Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: You're listening to the Doc Lounge Podcast. This is a place for candid conversations with the healthcare industry's top physicians, executives and thought leaders.
This podcast is made possible by Pacific Companies, your trusted advisor in physician recruitment.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Doc Lounge Podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Doyle. And today we're diving into a topic that every healthcare practice, clinic and service based business should be paying attention to. Marketing that actually works.
My guest today is Sean Garner, an entrepreneur, marketing strategist, and the founder and CEO of Shawn Garner Consulting. Sean specializes in helping service based businesses like medical practices, wellness clinics and coaching brands cut through the noise and build a marketing strategy that's simple, sustainable and effective.
What sets Sean apart is that he's been in the trenches himself, from owning a gym to working as a firefighter. And he's going to tell us about the other brands that he owns in the space. So really excited to hear about that.
But he really knows how to run a business. While balancing his real life and now as a story brand certified guide and fractional cmo, he's helped hundreds of businesses become the go to in their local market.
So if you've ever been feeling overwhelmed by marketing buzzwords, confused by funnels, or unsure on, you know, where to start with SEO, this episode is designed for you. So want to welcome you to the show. Sean.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: Stacy, thank you so much. That was, that was quite the introduction, but so hopefully we deliver on some of this stuff. But I'm very excited for the opportunity to come on here and connect with your audience.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Amazing. Well, you know a little bit about our audience. A lot of the physicians that, you know, listen in have private practices or are thinking of, you know, maybe starting what we would call almost like a side business with, you know, maybe a med spa, maybe wound care.
So tell us, give us a little bit of, you know, what's kind of. You've worked with a ton of businesses with what is one mistake you're seeing people do once they, you know, just are trying to launch their, their. Their business or brand.
[00:02:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, Great question. So one thing I'll say for, for context of all of this is give myself a little bit of street cred here. So not only do we own the Shawn Gartner Consulting marketing agency, like you said with the amazing introduction, but specifically for your audience, why I'm excited to speak with them today is my wife and I own, we, we own several other businesses and, and one of those is a functional medicine clinic. So my wife's a nurse practitioner. She has her own medical practice and then we also together own an IV therapy medical spa. So B12 we're getting into like the high dose vitamin C stuff with some advanced cancer treatments and everything. So whenever I'm giving you guys stuff today, I don't want to just be like, ah, yeah, that sounds good. But he doesn't know my industry. No, I do know your industry. So I just want to make sure that everything that I share with you guys today is very applicable to physicians, nps, pas, people that are looking to start these enterprise practice and be successful. And probably honestly the, the most common mistake that I would say, especially with positions and nps, you're too smart. And so when you go to start creating your marketing material, you're thinking very clinical. And a lot of times, because if you think about it, if you're coming from like the insurance based world into your own private practice now, you really didn't have to do as much marketing because people would just look at their insurance. They're just going to go to the, the physician that's recommended to network. And so you didn't have to think about how to talk about what you did. It was very clinical because the only copywriting that you would do is you're filling out your patient reports in your EMR and stuff. So you say you didn't have to think about how you're going to talk to patients to get them into your practice. And so whenever I see physicians in peas, they want to start going on their own, create their own private practice. When it comes to the messaging, there's a big disconnect because they're trying to think clinically and things that people may be speaking from a clinical term but they don't think about the actual words people are using.
And you know, like man, I'm just really struggling with, with fatigue lately or you know, mental exhaustion or you know, just something just feels off with my energy. And this customers or potential patients are looking for those things. But from the physician world we're focusing too much on like trying to clinically diagnose and stuff. And that's not really the words people are searching for. And if we want to connect with these people and have them become just from a lead for a prospect to a patient, we have to use the words that create a clear story to invite these customers or patients into great advice.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: And yeah, I definitely think like you're saying we know everybody that is a healthcare professional is, you know, so, so smart and really they may be focused on like those clinical terms and, and just, you know, because they're in a clinical setting all day. So what are, what are some things that you've seen kind of work and break through? Thinking now specifically about private practice and then we'll kind of pivot over to some of these additional clinics that we were talking about.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So the, the main premise, and I would say foundational thing that everybody needs if they're going to be successful with their marketing of their private practice is understanding the concept of a sales funnel. So with our agency we always say that we help you build, fill and optimize a sales funnel. And in that term I think needs a little bit of clarity because with rise of popular software platforms like clickfunnels and high level and some of these other tools, people associate a sales funnel with a specific software platform or a style of website. And, and when we say sales funnel, that's not what we mean. What we mean is from, is a relationship building journey from taking somebody from a prospect all the way to a superfan patient for life. And so part of a sales funnel is going to be the messaging, the words that you are using to invite customers into your practice. The second part of a sales funnel is going to be your website. It needs to be structured in a way that clearly communicates the problem that you solve, how you make your patient's life better and what they need to do to get started with you. The Net. The third thing that it needs is you need to have some type of lead generator on your website. So when somebody lands on your website for the first time, they're not going to be ready to, you know, schedule the first appointment or become a patient immediately. There's going to be something that we need to help position you as the proper guide or expert for them so they can opt in. You see things like time like ebooks or webinars, mini courses and stuff like that where people can put their information in. So then you and your sales team, your front office can follow up with them and, and then it follows them up with an email sell sequence to again position yourself as the guide to help these patients resolve the problems they're dealing with. And so that's kind of the foundational thing that you need. And then once you have that, that's whenever we can look at filling that funnel with things like search engine optimization, go, you know, content on Google, social media, paid ads. And then once we have that, we can look into third phase, which is optimizing, okay, what emails are getting people to actually come in and become a patient. I know this is A huge headache for so many practitioners. Well, how do you get them to actually show up to their appointments, especially their first appointments, if there's no type of a down payment or membership model or anything like that that you're running off of? And now with the rise of AI, there's tons of things that we can use to help automate that whole process for you. But honestly Stacy, it all revolves around that process of you need to have the sales funnel in place to. So that way you're not just wasting money on marketing that doesn't work and sending people to a website and they're just, it's. The analogy I use is like filling up a bucket with holes in it. You know, you're sending people to this thing but they're just pouring right out because you don't have this system to take somebody from a prospect all the way to a superfan patient for life.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Great, great insights and advice there around building a funnel and it might be, yeah. Kind of new terminology for physicians listening. So I really appreciate you breaking that and I think I want to get your thoughts hearing from other. Obviously you've helped a lot of physicians or PAs and MPS when they're thinking of pivoting and making private practice or expanding to a clinic. Are they really setting aside the right amount of resource in terms of getting somebody like you, an agency on board and setting aside a certain amount of marketing budget? You know what, what, what do you recommend? Because I don't want anyone jumping in blind and not realizing, you know, kind of that commitment there.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. And I think that this is something that again would almost be the, the curse of knowledge with somebody that has high level degrees or high level of value that they've provided in the real world when they're trying to go digital. So one thing you have to realize, let's say, let's say you've been and working in an ER setting or something like that for 20 years as a doc and now all of a sudden you're finally going to go out on your own. You want to start your own, whether it be urgent care or you're going to do like a membership based primary care service and you're finally going out on your own. Well, whenever you go out on your own, let's say you even build a website, you got a neighbor, oh, he's going to do it for me. Well, this is what you got to realize when that is set up, if it is not set up properly, Google knows nothing about all the things that you've done in the real world. So in the eyes of Google, you are a brand new doc out of med school. It doesn't know all the experience and everything that you have. And so I think that what I, what I would encourage physicians and everybody to know and understand is just because you've been successful in a clinical setting now and you're trying to go out on your own, just because you built a website doesn't mean they will come. I joke. Like Field of Dreams is a great movie but a horrible marketing strategy. Like if you build it, they will not come. So you need to make sure that whenever it's built up, one of the things that bragging on us at our agency that I think that we do well is not only do we just build beautiful websites, but we also help you with the words and the messaging. So we write all the words for you obviously in partnership with you to make sure that it tells that clear, cohesive story. But we're also using the words that your customers or prospective patients are typing in Google so they find your website. But more importantly is we're making sure that your website is actually structured in a way that Google likes it, that reflects your authority. So like I said, in the real world you've got tons of experience. Well, in the eyes of Google, if your website is not structured in a certain way, and this is what's called search engine optimization or SEO, it makes it look like you could have a practice with like a broken front door or busted out window of a patient was pulling up to your physical location and it had those things, they're not going to have much trust in you. And the same thing can be done with your website, especially whenever somebody's setting it up that doesn't understand these things of what Google's looking for. So that way they can have that trust with you.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: And Sean, I'm sure you are seeing some of the trends and pivots within search with now ChatGPT natural language models. So tell us a little bit about that. How are you helping clients navigate that?
[00:11:22] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. So right now there's a huge buzzwords with LLM and these language models and an answer engine optimization and AI search and everything. A few quick stats that I will, I will throw out is right now the majority of the searches, now this will change but right now the majority of the searches that are happening in those language models like Chat GPT are more like in this setting WebMD esque. It's people that are looking for questions, they're not looking for providers or anything. The, the people that I think last night I said it was saw was only like 3% of the searches that are done inside of chat GPT are actually commercial related or commercial intent to where it's somebody looking for a practitioner or service provider in their area. They're typically going on there like, hey, I've, you know, I'm, I'm struggling with fatigue in the morning. What are some things that I could be struggling with? And they're almost using it as like A, a WebMD to self diagnose and not because they're looking for a practitioner. However, that will eventually change. And as of now also these language models, how they are getting and sourcing their information is from something that's called Common Crawl. And so imagine Google sending out all these little bots and all these other web providers sending out all these little robots and stuff to scan the Internet and find out what it's about. Well, they, these language models like ChatGPT and Stuff, they don't want to redo all of that work. So they are still sourcing their information from there. So even if you went to Chad GPT and you said give me the top 10 functional medicine providers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is still sourcing that information from Common Crawl. So it is pulling those results. If they're doing well organically in search engines like Google and Bing and everything, they're still pulling that information in there. So from a search perspective from your website, that's why SEO is still important.
But I've seen lots of people, especially in my industry that are talking about like SEO is dead and stuff. I don't, I don't think it is and I don't think that it's dying. But I think bad SEO is dead because at the end of the day, people are still searching for something. Just the platform is shifting more from Google to these AI models and we still need to optimize our website and our content to be seen on those. So bad SEO I think is very much dead. But how my team and I do it is we create SEO. But you know, before all of this stuff was even coming to, you know, a priority for people with these LLMs, how we do our SEO already fits in alignment with that because we're not trying to just stuff keywords and search terms and stuff on webpages and blogs and stuff. We're trying to create content that positions our clients as experts. So then that way that's already being pulled into these language models, like our whole thing is we want you to grow your business and Dominate your industry. And so in order to do that, we've got to write really good content that reflects your expertise in whatever, you know, niche you're going in here with your practice.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Fabulous insights. And yeah, I think you're spot on. And I think, yeah, it's like you're saying these natural language models are going after what people would naturally be searching for and kind of looking for in, you know, in their natural language, how they would search for that. So it sounds like you're already helping a lot of clients, but build content that way, which is amazing.
Now, okay, let's pivot a little bit. You talked about, obviously you're the owner of a natural medicine, you know, clinic. Tell us what, what is the biggest thing that people should consider, you know, before they consider launching one of these, you know, basically additional revenue, income streams, business.
[00:15:01] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. I would say, you know, there's the logistics, business side of just making sure that it's set up. You've got all of the business stuff done with. You know, if you are an NP or pa, you get your supervising physician and everything aligned up and you understand the business model, what you're trying to do.
The main thing that I would say, my wife is amazing at what she's done. She, she specializes in hormone therapy and thyroid dysfunctions and her practice is focused around functional medicine.
One thing that I think that's made her extremely successful is one, she was very clear, clear on the problem she was trying to solve. She wasn't trying to be, you know, just a general practitioner or anything like that. And it was very specific on the problem that she was solving. And that was translated in all the marketing collateral that we created and everything for her practice. But the other thing that I think that especially whenever people are coming from the traditional clinical setting, insurance based medicine, and they're moving over to private practice is really thinking through and understanding the offer.
And so how are you going to package what it is that you do so you can do anything to where, you know, maybe you have like an initial consult fee of $1,000 and then each visit is, you know, $500 after that or whatever it is. What.
And obviously I'm going to be a little bit biased. What we've done that I think works very, very well is we do everything on membership based. And so there is like an initial onboarding fee for their initial labs and consultations and stuff. But what we've done is we've created different tiered packages that are membership based, cash pay, medical clinic. And so that helps from one standpoint, from patient longevity, if you're not just having them come in and you know, paying several thousand dollars for an initial consult and then maybe they don't see you again for another 812 months, depending on what type of medicine that you're practicing. But it helps with that reoccurring revenue model. And so each month we're able to structure everything around that offer and so you know what your finances are going to be. So it helps a lot easier whenever you come to budgeting, hiring staff, everything else that you do. But really I would say solidifying that, the messaging around the problem that you want to solve and creating a really solid offer. So then all of your marketing can be built around that stuff.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Smart. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense too because then you're like, you're saying you can plan out from, from a revenue standpoint. And, and I did want to ask you, I mean obviously a lot of these services like Botox or semi Glutide or even wound care, it's really, you're trying to get that repeat customer and you're trying to get them to come in at the right frequency. So what, what are some strategies you recommend to help that reoccurrence happen?
[00:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, great question. One thing I did forget to mention on the back too, on the last question too, with just getting started, one thing that we did with both of our businesses that's very unique to and that you're able to do in the digital world is you can actually buy up and start owning your real estate, digital real estate, if you will, before the clinic actually opens. So we've done this with both of our medical practices. Plus we had another local medical spa ended up hiring us to do their marketing with the exact same thing for them. We can build your website and start growing your presence on Google before the clinic actually opens and is ready to see patients. And so we've done that for all three of the practices and clinics and stuff here locally. And what that has helped us to do is then when day one opens, you've already got a waiting list of patients that are interested in coming to see you versus okay, like you do all the back end stuff, get your insurance set up, maybe you build out your lease and you're like, okay, now I'm going to launch my website. And then you just open up the front door the first day and you're like, why isn't anyone here? It's like it is brand new in the digital world. One of the things that you can do is you can get ahead of all that. You can start building your presence and start ranking for key terms. And you can start, if you have this sales funnel built out, you can start collecting that patient data and that information, everything. So whenever you are ready to start seeing patients, you got a client list to start with instead of having to start all over from, from, from the start to, to get this stuff up and running again. So I would definitely say like, start before you think you need to. Then, then to answer the next question on this reoccurring revenue, how do you get people in? That's where I think that one thing that everyone should know is social media obviously is important and everybody needs to have social presence and stuff to help with market the services and everything they're providing. But from a revenue standpoint, you should expect very little from that because that is not patient data or patient information that you own. You can create content and send messages and marketing collateral out there, but you don't actually own that. And so you're throttled a lot by, you know, meta. If they want you to pay for sponsoring ads and stuff like that, like you don't actually own that data. You can't contact those people whenever you want. So that's why we're firm believers in that sales funnel concept. And one of those things is having yourself a CRM dashboard set up so where when people come to your website, all that information is getting funneled into a tool that whenever you want to, you can send out special offers, promotions. If you're your medical spa and you're wanting to do Botox, like stuff like that, that especially, that has expiration dates of like, hey, this stuff's expiring this month. We're going to lose it if we don't use it. That's where you run your, your Botox specials and stuff like that for existing members. And you can get them to opt into VIP lists so they can get first exclusive discounts and stuff whenever you want to send out text messaging blasts. But even whenever it comes to that, what we always encourage all of our clients to do, especially our medical ones, is you don't want all the content that you're putting out there, your emails, your text messages, blah, blah, blah, to be buy my stuff, buy my stuff, book your appointment, all of that. What we want to do is we want to be creating content that reminds them why you're the expert that they chose to work with. So it's giving them helpful tips from the, from the, for the boat, like the injectables and stuff. It's sending, you know, a, a weekly skin care tip of just basic things that they can do on their own. Just remind them that you are the skin care expert. So when they do need to come get, you know, more Botox, Juvederm, whatever the filler is done, they're going to think of you or same thing with, with hormone therapy if we're going to be sending out maybe it's nutrition tips, sleep mindset type stuff just to help with their overall wellness. So again they're thinking of you as the wellness expert. So whenever they are time to get their labs done or get their hormones and stuff checked, they think of you. So it's not about just doing things of buy my stuff each week, it's about creating a system that nurtures these patients into keeping them super fan patients for life by continually adding value and positioning yourself as the proper guide and expert for them by giving them valuable information each week.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: And that's how you stay top of mind. I love it.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Now I, I know obviously you know, ratings and reviews really can come into play here. So I love I and I know you, you know, with your cert, you're a certified story brand guide. So tell us a little bit how you use that to position, you know, different physicians or NPs and PAs as a trusted authority in their, in their specialty.
[00:22:03] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. So it's kind of two aspects is one is like the ratings reviews, Google reviews and everything else like that. And the second would be the messaging aspect. So from the review thing that is very important for local SEO. So whenever it comes to search engine optimization and SEO, there's really two places right now that you can show up.
Three if you're counting like the AI overview answers. But when you Google, let's say, you know, functional medicine provider near me, the first thing you're going to see is all the sponsored ads. Well, you might see the AI answers now, but you're going to see all the sponsored ads and then you're going to see a map that's called the map pack. Then when you go below that, you're going to see the SERPs or the search engine results.
So whenever you're doing SEO, those two things kind of work together. But there's different levers that you can pull to rank differently on one. So you could have somebody that is number one in the map, but maybe they're not even showing up in the top 10 on the SERP. And it's because it's two different things. So what affects the SERP results is your website. And so that's going to be how your website is structured from things that are called heading tags and some back end stuff that's added to your website, meta descriptions and stuff like that in the content that's on the website. How many other websites are pointing towards yours for that authority. And then the map pack that is done primarily from your Google business listing, your website absolutely does affect that, but it's done by your Google business listing and the strength of that and how close you are to the searcher. One of the biggest ranking factors with that is Google reviews. And so I know that a lot of times practitioners will be, you know, worried about asking for reviews because they're too concerned. Like I have some that are just almost too concerned about HIPAA and stuff like that. Like no, no, you're, you're asking them to do that. If they want to say that they've been a patient, that that's cool like that. But what we typically do to help our practitioners with that is we'll automate that. So typically we'll, we'll do a certain check in point. So it's like depending on how the practice is set up, if it's something like an injectable meds ball or something, we'll have that be fire off the automation to where as soon as somebody leaves and does their first appointment, they're going to get a series of asks with some, you know, three. We typically ask three times, three days apart each one. So you're asking them nine times or three times in a series of like nine to 10 days. And that's been very successful. And then if it's a longer relationship, like my wife's practice for example, what we do is we plug all those people in in different like quarterly intervals until we know that they've confirmed a review and then we don't ever ask them for a review again. They because especially with, with stuff like that, that it's a, it's a slower process, you know, it's not like an injectable where in a week or two they're going to be able to see the results on their face with the Botox and stuff but with, with more traditional like functional medicine type stuff where the results are typically seen longer. We want to drip that stuff out over time to continually remind them hey, remember how much better you're feeling now. We would love a good, great review. That's another thing is when to ask is obviously the point of sale is very important but anytime you have a patient thanking you for the service or telling you how much better they feel. Look, whatever the problem is that you solve, that's initially when you want to ask that review right there. But it's about having a system set up to where it is automated because like, I know, I love our staff, but like our nurses, they get busy and stuff and so they're not always going to remember to ask. So we do want to have that process automated because we can't just rely on people just when they feel good about it or think about it to go and leave those people and then to answer about the messaging standpoint, that's one of the things that we do is whenever we start working with a provider is our first kickoff call with them is really kind of diving in and asking them questions about the type of medicine that they want to practice or the type of experience they want to provide. So we can help to craft this story. Because with Story brand there are seven different talking points. It's your customers or your patients, they want something, there's a problem that's keeping them from getting what they want. And then so that's where you have to position yourself as the guide with empathy and authority to show that you understand what it's like to have that problem so they can stop dealing with it. And then you want to give them a three step plan so they can start working with you and get it solved so you can call them to action, so they can schedule their appointment, become a patient, whatever it is. They can avoid all the bad things that's happening to them and experience all the good things. So we help them craft those seven talking points and then we use that to create all the words that they're using in their marketing. So that way, like you said, they don't sound like just another doctor. They sound like this experienced empathetic provider that's there to actually get their patients real results based upon the problem they solve.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Wow. Well, that, that is right there. You could get anyone from a standpoint, which I think is amazing and I think, you know, great advice around the ratings and reviews and you know, really kind of having that as at the right check in point points, you know, after their experience and you could quickly scale and get, you know, get a lot of, a lot more ratings and reviews that will help your business grow. So thank you, thank you Sean for that. And I really want to give you a chance now to let you know, anyone that's listening that, you know, needs help or is thinking of starting their, you know, A new clinic or going out into private practice, how they could get ahold of you and work with you and your team.
[00:27:14] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So specifically for this show, if you go to our website, seongarner co Doc Lounge. So it's S E a n G a R N e r c o/doclounge d o c L O U n G E. Sure, they're gonna have the links down and all this stuff below, but that's the best way to connect with us. We're have specific resources for this show. So since we talked about Google reviews on that landing page, we will actually have the Google review script that we use for all of our providers and everything. So you can see the three messages that we send. We send it as an email and text. You can download that for free and we'll send that over to you so you can at least know what words you should be using in those messaging. But honestly, whether. Whether you're brand new and starting out, you're thinking about starting your own practice or you've got a practice and man, you. You think things are going well, but you want them to go a little bit better. I would love the opportunity to connect. I mean, this is, this is what I love doing from marketing standpoint, but then specifically with, with, you know, working with medical practitioners like you guys are literally saving, changing and impacting people's lives. And how unfortunate is it if you are not able to serve and reach the people that you are called to serve solely because you have bad marketing? That's the whole reason I honestly started what I did is I was in the fitness industry. I had tons of experience, but I had people that were lack of a better way of saying it looked really good in a bikini and post an Instagram picture. And we're getting all these clients, but they had no real knowledge or experience. And so that's why we created this agency. That's why it's been an honor, Stacy, to talk to you and your audience because everybody that's listening to this, they obviously are called to. To serve and to help and they help heal people. And so we would love to help you be found by your people that you're supposed to serve. So go to the website sh Doc Lounge, check out the free stuff. If this sounds interesting, love to schedule a call with you and see how we can serve you.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Thank you so much for that, Shawn. And that those, those free keywords, hey, let's. I mean please take them up on that. That sounds amazing. So thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it and hoping you can help change a lot of physicians like you saying that are serving everybody and make their practices grow. So thanks Sean. Appreciate it.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Thank you to all of our listeners. If you would like to be notified when new episodes air, make sure to hit that subscribe subscribe button. And a big thank you to Pacific Companies. Without you guys this podcast would not be possible.
If you would like to be a guest, Please go to www.pacificcompanies.com. thank.
[00:29:50] Speaker C: You.
