Moderator:
Welcome to today’s episode of True to Form, with your host, president and co-founder of Crystal Clear, highly regarded speaker, and two-time Inc 500 entrepreneur, Tim Sawyer. True to Form is a podcast that highlights leaders making headway in the aesthetic, anti-aging, and elected medical industry. Learn from the experts to discover the secrets of success, and pitfalls to avoid when growing all aspects of your elected medical practice.
Moderator:
This week’s episode is brought to you by TouchMD, the all-in-one aesthetic technology hub that educates your captive audience in the waiting room and consult room, consistently captures and manages photos, provides digital charting and consents, and allows patients to take their experience home to share what they learned with friends and family via the practice’s patient app. Please join me in welcoming your host, the authentic, the transparent Tim Sawyer.
Tim Sawyer:
Hello and welcome to True to Form, the podcast that connects you to people, technology, and hot topics that shape the elected medical community. Provided to you by Crystal Clear Digital Marketing and brought to by this week’s sponsor, TouchMD, the leading all-in-one aesthetic technology hub.
Tim Sawyer:
I’m your host, Tim Sawyer. To our returning guests, welcome back, and for our first-time listeners, we appreciate you joining us and encourage you to become a subscriber.
Tim Sawyer:
In the last episode we spoke with co-founder of Direct Doctors, Dr. Mark Turshen, which he shed light on the evolution of healthcare and shared his inspiring journey from traditional medicine to self-made entrepreneur. If you missed it, you’ve got to check it out.
Tim Sawyer:
And with all that said, for our existing listeners you may remember a couple months back we talked about an important Google update that banned certain types of pay-per-click advertising on procedures like PRP and anything related to stem cells. Obviously that was shocking news at the time, and there have been more recent updates related to that topic.
Tim Sawyer:
And at the time we had Adam DeGraide, my friend, business partner, and CEO of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing on the episode to talk about the changes. Well, great news, he’s back today, and we’re going to discuss the most recent changes and more importantly, what you can do to adopt to those changes and continue to grow the practice.
Tim Sawyer:
So we’d like to welcome Adam DeGraide.
Adam DeGraide:
Hey Tim, what’s going on? It’s great to hear your voice again, as always. I feel like I hear you every day because I actually do and it’s always a pleasure. One of the things that really I was concerned about and why I wanted to get back on the podcast and let the listeners know, is that we realized that Google was banning these types of procedures as far as PRP, stem cell, hormone replacement, all these types of things are being banned by Google and you could not run AdWords. Well it’s gone even deeper than that, Tim.
Adam DeGraide:
So seven weeks back, we realized that we were getting a lot of calls from clients that we were doing adverts for, as well as people that are using other companies to do adverts as well too, and it’s hundreds. It wasn’t just a few, it was literally hundreds of practices were saying their advertising’s shut off, they were being denied, it was taking forever to figure out what was going on with Google’s changes.
Adam DeGraide:
Well, it’s not only the fact that you can’t run adverts in regards to PRP, stem cell, you can’t run adverts on other procedures, Tim, if those pages exist on your website. So what was happening was, if you were trying to run a breast augmentation campaign or a Botox campaign and Google’s algorithm found PRP, stem cell, or anything related to that language on your website, not only did they deny your AdWords, you couldn’t do anything.
Adam DeGraide:
And so, people were scrambling trying to figure out, “Well, what are we going to do about this, because we don’t control Google?” And it’s very frustrating. So people started removing their PRP pages and their stem cell pages. These are actual treatments, Tim, that people benefit from, as you know. And all of a sudden now, these practices have had all these years to try and to build up organic SEO for these phrases, now they’re making their pages either not [inaudible 00:04:23] or removing them completely, or having to spend costly amounts of money creating new websites, new landing pages, and all these different things, and it’s been insanity in the industry.
Adam DeGraide:
And I think the most important thing for our listeners to understand is that they have no control over what Google decides to do. None of us do, and we talked about this in the last episode. And it always is usually worse than we think it is when it first happens. It’s like any other restriction or regulation. It creates ripples and effects beyond what we initially think it’s going to be.
Adam DeGraide:
So we thought it was just going to be something where, yeah, you can’t do AdWords for these procedures. No, no. You can’t do AdWords, Tim, for any procedure, if these procedures are anywhere listed on your current website, and that was a dramatic problem, as you can imagine.
Tim Sawyer:
First of all, if I’m listening to this podcast, that would be scary for me, right? If I’m offering those types of treatments and procedures. So, has it changed much or is it still a fluid situation where everyone that’s, like us, a Google partner, is learning as they go?
Adam DeGraide:
Well, what ends up happening is you just never know. So there’s even been situations where people have removed them and Google still continues to ban it, ban just regular advertising for other things. And so I think it really goes back to, and you know I’ve been a huge AdWords fan my entire life, although I believe they add value in a practice that does not have enough leads or enough organic traffic or maybe they’re new or starting up.
Adam DeGraide:
There’s a period of time where you have to do AdWords, the problem is when we continually let our businesses become beholden to a force we can’t control, this will not be the last emergency podcast you and I ever do on Google changes, I guarantee you that. They do it two or three or four times a year, and sometimes they let you know what they’re doing, other times they don’t let you know what they’re doing, right?
Adam DeGraide:
Last year there was people being deindexed, and nobody knew why they were being deindexed or what was really happening, it took us months to figure out what was going on and why some were affected and some weren’t affected, and others were affected. And really, what it comes down to is we cannot forget the fact that these mediums like Google and Facebook and Instagram and all these places that control the eyes and minds of the user, we can’t control what they approve and what they don’t approve.
Adam DeGraide:
The problem is, there’s no other place for us to be than those places, and so we have to be smart, Tim, as you and I always talk about, and have a balanced approach. You can no longer pull your eggs all in an AdWord basket or an in an organic SEO basket or in email marketing, because even when it comes to email marketing, Tim, people’s emails end up in spam, they end up not being delivered to different servers, and they can change those rules at a second, right?
Adam DeGraide:
And so it has to come down to a blended strategy. And for existing practices, by the way, that have thousands and thousands of patients or hundreds of patients, the best source of marketing they can do is internal marketing to their existing patient base and prospects that they currently have in their pipeline.
Adam DeGraide:
I was talking with a practice the other day that is continually struggling with generating leads over the last few months because of their AdWords situation, although it’s been resolved since. And one of the things I said to the doctor, “Well doctor, looking back at the last year, it looks like you’ve had 1200 phone calls and forms in the last year, who’s following up with those 1200 unsold forms and phone calls over the last 12 months?” And guess what he said Tim.
Tim Sawyer:
Nobody.
Adam DeGraide:
Nobody. And I said, “So when you think about it doctor, on a great month, an amazing practice can generate a couple of hundred phone calls and forms for new opportunities.” But if you took the last 12 months, that’s anywhere from 1200 to 2400 phone calls and forms. Where’s the bigger opportunity, Tim? Is it the fact that we need the 200 leads this month or the fact that we’ve had almost 2400 in the last 12 months?
Adam DeGraide:
And you see, what happens unfortunately is that people are blindsided by the need of a necessity. In other words, what is before them becomes the most important thing, and they’re missing the point of leveraging the things that they’ve generated before in the past.
Adam DeGraide:
And so that’s why I encouraged this doctor. “Hey, listen I noticed that your team is not using the SPC. I noticed that they’re not leveraging automation. I noticed that you’re not leveraging text message marketing. I notice that you’re fully not utilizing the ability to do scenario communication into your existing patient base and into your existing prospects.”
Adam DeGraide:
And see, there’s been dozens and dozens of practices, Tim, that you and I have worked with that all they’re doing every month is burning money month after month generating new leads, and then letting them die on the vine if they don’t close that month. Do you know what I mean?
Tim Sawyer:
I do. And let me, for the listeners, clarify what Adam’s saying. Couple really good points that … super valuable. Number one is recognizing that nobody can control these mediums, and those mediums are Google in terms of SEO, search engine optimization and pay-per-click, even Facebook. And Adam knows this, Facebook has made many, many, many material changes to what they’ll allow, and it changes all the time.
Tim Sawyer:
Things that you could post on Facebook one week, all of a sudden there’s a change and you can’t post that. Well, that’s detrimental. Instagram continues to evolve. And what we have to remember in being in the game as long as Adam and I have, is that we recognize what exists today digitally will not exist a year from now.
Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, absolutely.
Tim Sawyer:
And the reason that they keep changing the goalpost is because they want to move you from free to paid. And so even Instagram, which is a valuable, valuable, valuable outlet, we know that the way Instagram behaves today will be different six months from now because they’re smart and they’re trying to move you from free to paid, and there’ll be some changes or some things that they don’t like or a lawsuit will come up, so the point that Adam’s making, to put a point on it, is you have to have a blended strategy where you’re not relying on one single medium.
Tim Sawyer:
And the most important piece that gets lost in this is if you get 200 leads in a month, what typically happens as we see, out of those 200 leads that come in, maybe 40 of those will make it into some platform, some software that you have, whether it’s your EMR, EHR, whatever it is, but what about the 160 who didn’t book a consultation and didn’t come in? Where are those?
Tim Sawyer:
And what we discover is, most of the time those are on a spreadsheet somewhere or left in the email inbox of the person that received the lead, and no one’s following up. And so there’s a compounding effect to that. If you have 150 in month one, well after 12 months you’ve got 1800 people who were well-intended, went to your website, filled out a form, and wanted to transact with you, but for one reason or another didn’t.
Tim Sawyer:
And so that’s the point, is that there’s huge value in that. And also in terms of building your email database, and we did a great podcast a few episodes back, plastic surgeon in San Francisco who took over a practice, had 500 emails. Well six years into it, the practice grew 350% in six years, and he’s got 10 thousand primary valid email addresses in his database, and he says that’s the most valuable thing he has.
Adam DeGraide:
That’s right.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. It’s important to consider, and Adam, you work with thousands of providers and see this every day, what are some basic, if you said, “You know guys, we see best practices. We know what these people do.” Adam, if you had to say, “Here’s my three or four recommendations that would help you hedge against future bans from Google or changes,” what would those recommendations be?
Adam DeGraide:
Yeah. Number one would be how your people in the practice leverage the tools they have and create a process to actually follow up on unsold patient opportunities from last month, the month before, the month before that. It really comes down to training and leveraging automation, Tim, because if you’re always chasing the carrot, you’re going to lose all the breadcrumbs you’ve left throughout the years and you’re always going to have a need to keep chasing that carrot, and then you can’t find your way home. That’s the whole point of Hansel and Gretel is they couldn’t find their way home because they were leaving breadcrumbs versus solid stones behind them.
Adam DeGraide:
The best practices we work with, Tim, not only close their existing new opportunities at a very high rate, they resurrect 15% to 30% of what most practices would think are their dead, unsold patient inquiries over the last 90, 120, 180, 240 days, you get the point. And that comes down to them, the actual practice owner and practice manager has to mutually care about having a process in place and leveraging technology to assist them in that practice.
Adam DeGraide:
Because at the end of the day, if you’re trying to rely on a spreadsheet or going through your old emails, you’re going to miss things. You have to have a hub that’s organizing it. So it comes down to training of the people, the leveraging of the tools, and you always talk about this when you’re doing speeches, you have to care about it. Those are the most successful things that make a difference.
Adam DeGraide:
And so, there are things practices can do that are struggling right now with getting their AdWords approved and their website up to date, and they can always reach out to us, Tim, I don’t know when this podcast is going to be airing, but we’re going to be in Vegas at the American Med Spa Show coming up this week. If you’re listening this week, it was last week, but either way, reach out to us guys. We’d love to do a free analysis for you to see exactly what you can do from a digital perspective to help you stave off this challenge that Google, Facebook, Instagram, all these people continue to put into us.
Adam DeGraide:
But the one thing you and I can’t fix, Jim, is a leader that has a broken attitude towards their people and process in a practice. If the doctor who owns the practice or the practice manager who runs it doesn’t understand that the most important thing is their people, how they interact on the phone, how they interact via email, and how they follow up on sold and unsold patients, there is nothing you and I can do to help them.
Adam DeGraide:
So step one, you’ve got to care. Step two, you have to train your people. Step three, you absolutely have to leverage a software platform that can help you not only manage and measure your existing opportunities, but resurrect 15% to 30% of your dead opportunities. And if you do those things Tim, you cannot help but be successful. And when the drought does come, which is inevitable for any business, whether that’s for us or for them, they have built what you call a fortress around their practice because they’ve realized it’s not about one thing, it’s about everything working together in concert.
Adam DeGraide:
And one of the illustrations that I’ve always used, as you know Tim, over the years, is that when you go see a live band and the band comes out and the drummer’s playing great, and the bass player’s playing great, and the guitar player’s playing great, and then all of a sudden the singer grabs the mic and they sing off-key. How much do you enjoy that?
Tim Sawyer:
Not at all.
Adam DeGraide:
Or you have a great singer with a band that’s constantly playing the wrong chords. It doesn’t do any good. You have to be in concert in your business, and that’s with your people, process, and tools.
Tim Sawyer:
It’s true, and I think that the big takeaway, Adam, if I’m hearing you correctly, is you’ve got to control those things that you can control, and the one constant in all of this is [inaudible 00:17:27] level of software, but also training your people. That’s the one constant. People are going to leave and come and go, but the way that you train those people to interact with your customers, that’s a constant, and you can control that.
Adam DeGraide:
And you know what Tim? Even beyond that Tim, even beyond that, the most important thing that I’ve had to realize as a business owner, and I’ve got to tell you, you and I have struggled with this throughout our tenure owning our businesses, is I have to train myself again. Because when you own your own business and you may or may not be going through a difficult time, it can be massively discouraging to the point where you would rather bury your head in the sand than try to really figure out what’s broken in your business.
Tim Sawyer:
Yep.
Adam DeGraide:
And you and I have had to look at each other and say, “Man. We’re doing everything right, or are we?” But you’ve got to be willing to face that giant that’s in the mirror, which is yourself. And even myself, I’ve had to look in the mirror over the last several years and say, “All right Adam, you’ve got to face the giant.” And the biggest obstacle in growth of my business is me and you, Tim. The biggest obstacle in growing the practice isn’t their marketing company, isn’t their software, it’s the owner who owns that practice, who [inaudible 00:18:52] and said, “I’m going into business and I’m going to be the best at,” insert your discipline.
Adam DeGraide:
And that’s what we need more than anything, is to understand that the giant in the mirror has to be dealt with. Then, and only then, can we deal with the giant of Google, Facebook, Instagram, all the things that we don’t have control over. You’ve often said it, if it’s meant to be, it’s up to what, Tim?
Tim Sawyer:
True. It’s true.
Adam DeGraide:
It’s up to me. It’s up to me. That’s it.
Tim Sawyer:
It’s up to me. It’s true, and you bring up a lot of good points Adam, always appreciate the ability to talk to someone who’s been through it, through three separate industries and successfully built, and even more successfully sold those businesses, and continue to be an inspiration for any. And guys, anybody who’s in elective medicine, we talk about this all the time, has raised their hand and said, “I’m an entrepreneur.” We’re all entrepreneurs. If there’s a sales or retail component to it, that means you’re an entrepreneur.
Tim Sawyer:
And I think Adam, you’re an inspiration and you’ve been able to adopt, and I think that you make really good points. Not just adopt in this one iteration that we know as Crystal Clear, but also in previous businesses in different industries, and any person who has been able to do what you’ve done and really learn three completely different industries from auto to insurance to now elective medicine, and the most important thing is through that, what I’ve discovered from spending all this time with you, is that the mediums will all change.
Tim Sawyer:
10 years ago or 15 years ago now, I don’t know what the exact date is, Facebook didn’t exist. Instagram-
Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, it didn’t exist.
Tim Sawyer:
Instagram was a relatively new phenomenon, and so there’ll always be the newest, latest. Snapchat kind of came and went, right? Everyone thought Snapchat was going to be the next biggest, greatest thing from a commercialization standpoint and it kind of fizzled out once Stories were created. So think about it, Snapchat, multi-billion dollar business, they’re struggling right now because somebody took their idea.
Tim Sawyer:
So all of those things will change, but being a great leader and applying certain business principles over and over again, that will never change. And so I think that’s the big lesson, and there’s so many great, smart doctors out there. And it’s funny because we were talking the other day, and there’s this refrain that people in the industry and doctors themselves will say, “Well, I’m not a great business person,” or, “We’re not great business people, we don’t process it that way.”
Tim Sawyer:
Well the flip side to that is, I’d like to see someone who is trained as a business person go and do surgery. I think it would be easy to say that probably business people wouldn’t be great doctors, and so-
Adam DeGraide:
That’s right.
Tim Sawyer:
… when we have access to someone who is great and inspiring in their journey like yourself, that we should listen because it’s good advice, just as if someone said, “Hey Tim, if you want to lose 30 pounds,” and the person’s an integrative medicine person, I probably want to listen to them.
Tim Sawyer:
And so I think it is great advice, and Adam, I know you’re going to be, as you mentioned, in Vegas this week.
Adam DeGraide:
Yes.
Tim Sawyer:
Depending on the release date of this podcast, we’ll be in the booth, we’ll be around at the Medical Spa Show in Vegas.
Adam DeGraide:
Yep.
Tim Sawyer:
We’ve been the top sponsors of that for six years, a great, great organization, a great venue, and it’ll be a lot of fun and a lot of great speakers will be there this week. We’d love to see you, pop by the booth.
Tim Sawyer:
And as always, anyone interested in learning a little bit more about Crystal Clear, pop by the site CrystalClearDM.com. CrystalClearDM.com. One of the boys would love to talk to you about your needs, give us a call. And if you want to just take a look at what you’re doing, we’re happy to do that.
Tim Sawyer:
And Adam, as always, we appreciate your time, we appreciate your great advice, and the only thing we ask is that we get you guys on soon, would that be okay?
Adam DeGraide:
That would be great Tim, thanks so much for your time today, buddy.
Tim Sawyer:
All right guys, great job. Thank you.
Moderator:
Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of True to Form, brought to you by TouchMD, the all-in-one aesthetic technology hub. To learn more about your podcast sponsor, visit TouchMD.com. And to learn more about your podcast provider, Crystal Clear, visit CrystalClearDM.com. Also be sure to subscribe to the show on all your favorite music apps, including iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and TuneIn to stay up to date with the newest episodes. Thank you for listening.
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