.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh it's like it's like and and um they've spent a load of money.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I can't believe that I'm not gonna mention the profession or who they are.
• 24:07
  Michael: This is no appointment necessary, you can absolutely mention it, and I'll say if you come out of a chiropractor clinic without 25 sessions, then there's a problem for them anyway.
• 24:15
  Michael: Not all chiropractors, I'm gonna be doing an episode of chiropractors because there's some amazing chiropractors, people I would send any member of my family to.
• 24:22
  Michael: But no, that there are certain business practices that are being brought into multiple professions um where it's not necessarily the most ethical thing to be doing.
• 24:31
  Michael: So we've got the sports car clubs covered.
• 24:33
  Michael: One question I do have though is um I think people undervalue or sorry, underestimate the amount of effort that it takes to continue a relationship.
• 24:44
  Michael: They think I just take someone for a beer, that's it, and then they'll send me patience forever.
• 24:49
  Michael: But actually isn't the case.
• 24:50
  Michael: And do you want to talk through what it's actually like maintaining a relationship with someone?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think it's it's hard work and um you it's like a plant.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't water it, it dies.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things um we've we've found during the COVID period, you can also live on your former glories, a bit like Man United, where you're living in in and Liverpool did it for a long time, they're living on the 1980s for a long time, that meal ticket for a long time.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Villa do it on 1982, win the European Cup 82 or 81 the league.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you live on that meal ticket for a long time.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think the key thing for me is that you you you've got to um be relevant and actually connect with people.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think just also just doing it once.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: If if I said to you you're gonna marry your wife after one session, you're not meeting and going for a date.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a lot of touches uh of meeting up um and and and going to the cinema.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it takes a lot of time and effort to build that relationship where you've got that trust and that you want to be married and have kids together.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it in a relationship where it's business and transactional, I do think it takes time to build that up.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: It can be lost in a moment, and you've got to put that right as well.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can burn your bridges, build them again, try again.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you fall out of people, don't fall out of people, try and build that bridges, don't burn your bridges because you might need them to talk to them and they might need you to talk to you one day.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: So don't burn any bridges.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I think but I I mean there's a local running shop that we've started connecting with, but we've been multiple times and we bought a lot of trainers from them.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: We send all our clients there, but I've been over loads of times, and I'm gonna get up and I take a team member each time I go so they can meet the team member because they're really busy, and also that our team member thinks I can refer into them because if it's a symbiotic relationship, because if if we feel that actually they're gonna send people to us, we'll send them to this trade running shop.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we're looking for symbiotic relationships, not parasitic.
• 26:43
  Michael: And um I really wanted to touch on that a little bit later, but let's touch on that now and then we'll go back.
• 26:48
  Michael: But something that I see all the time is I will always give time to people, I will always help them, no matter what it is.
• 26:56
  Michael: If someone asks, we will do something for them.
• 26:59
  Michael: And never with the expectation of something coming back, but you know, uh I I found that throughout life, not just in this industry, but throughout life, relationships can often be very one way.
• 27:08
  Michael: You give, you give, you give, and nothing ever comes back.
• 27:11
  Michael: People just take.
• 27:12
  Michael: And it's rare in this industry, actually.
• 27:14
  Michael: Well, not that rare, but there are those people who who go, you know what, you just did something really nice for us.
• 27:18
  Michael: Let me do something nice for you.
• 27:20
  Michael: How do you make sure that relationships don't just go one way?
• 27:24
  Michael: How do you make sure that people aren't just taking advantage of your good nature?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think you have to always evaluate it, and um I always evaluate it whether it's working or not.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so one running shop we would send loads of people to, and there was nothing ever, anything back, and there was a reason for that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so we've gone to another running shop where we want to have a relationship with if people don't have a like two-way relationship, it's no good.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the sports clubs as well, we've um one of the local football clubs we weren't in at all, involved in one of the ladies' local teams.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I phoned the guy up at La Blue and I said, Um, would you like to um do you need any sponsorship or do you want to come in and see who we are, what we offer?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and he he came in, the manager did, and I said, What do you need?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I need some rain jackets for the players.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: We sponsored them and never asked him for anything back.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, they're sending us players, like lots of players and assistant manager are coming in and things.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: I never asked for anything back.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, because we're more likely to sponsor and do it again, this if there's if the actually if it's working, um, if a club didn't want to, we were sponsoring someone and they never would let us in.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you an example.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's another club we've been had a relationship, we've sponsored them, we've worked really hard with them for a long for years.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't had as much contact since COVID, but we contacted them the other day and um we said, could we come and do a talk for all the local, I won't say what sports club, the sports club, um a big sports club it is.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Could we come and do a talk for you?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um we that we were asked to put an email in, which I thought was a bit strange.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we put an email in to them and requesting it from their committee, and they said we can't come in.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Really?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've just sponsored this, this, and this uh about a year and a half ago.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, we've got someone else um in our building using the room, renting a room office from a local other injury place, and I felt really let down.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and sometimes you find that, and if that is shut, I won't spend expend loads of energy trying to break into there, but also sometimes you know that actually it's not the right fit for you and the personalities don't fit.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to have someone that, and so I've got PTs that send a lot of people to as personal trainers, and I'll always recommend them.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I've also got people who don't recommend us at all, they know we're there, uh, but it's just one of those things you're not gonna will dominate, um, you know, that you're gonna have the relationship with but I think it's building up regular contact with those people that you can have a relationship with and that level of trust.
• 29:47
  Michael: Yeah, I I think so.
• 29:48
  Michael: And for me, I'm pretty vicious.
• 29:50
  Michael: Um, so not so long ago I gave someone about two hours of free consulting because I liked him, I thought he was a good guy.
• 29:55
  Michael: And the next thing I heard from him was uh about three or four days later saying, Can I get another call?
• 30:00
  Michael: And I was like, Okay.
• 30:01
  Michael: So he had another call and uh another hour, and and I was happy to do that.
• 30:05
  Michael: I I genuinely like innovative people who are trying to do good things, and then about maybe a month later, um he wants to throw another call.
• 30:14
  Michael: And at that point, I I'm not gonna mention who it is, but I knew there are a number of things he could have done for us that he knew were going on, and he did nothing.
• 30:22
  Michael: And I just thought, you know what, you're dead to me.
• 30:24
  Michael: And if if people behave in that way, and I am quite vicious, but if someone behaves in that way, we will never do business with that company again, ever.
• 30:33
  Michael: I think it's so important that if you are acting in good faith, we only have so much time, right, as business owners, business leaders.
• 30:39
  Michael: If you're acting in good faith and giving up your time and someone else is taking the piss, then they can go fuck themselves.
• 30:45
  Michael: I'm not interested.
• 30:46
  Michael: I I think it you've got to be really, you've got to be really generous with your time, but you've also got to be quite vicious in reclaiming it if you aren't getting something back from it as well.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: If people are being unfaithful to you as well, you know, in a relationship where you can see actually, well, wow, it's it's it's an eye-opener, you know.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's an eye.
• 31:06
  Michael: I think that's the so we've got those sports.
• 31:09
  Michael: We had your your patient referrals, which I think is really important, people forget all the time.
• 31:12
  Michael: Ask your patients, like you know, you should know what they do anyway.
• 31:15
  Michael: If you've got a good if you're a good clinician, you should know what they do, whether they're married, how many kids they got, and so on.
• 31:21
  Michael: So, so patient referrals, sports clubs.
• 31:24
  Michael: You mentioned earlier on about your team networking.
• 31:26
  Michael: I thought you were gonna take that somewhere else.
• 31:28
  Michael: Do you use the team to network as well?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, in different ways.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I try and involve the team.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if we go to an event, I always take them.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say someone, so my sports opist will always tell me if there's a chairman, captain, or key person of a sports club we're not involved with.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we've we've we kind of say, Okay, is that something we could explore and get involved in?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a local hockey club, uh, not from my town, um, that we'd never ever had any relationship with, and she had the the captain, and I said, Okay.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he said that he's looking for sponsorship.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Okay, that's fine, we'll we'll sponsor them.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, and and just see if we can go to their training.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we went to the training on the coldest night of the year.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Half the team didn't turn up, but uh it was a really great night.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, so by by my colleague Emma, um, by her connecting in that way and making us aware of that.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, all the team members can um suddenly go, actually, do you know we've got Fred Bloggs and and he happens to be blah blah blah blah blah.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all of them do, but they they come out with us so people can build the relationship with the team as well.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's if it's just with me, um, if I keeled over or was in hospital, or who have they got the relationship with?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important that everyone has a relationship with and also even including the receptionists that people have a relationship with them.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'll ask people in the team, do you any do you know anyone from this kind of sphere?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're also uh I think I want to go what with the team as well.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think um I don't know if you know this, but um, here's a question.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know why Star Wars Star Wars became the most popular sci-fi film?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know why?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've got in an era where sci-fi was dead, Star Trek was dead, but basically um it became so popular because they got Mark Hamill and um Alec Guinness to go to exhibitions, to go to sci-fi conventions, and they basically spread the gospel of Star Wars, uh, these conventions, no film footage in 1977, no film footage, and they told everyone about it and they were there presenting it.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: They had a cult following by the time that it was launched, and the queue outside that Chinese cinema in LA was incredible, but they just had a cult following, and all of a sudden it just took off, and they because I had a big following before they launched it.
• 33:39
  Michael: Yeah, that that leads to a couple of questions I had actually.
• 33:42
  Michael: But the one is uh, how do you how do you stop networking becoming dominated by the business owner and dominating their lives?
• 33:51
  Michael: Because obviously you can only do so much.
• 33:54
  Michael: Um the answer is you're using the team a little bit more.
• 33:57
  Michael: Um them to do some of the networking.
• 33:59
  Michael: Do they do any independent networking without you?
• 34:03
  Michael: Are they tasked to go off and and do various things?
• 34:05
  Michael: And I'll give you an example of one clinic that just said to each clinician, I want you to post something fun about the clinic once a week on your socials, or once a month, or whatever it was.
• 34:15
  Michael: And it was really interesting because it had a massive effect because, of course, most people on people's socials are going to be local to them.
• 34:21
  Michael: And so they got the word out in the community very, very quickly by getting, I think it was eight clinicians post once a month about something fun.
• 34:28
  Michael: Again, it didn't even need to be clinical, it was just like, oh, today we did this or we went for lunch or whatever the case may be.
• 34:34
  Michael: What kind of uh strategies do you have for the team going out independently to do things?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the sports hackers would go out on her own.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kenny to, you know, if if you know, is he happy to go on her own?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, obviously we plan it and we don't want to do um sort of like sporadic here, there, and everywhere.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: We want to we want to plan it.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Emma's happy to go, and one of my colleagues, and she'll often take someone with her, and she's done that several times, so she'll go off on a row um without me, which is great.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: But also, um, we've we've gone to like all the local businesses.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I always have this thing if if if the local people don't know you're there, how do you expect the world to know you're there?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we always go to the local shopkeepers and offices, give them our leaflets, and um we take the team with us, and that I don't try so I I kind of send them off in different directions with a bunch of leaflets, and obviously some people they've come into connection with, some people they won't, and we don't try and control them.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: We we try and we try and encourage them to try and um do that, and obviously if they they enjoy it sometimes, sometimes they probably don't, but it's it's a good way for people to know you're there.
• 35:35
  Michael: So, question are your staff all on PAYE or contracts?
• 35:39
  Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:40
  Michael: PAYE okay, because I was gonna ask how do you get them to actually do it?
• 35:44
  Michael: And I think a lot of clinics with contractors would just get uh bugger off if they were asked to do anything that wasn't treating a patient.
• 35:51
  Michael: I guess on P AYE you have a bit more room to kind of build the team and get them to do things outside of just being in the clinic room.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've got we've got everyone on the hybrid and where you earn a percentage and also you get a good PAYE as well.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we've we've always with the last several years we've had to move to that model because I think since COVID that whole associate model is dead.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Any clinics that are doing that are almost prehistoric.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can guess the way they're running all the problems they're gonna have, and it's it's a lot easier to run it like that because you've got a team and you can build a team into it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're still building a team culture.
• 36:24
  Michael: I tell you what's interesting is the um the private practice barometer that we've done, we're just doing all the analysis and stuff.
• 36:31
  Michael: And one thing we found, I don't know if it's sort of in the newsletter, but um contractors are much less likely to churn than PAYE, which is kind of an interesting statistic.
• 36:41
  Michael: And I think that's to do with I was talking to Reese on another podcast about this.
• 36:44
  Michael: I think it's because clinicians want progression.
• 36:46
  Michael: It's not just about money, it's progression and doing more things and so on.
• 36:50
  Michael: But I think yeah, those those cleanings now running purely contractor models.
• 36:55
  Michael: I think it's a struggle to make money from business where you're giving 50% away off the top line, not including your lease costs and your all the other costs of consumables and everything else.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's impossible to make it work.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: We realized that um it was the year after COVID, actually.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I knew it wasn't working, probably two, three years before that point.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's always been a struggle to be honest with this social model.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um we got to 2020, 2021, and I went to one of the national conferences, and I I I just realized the whole world's changed in pedry.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everything had rocketed in price, trebled in price, also a double trebled in price, but also because of uh of stock shortages, etc.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I realized it's very hard, you couldn't recruit an associate the same way you used to be able to.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost impossible to get decent ones.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you'd get good ones, but it was it was a fight, and you would always be worried they were going to shoot off somewhere else.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I think with the employee model, at least you we try and employ people full-time, fully committed, want them to go out with us.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want them to go out two people or or or play for three football teams.
• 37:53
  Michael: Um that's something I wanted to get into later, um, which I will do.
• 37:56
  Michael: So just to bring it back, you you talked about um sending out leaflets, visiting people, and so on.
• 38:01
  Michael: How are you um tracking and measuring that?
• 38:04
  Michael: Because I always see people going, oh yeah, we dropped 5,000 leaflets.
• 38:07
  Michael: I'm like, okay, so how much has it got you in and I don't know, which to me seemed a complete waste of money.
• 38:12
  Michael: So how are you tracking it?
• 38:13
  Michael: What techniques are you employing?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a um leaflet that's got an offer on.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if people bring the offer back, we know it's worked.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that we've always operated that method.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we had to we've got a we're on the trade magazine back page or front page regularly, or page three or five or seven.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um we we basically uh we have a voucher on it, so we know it works if people bring the voucher in.
• 38:34
  Michael: That's always do you do different slightly offers in different slightly offers, slightly different slightly different offers in different places to track how those different places perform.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and that's the first thing.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not as tight as we could be, but we we see all the leaflets come in with the voucher.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we every swap will print a new leaflet with a new voucher, and we know that works.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the we've got a leaflet we take to the sports clubs, and um there's a leaflet, there's a a tray magazine as well that's got a five-pound off on uh that goes through every letterbox in Tamworth as well.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got we double whammy it and we then know what works, what doesn't.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Also, my colleagues tell me that's in lots of example.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: We did a high box event, and my colleagues said we've had three back from it, and I thought that's really good.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we we did um the hockey club and it we did an open day with them and things like that.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're always trying to get involved in open days is a big um tip.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if they've got an open day of the club or an evening, um, maybe inconvenient for you, you might have something planned, but maybe change your plans.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and going to those things make a big difference.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but having a we always give a leaflet, no one gets out alive, always everyone gets a leaflet.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's the offer?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: It might be five pounds off and ten percent off.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um, the biggest offer we have ever had is 30% off um at an event, 30% off voucher.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have sorry, I have taken 50% off and little gift vouchers once.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: The first time they come, they can have 50% off.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not because we want to devalue the treatment, but actually it removes some of the barriers.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: To come and see us, but we don't want to just do offers as well.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I haven't told you before, we some we do sort of sports clubs offers.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone is from the sports clubs, we do a special rate for them as long as it's a sport club we're affiliated with.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it can't be some random netball team that we've never had anything to do with.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be one that um we're connected with.
• 40:19
  Michael: I know a clinic that did offers for um the forces, they were near a base, and they got a huge number of people through.
• 40:27
  Michael: Many of them had no need to go and see this physio, and they're like, Why are you here?
• 40:30
  Michael: Because it's a valid excuse to get off the base for a couple of hours.
• 40:33
  Michael: So, but in general terms, I'm not a big fan of doing offers.
• 40:36
  Michael: Uh, I'm also not generally a big fan of doing print.
• 40:39
  Michael: I think it probably this highlights one question I think that that needs answering, which is this works in Tamworth, and I can see why it works in Tamworth just in the same way as a local Facebook group is probably quite beneficial for you.
• 40:53
  Michael: This is not working in Manchester or London or Birmingham.
• 40:57
  Michael: Is networking as important in those bigger cities?
• 41:01
  Michael: Isn't it just a bit too difficult?
• 41:03
  Michael: Isn't there too much competition?
• 41:05
  Michael: And can you really get a benefit from it?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you could do it anywhere, any town, any city, any country.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think you could do it anywhere.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if if if if that that's the most important thing is is trying.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've tried before and you failed, get up again.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, get up again and again.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, the thing is someone says fifty no 50 times to me, that's like not the same person, obviously.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: I get knocked back 50 uh times, maybe there's a message from above there, but generally you you will get somewhere, you just got to keep trying.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in the cities more, I think there's more people.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I always remember an episode from The Apprentice once.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: This guy said to Alan Sugar, who's had to rent out a car, and he said there was no customers.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, What in London, you know, to to rent this car out.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's there's just opportunities, and I think connecting with people, the first people is always your local people, the people that are around you.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: If your shopkeepers, your business owners don't know you're there, and the local key movie shakers in that local community, how do you expect the rest of the world to?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna so get out there, knock the door, introduce yourself, takes 20 seconds and two calories.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: So just that's the first people.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go and say hello.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: If I if you think back to when people have done it to you, so when I've had someone come and say there's a local takeaway, we're opened, here's a leaflet.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: You always think, actually, I'll go and try that takeaway coffee shop.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go and try it.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that it's you're in their mind when you've tried, when you don't try and introduce yourself, how do you expect anyone else to?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why should they?
• 42:32
  Michael: I think there's an important point there for the bigger cities because uh something that I'm really strong on is what we call affinity marketing.
• 42:39
  Michael: You know that if someone owns a Ferrari, just hypothetically, they will probably be interested in a luxury watch.
• 42:45
  Michael: So if you'll protect Philippe, you're selling to Ferrari people.
• 42:48
  Michael: Believe it or not, a big affinity is Honda owners and Cliff Richard, something from years ago in the corporate world.
• 42:53
  Michael: People who buy Hondas like Cliff Richard, I guess that age group.
• 42:57
  Michael: It's it's very similar.
• 42:58
  Michael: So an example for pods would be running shops, right?
• 43:01
  Michael: Traffon shops.
• 43:02
  Michael: There's there's an affinity.
• 43:03
  Michael: And I think in the bigger cities, you have more direct affinity businesses than you would in a in a in a smaller Tamworth type place, because you've got however many hundreds of running shops, trathlon shops, sports shops, running clubs, trathlon, you know, etc.
• 43:19
  Michael: etc.
• 43:19
  Michael: etc.
• 43:19
  Michael: So although there's more competition, they're probably doing their networking really badly, you know, not following up properly and doing all the right things, doing the right offer and so on.
• 43:28
  Michael: But there's just more of them anyway.
• 43:29
  Michael: So you can probably build a clinic just from really great network.
• 43:33
  Michael: You don't want to make your your entire acquisition uh you know around networking, because I think that's you know, you've got to be a bit more diverse than that.
• 43:39
  Michael: But but uh I have heard from people, I can't do it in London.
• 43:42
  Michael: There's too many, there's too many competitors or businesses aren't interested.
• 43:47
  Michael: Um because then the next question is what have we tried?
• 43:49
  Michael: Well, nothing.
• 43:50
  Michael: Well, okay, well, there you go.
• 43:51
  Michael: Um so uh the other one is influencer marketing.
• 43:55
  Michael: Um, and I don't mean getting a hot girl on TikTok to start um wearing orthotics, I mean those people who are although that might work.
• 44:04
  Michael: Uh I mean I who knows?
• 44:06
  Michael: I it'd probably work on me.
• 44:08
  Michael: Um, but uh it's those people who are influential in the local community.
• 44:12
  Michael: Never forget about a really good Cairo who was working, or she lived in, I can't remember, it was a small Oxfordshire village, and the local baker would had bad back for about 20 years, and she helps him.
• 44:24
  Michael: And now all the baker does, she built her entire business off the baker going, go and see her, she's brilliant, go and see her, she's brilliant.
• 44:29
  Michael: So I think if you can find the local, you call the movers and shakers, those local influencers, um, go and find them because there are people with a lot of influence over what people do.
• 44:38
  Michael: So go and find them.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: 100% makes such a difference.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've got a few people like that that have been really good to us, you know, and it's um it's always people that you never suspect will do that for you.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's really you never write people off, you know.
• 44:54
  Michael: Okay, we are almost almost at the end.
• 44:56
  Michael: Um, I'd love to, we could I've got about another hundred questions.
• 45:00
  Michael: I think one interesting question would be let's say you opened a clinic today.
• 45:04
  Michael: Yeah.
• 45:05
  Michael: Let's say somewhere that we were busy because most people are around busy areas, in the first 90 days, in terms of networking, what would you do?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: What would I do?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um the first thing I'd do, I'd get a sign in the window to say we're opening.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would have I'd be in a local trade magazine, I'd make sure my website was working and um things, but I would get out there and I'd knock all the local shopkeepers around me and offices.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: If they weren't anyone near me and I'm in the middle of an island, I would go to the next island.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would also probably introduce myself to local foot health practitioners as another podiatrist or physios or other medical people, never see people as the enemy.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'd try and connect with them because there'd be things that they do that you can't do, and it's it's you know, and then you know, and it's just a relationship thing.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: I probably I would connect with a lot of clubs or social groups, some of the social groups and let them know we're there.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: So University of Third Age, some of the women's groups, things like that, that that like someone to go and do a talk.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll do a free talk.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: I look for local business groups, like a networking group that meet monthly, not necessarily a hard sell that you have to refer 50 members else.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're executed, none of that kind of stuff.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want people that that actually you can build relationships with.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the other thing for me would be going to exhibit some of the extra local business exhibitions and connect with your local chamber of commerce, um, things like that.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is time consuming, but you need to plan a diary, you can't just fire a scatter good approach, you need to be kind of sniper shooting and you need to plan it and you need to get dramatically organized.
• 46:33
  Michael: It's got to be strategic, right?
• 46:34
  Michael: You you can't just kind of go, oh, I'll do these 10 things because if you do that, you then can't um build a strategy around retention of those relationships either, right?
• 46:44
  Michael: And and when you next contact them.
• 46:45
  Michael: I remember back in the day, I used to find out every we should do this.
• 46:48
  Michael: I don't know where we don't.
• 46:49
  Michael: I used to find out everyone's birthdays and I'd build relationships with people.
• 46:53
  Michael: They would get an all we did this automated text thing where they get a little text from me saying, Oh my god, Jonathan, happy birthday, you know, just something nice.
• 47:00
  Michael: And believe it or not, that bloody works.
• 47:02
  Michael: And everyone, of course, the problem was everyone texted me back thinking I sent the uh text and sometimes I didn't realise what it was about.
• 47:08
  Michael: Um, it was just like thanks.
• 47:09
  Michael: I'm like, what did I send them?
• 47:10
  Michael: But I I there are so many little things that you can do, but you do have to build a strategy around it.
• 47:15
  Michael: Um I think that's super important.
• 47:18
  Michael: Well, another excuse I hear from people is networking.
• 47:21
  Michael: That's I'm just not a networker.
• 47:23
  Michael: I'm a clinician, I'm not an extrovert.
• 47:25
  Michael: Um, I can't do it.
• 47:26
  Michael: I I don't like being visible, I don't like meeting people.
• 47:29
  Michael: What do you say to those people?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't believe that.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um look in the mirror, say I can do this.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh always remember that scene from um from um um cool runnings where the guy looks in the mirror saying, you know, I can do this, I'm a badass smeller.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I always like that kind of scene.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've got to believe that you can do it because if you can't help promote your business, don't expect other people to, you know, because one of you that said to me, I don't like meeting people, I'm like, how many patients do you see a day?
• 47:52
  Michael: It's like you you're fine meeting people.
• 47:54
  Michael: You're just I think it's a I think there's a level of fear actually of putting yourself out there and getting rejected.
• 47:59
  Michael: And it's no different you or your little analogy, especially especially about the one session with your wife.
• 48:04
  Michael: I won't get you to divine session.
• 48:06
  Michael: But um dating is the same thing, right?
• 48:08
  Michael: Yeah.
• 48:08
  Michael: In terms of if you don't ask, you don't get right?
• 48:11
  Michael: If you just stand in the in the club in the corner and you don't say hello to anyone, yeah, you're not playing with anyone.
• 48:17
  Michael: So I think that's it's it's really important.
• 48:19
  Michael: You've you do put yourself out there and don't be fear fearful of rejection.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if someone is really shy, take someone from another business along with you or go and take someone with you if you're that shy, and you start doing it because it builds your confidence.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I'd say is do an open day.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if I was open the clinic, I'd do an open day where it's open to all.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: We did that when we first opened, it made such a difference.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: We had a full page in the local um paper at the time.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: People don't buy papers so much these days, the full page page paper, and then we did an advertorial as well, and we had the mayor and MP come.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I would generally try to do open days where people can break down the barriers and um go and connect with your local shopkeepers, get get on with them.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think the one quick story I'm gonna tell you was um we had this other business that we opened in the middle of the credit crunch, and I got my marketing completely wrong.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: We did we we just didn't understand the mark the the market that we're in and also the industry.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we did loads of beauty, we had beauty products, LMS, and things like that.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I misunderstood the market completely, and I burnt lots of money in marketing on paper and thinking this is the way to go because that worked for footsteps, um, and that's gonna work here.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, we tried it, and we're in a really affluent area, one of the most affluent areas in the country, and B74, Me Green.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we opened it, and we were kind of thinking, there's no customers, what have we done?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've got loads of team members, staff members, and there's just not the clients.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this lady walked in and she said, Um, you've just opened.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I've got a PTA night um plant, um, and the people who are going to be there have pulled out.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you're obviously beauty therapist.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be possible if you guys could come in and and and fulfill the kind of the people that put the name down to have treatment?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, Yeah, we'll do that.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I persuaded the whole team to go, the whole team turned up.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: We did this PTA night, and there was um we were in a minor hall in this classroom, and there was a main hall, and they had 250 people there.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there was it was it does a catwalk, and they were doing a closed show, and there was all the stools all around this catwalk.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's actually um Cheropity were there at the time in the in the same room I was in, and uh they were kind of treating people as well.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I spoke to the person who ran it and I said, Is it possible I can just jump on the stage for a minute?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Um, yeah, okay.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Is it okay to give leaflets out?
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, Yeah, that's absolutely fine.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I spoke to the DJ, he gave me the mic, and I jumped on the stage for three minutes, got everyone's attention, and I got the whole team up on the stage and introduced every single one of them and what they did.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it broke down the barrier to who they were.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person in that two at 250 had a leaflet and a voucher.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we got about 10 or 15 percent from that room alone, and it helped to start a business.
• 51:02
  Michael: I think I think there's a few lessons there actually.
• 51:06
  Michael: One of them, really important, and I I've mentioned this a million times.
• 51:10
  Michael: Steve Jobs once said that he was a little kid, 13 years old or something, he was doing this project and he needed this one piece of equipment from Dell, and he couldn't get it.
• 51:18
  Michael: So, back in the days of the Yellow Pages, he found the Dell Chairbans phone number and he phoned him up and said, Listen, can I get this piece of equipment?
• 51:24
  Michael: And he's like, Yes, of course you can.
• 51:26
  Michael: So he sends him like a hundred of them over or something, and he says, But listen, um, when you are looking for a job, when you finish college, come see me because I've got a job for you.
• 51:34
  Michael: Because he was really impressed that Steve Jobs had asked.
• 51:36
  Michael: And Steve Jobs' lesson from that was no one ever says no if you ask nicely, right?
• 51:41
  Michael: People are always willing to help.
• 51:43
  Michael: So there is harm in asking, and I think that's a big lesson.
• 51:46
  Michael: Asking to get up on the on the stage is a big one.
• 51:48
  Michael: They can only say no, but why would they?
• 51:50
  Michael: And if they do, who cares?
• 51:52
  Michael: But I think asking is is so important.
• 51:54
  Michael: Whether that is networking, actually, or whether that is intra business, I I could phone up a no question, I could phone up another marketing agency owner today and say, listen, I I really need some help.
• 52:04
  Michael: Could you give me some advice?
• 52:05
  Michael: I bet the answer is yes.
• 52:07
  Michael: If there is a business, because I know anyone that does that to me, I'll I'll say yes, of course.
• 52:10
  Michael: How can I help you?
• 52:11
  Michael: Yeah, that's the first lesson.
• 52:13
  Michael: The other one is familiarity, which I think people forget, which is so important because people buy people, people like people, and so on.
• 52:21
  Michael: And and getting up on the stage and getting people familiar with the team rather than just you, right?
• 52:27
  Michael: That that's incredibly important.
• 52:29
  Michael: And when we talk about uh digital marketing, for example, I say this all the time on your team page, make sure the amount of clinics that don't have the actual team on the page is is crazy to me.
• 52:38
  Michael: But on the team page, show off the team in in the right way.
• 52:41
  Michael: Don't just talk about they went to uni and they got clinical qualifications.
• 52:44
  Michael: Who are they as a person?
• 52:45
  Michael: Yeah, we try and do this.
• 52:46
  Michael: Um, there's personal pictures up there of them, you know, if they're a surfer, they they're surfing, if they're a foodie, they're eating.
• 52:52
  Michael: Um but also ask questions like what's your favourite food or where do you want to go on holiday?
• 52:56
  Michael: These things make it so much easier for a patient to connect with a clinician as well.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: What makes such a difference?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Makes such a difference.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think, and always be prepared to do something at the last minute that you don't want to do, and be put yourself out.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you help people, they will always help you.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it you know as well.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's but you you you're 100% right with what you said as well, you know.
• 53:18
  Michael: Yeah, I I think they will.
• 53:20
  Michael: I think you you help people, they help you generally.
• 53:22
  Michael: Um, and the ones that don't, you don't want anything to do with anyway.
• 53:24
  Michael: And it's a good it's a good barometer of who to get rid of in your life.
• 53:27
  Michael: We do it with friends, you know.
• 53:29
  Michael: The friend always helping, and then they never give you anything back, and they're just pain in the arse.
• 53:32
  Michael: Well, none of those people are my friends anymore.
• 53:34
  Michael: So to finish off, uh from your experience and your knowledge, every clinic owner is gonna say, Michael, Jonathan, I don't have the fucking time.
• 53:42
  Michael: There is no way I have any time to do any of this stuff.
• 53:46
  Michael: So, what one thing would you say to a clinic owner to give up in favour of doing some networking?
• 53:51
  Michael: So, what could they throw out of that their day to actually do some networking?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've just got to make a little bit of space and time.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I think you've you've got your journey to and from work is a good point.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you can utilize what time you have got.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh to and from work.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes when you have gaps, tendencies for uh practice ones because they're they're tired of thinking about a hundred things, you need to make space in your diary.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe block out an hour um of quality time that you dedicate.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I dedicate time with one of my therapists, and we work on um a list of the clubs we're working on and want to build relationships with.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: My other colleague I work on Instagram with, and we block out time to go through Instagram of some of the posts we need to have on there and to let them know the story, our narrative.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think before and after work is key that you've got thinking time.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you need that thinking time, but I think also blocking out time is key as well.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Around a lunchtime is always good, but also be ready to move.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when we've had gaps in our diary, so we've suddenly noticed I've got oh, one of my colleagues is three for an hour and a half.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: We've gone out to see the local golf pro.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've just phoned up and said, Are you free now?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, can come over.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready to move.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: We've gone over to the local running shop.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: We maximise time so we're not wasting always clinical time.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: When I say waste, it's a bad word.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're not missing opportunities, we're actually utilising that timing.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we've got an hour there, two hours there, let's go and do something with it, you know.
• 55:17
  Michael: It's interesting because you're you're so nice and you give a a good answer, and it's true.
• 55:21
  Michael: My answer to someone recently was I don't care what you give up, you just got to give it up.
• 55:26
  Michael: Because quite honestly, if I had five five other people delivering you patients day in, day out, you're taking half a day off of clinical work.
• 55:35
  Michael: That's a small price to pay.
• 55:36
  Michael: So go and fucking do it.
• 55:37
  Michael: I don't really care what you give up.
• 55:39
  Michael: But yes, I think you can definitely optimize time, I think, to and from work.
• 55:43
  Michael: Also, now with AI, uh, there's so much you can do in terms of on your way to work, just setting up recording in something like Letterly and talking to it.
• 55:51
  Michael: This is my plan, this is what I'm gonna do.
• 55:52
  Michael: And it's like, right, structure it out for me, right?
• 55:54
  Michael: You there is always time you can kind of be thinking about what you could do and even maybe ask AI what to do.
• 55:59
  Michael: I don't know how how good it is yet, but in terms of like, okay, I want to network, blah blah blah.
• 56:04
  Michael: You speak to your your little AI, get it to structure out a networking plan.
• 56:08
  Michael: Ask for Gemini 3, by the way, has all the local businesses in your area, and it has, I can't remember what the system is called, but they have this new multimodal system where you can actually say, I want all the local businesses that have more than five stars um on their Google My business within five miles of me, and it will actually strip them out for you.
• 56:26
  Michael: There you go.
• 56:27
  Michael: And then I'd like all the owners of the business to check LinkedIn.
• 56:30
  Michael: Boom.
• 56:30
  Michael: Now you've got, you know, there's there's some pretty cool stuff you can do now, which used to be have to be done on, you know, back in our day in Abacus.
• 56:37
  Michael: And uh, you know, don't use Nabacus when you've got a calculator, right?
• 56:40
  Michael: Okay, listen.
• 56:41
  Michael: Thank you so much.
• 56:42
  Michael: It's it's been really, really interesting.
• 56:43
  Michael: Hopefully, there's some good lessons to be learned from that as well.
• 56:46
  Michael: Um, I I think a lot of clinic owners are too scared to do networking or sometimes worried that it won't work, sometimes just don't know what to do or how to do it.
• 56:55
  Michael: So thank you so much for all of that.
• 56:57
  Michael: It's been a pleasure.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can I do one more story or not?
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Are you on?
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um one of my um the window cleaner I use is um he had basically um his son-in-law um was a football lad and he played for um Astison Villa at the time, and um he had a foot-related problem and that they couldn't fix, no one could fix this problem.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um he was sort of recovering from two metatarsal fractures and things like that.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I basically um he came in for treatment with me, and um I I I never actually charged him at the time, and I just did it as a friend kind of thing because it realistically probably I wasn't meant to be treated him because the club liked to control obviously who you see or direct who you see at the time, so it's a long time ago.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, cut long story short, he went on to do great things within the league um with Leicester City and um the FA Cup and things, and he came back.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I um asked him recently um through a friend if he'd come back and do a testimonial for us if he felt happy to do that.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he came back and spent like four hours at our clinic doing testimonial videos, and he's on a lot of our marketing material.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you see, if that kind of connection networking, um, just helping people um along that journey, um, you know, is incredible because actually um it was amazing that he did that for us really good, and so it makes a difference.
• 58:15
  Michael: Good story, we do have a couple more minutes.
• 58:17
  Michael: So uh something I'm interested in in knowing.
• 58:20
  Michael: So, you know the HMDG community, so we've built out something called HMDG Connect, which gets all of our customers together and they can ask questions and whatever.
• 58:28
  Michael: It's it's a growing community and it seems to be doing really, really well and really loving it.
• 58:31
  Michael: I was asked recently, and I don't know the answer to this one.
• 58:34
  Michael: I was asked recently by a clinician, by a clinic owner, should we create a similar kind of community and would that work?
• 58:41
  Michael: And I think that fits squarely into the networking discussion.
• 58:43
  Michael: So I'm wondering whether building an online community in some way could actually work because I haven't seen many clinics doing it very well.
• 58:51
  Michael: They might have exercise programs or whatever, but um, what are your thoughts on that?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I th I think it's it's it's a good thing.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think what people always um in the back of mind is worried about people complaining or saying it wasn't very good or weren't happy with this outcome.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think it could potentially work.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think there needs to be greater community amongst clinic owners as well.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: That that's where it's really the collaboration has to be the way forward.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think moving as a as a kind of um a clinic owner, there needs to be greater collaboration for us to survive this next 20, 30, 40 years um has to be.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I think with with the with the clients, I think it could could potentially work, but I think it has to be the right format.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what what the let's kind of sometimes the forums down is people saying negative things.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even like I was reading stuff at what they're writing about the local MP, and I was like, that's horrendous.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: You there's nothing positive with what they're saying, and uh, and that's the only problem with going in the public.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think that's the fear with all of us are they because you know, we've all got opinions, and you see it in pedestrian forums.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, get alive, you know.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like as soon as you say something anything, you're shot.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, stop shooting people, you know.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's trying to get that greater collaboration.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the way forward.
• 1:00:04
  Michael: I think so.
• 1:00:04
  Michael: And and on the clinic owner collaboration thing, it's been something I've it's the reason we start to connect actually, and I've been wanting to do it for years and years and years, because I don't think that there are enough people collaborating and helping each other.
• 1:00:16
  Michael: It seems to be that there's a guru out there, especially in the pod world.
• 1:00:20
  Michael: Um, not talking about Hive, like Hive.
• 1:00:22
  Michael: I'm still trying to get them on the podcast, but there are gurus out there that are like this is how you do everything, and everyone's listening to them.
• 1:00:26
  Michael: It's like, don't fucking listen to them.
• 1:00:28
  Michael: There are some really great pod clinic owners out there, like you, go and listen to them instead, you know.
• 1:00:33
  Michael: So we are going to be doing some things on um with the HMDG Connect as a community.
• 1:00:39
  Michael: Um, that should be announced in the next month or so, but also beyond that, I want to bring a lot more collaboration in.
• 1:00:45
  Michael: So um, yeah, keep keep watching.
• 1:00:47
  Michael: We we will be doing some cool stuff.
• 1:00:49
  Michael: So I might get help in some of it as well.
• 1:00:51
  Michael: Um, thank you again.
• 1:00:53
  Michael: Great stories.
• 1:00:54
  Michael: Learnt a lot about Star Wars today as well.
• 1:00:55
  Michael: I was a Battlestar Galactica fan back in the day.
• 1:00:58
  Michael: Um wasn't a Star Wars fan.
• 1:01:00
  Michael: But um, no, it's been a pleasure having you, and thanks very much again.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: No problem, thank you for having me.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's great, thank you.