Create Faster Than They Can Copy You with Erson Religioso | CashPT Lunch Hour #115

Foreign. Hey, welcome back to the Kashpt Lunch Hour podcast. This is Aaron Levouer, your host, and today I have a repeat guest, Erson Religioso. He was guest number three on the podcast way back in 2015. Ersin and I have become good friends. We finally met this year when he came to speak at My Mastermind after, like, six or seven years of knowing each other. And so Ersin is on the show today to talk about some marketing and business and some other stuff. So, Ersin, welcome to the show. I really appreciate you spending time with us.

Thanks, Aaron. Yeah. Wow. You know, it's crazy that I was the third guest or the third episode and the first guest. If you go in the new order, we'll call it Cash PT Canon.

Right.

You know how, like, Canada is almost like a religion and, like, fanboy fiction and stuff. Yeah, man. So much has gone on for both of us since then. Right, right, right.

It's incredible. So it's 2020. So it's been five years. And that's crazy. You know, at that time, it was. The show was just like a. Like a web we were discussing.

It was just like.

It was like a webinar. It was like a live webinar that I've turned into a podcast. And a lot's changed. Um, I think. I mean, you've done a lot. Like, you've. At the time, you had a blog and you had, you know, I think you were mentoring people. You had like a membership program and you had, like. Blogs were huge.

Right?

Blogs were a ton of readership, ton of comments.

It was crazy. I still miss the days of blogs being huge. Yeah. At least. At least for physical therapy. I think there are other blogs out there that are still huge, like the Verge and Gadget and tech blogs or things like that. Very specific. That also had millions and millions of readers. But like these niche blogs, I think they're just kind of gone the way of the dodo.

Right, right.

Like Twitter.

Keep yourself like Twitter. Right.

Yeah. You know, I think I probably used to say that it was very important to keep up a blog, to get new leads. And I think even for the first three or four years of the blog, even five years ago, I don't even know if I had an email list on it. I might have just been getting started. It was crazy that I was using it just to get, like, blog interest and using it to generate interest in my courses and my products. But I wasn't using it as, like a lead generator for the email list. The email list still to this day is kind of king. Right, right, right. Yeah. So it was at least that time and I said, hey, you know what? I just put this little pop up and I'm getting like, I don't know, you know, like 100 signups a week. And you're like, what? I even showed you. I was like, look, this is because I had an email list, but I wasn't actively promoting, you know, I didn't have a pop up, an interstitial pop up, which is bad now, but it was great then when I just added interstitial pop up, like hey, get this for ebook and this and, and like the time I added, I had just like this, this graph that I showed you, right. I screen captured it was like 300 members. And all of a sudden from the time I added it, I got something like 10,000 people in like a month. It just like shot up. The graph was just, it just went so sharp in that month.

Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, I remember that being like, holy cow, like I could barely get a comment. You know, like, how are you? Like how much traffic does this guy have? You know?

Oh man, if I had that kind of traffic now for my blog, it'd be great. But yeah, you know, the way that things change, certainly podcasts are huge, Instagram is huge. Things are always changing. So I'm changing too. I do absolutely recommend still having a blog, but mostly for almost like evergreen content, you know, And I. And you should always go back and search what your most popular posts are because people are still searching, they're searching for answers or searching for very specific questions you may answer in a blog post you may have already answered. So what I do is I go back and I look at my Google Analytics and I look at what are my most popular posts, what are people searching for? And I. And sometimes I reshoot a video and I just add that video. Cause it's like an embedded YouTube video. So I reshoot a video, make it look better because I have better cameras, better mics, better lighting these days. Not just using my iPhone or whatever, my Android phone back then. I'm actually on iOS now, which is crazy.

Wow, congratulations.

Well, that's been like three years, but five years ago, still using some kind of crappy Android phone. So and now I'll go back and I'll add like direct links to my store or direct links to my sign up or direct like sign up from an email list. So I'll update the calls to action on those most popular posts that are essentially like evergreen posts.

Right, right. That's awesome. So back at this. So let me just go back. So you, you put on this pop up and was that a pop up to get your book or was that to get into like your monthly mentorship program or both?

Oh, well, I didn't have a monthly mentorship program then. I had a monthly, like premium site. Again, premium sites were kind of new back then. People still pay for those things, but that's definitely dwindling. I almost use a premium site now the way that most marketers do as like an added value. You know what I mean? Because those people, the people who are really willing to pay you monthly, almost like how YouTube creators have Patreon and things like that, they just get added value.

Right.

But also anyone who attends my seminars gets my unlimited. Gets my premium site for life without having to pay the monthly membership. So it's still added value and I still update it every week like I used to. Yeah, but I think back then it was just, it was just a lead, you know, it was just like. Or it was just an ebook. And now, you know, it might be an ebook or a webinar or I change it basically every three or four months, but I still get a lot for that, you know, and it's mostly also you get 10% off. So people always. I get people signing up immediately and I don't even know or care if they immediately, if they get the coupon and immediately not sign up. It's the people who really stay on that you really, you really want as your. Because of your evangelist. Right, right.

Right. So I guess here's the other thing I want to bring up that maybe I'm not. A lot of people know is that not only, well, you teach seminars, you treat patients. Are you still treating patients these days?

Yep, I still treat patients.

Yep, you still treat patients. You've gotten all.

Not full time by any means, but I mean, I have a cash based practice and you know, I basically specialize in seeing as little people. People as little as possible. So. Yeah, I mean, it might be a handful every week. Yeah.

So you've got multiple streams of income. Right. I think this is one of the things that I've seen you do so incredibly well that you may or may not know this, but I want to point this out to people that you only got multiple streams of income. You've also.

Which.

Which allows you to pivot to the next thing that's working best, especially if someone steals your idea, which I think is.

Which has happened so many times. And it's like, continues to happen.

Yeah, right. It's like you had this edge tool. It's awesome. Like, you know, soft tissue mobilization. Right. Instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization tool. It was great. And you were one of the first ones on the market with it outside of like the big companies, you know, but the low. Right. And then someone like straight up, I think, ripped it off and sold it on Amazon.

Right? Well, I mean, yeah. And that Amazon, let me tell you, just like two years ago, I was not ready to have my. It's been ripped off plenty of times before that, but I wasn't ready for someone to start selling it on Prime.

Yeah.

For less than half of the cost. And even, just, just like two months ago or even a month ago. People are selling it now for almost just like double. Less than double my cost on Prime. I mean, and it is. That has killed me. And I'll still have like people who, you know, hospitals and people who have always bought from me or people on my list who actually buy. They actually want the real thing. But most people don't know. You know, they attend a seminar or they see it somewhere and they just, they Google it and, you know, everything pops up and they just, people, they even use my images, you know what I mean? I report it to Amazon and it gets taken down. But it's just like there are so many products that are essentially forgeries on Amazon. It's a huge problem. And Amazon basically says, you know, we're not really liable. We could, we can ask them to take it down, but they just create another account and they start selling again. Yeah, I mean, the dude now with baby car seats, I don't know if you saw that, but that's like a huge problem with like these car seat forgeries that they even come in like a box and like, it might be like a little bit of grammar mistake, but when they like crash test them, these babies would actually die. These things just like fall apart. Like they're made out of paper and, you know, they get taken down and they just go back up like the next day.

Yeah, I mean, there's certain things I don't buy on Amazon these days because like, it's like, is it a forgery or not? It looks. If it's too good to be true,

you know, if it's too good to be true. That's the thing. Like, if you see this product that you want, it looks exactly like it. It's probably some kind of gray market product. Especially if it's like, you know, not like 5% off or 10% off. But if it's like 50% off or more, it's probably not the product that you are looking for.

Right, Right. And I think. I think, like, what do you think? Like, when that first happened, like, what did. Like, what did you feel? Like, what did that feel like?

Or what did.

What did you think? Were you like, oh, man, like, my business is done or, you know.

Well, yeah, I mean, I kind of thought I. Well, I wasn't selling on prime at the time, so I shifted a lot of my business to prime. And that definitely helped because, you know, you see something on prime and it might even be a little bit more than something that's not Amazon Prime. And you're just like, well, I want Prime. You know, it gets there fast and they typically have more views. And of course Amazon pushes it up to the top. It's almost like ranking higher on Google. Right. It's just important to be on Prime. So I shifted everything to prime. And then, you know, that. That in itself, it's a race at the bottom. So I still kind of repurpose that. And I have just better. You know, I try to include better value. You get my. Get my tool. You get it for ebook. You get like customer service by me. And it's. It's kind of like the people who know me and know my brand, which is only actually a fraction of my purchases. Most people purchase, they're just looking for something and they don't even know that it's my tool or my brand or my product, you know, and they just end up buying it. But the people who really are kind of championing my product or following me online have been following me forever. You know, they see the value. Yeah.

But so what it seems from my perspective is like, yeah, that might have hurt. It might hurt like. Like you're like, damn, that hurt. Not only your wallet, but your ego, your pride. I mean, like, I've had things ripped off.

I don't even really care about ego. But yeah, my wallet, absolutely. I mean, to this day, I still haven't really recovered because that was like. I mean, my biggest mistake. If we're gonna. We're gonna talk about mistakes which you guys could all learn from. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Cause, man, that was like. I mean, every company has a Halo product and even Apple's feeling to hurt on that, right? Like, Apple is not generating revenue from iPhone and like, not revenue, but not like the kind of. It's not like this growth that is just explosive growth forever. Like smartphones. Aren't really the next big thing. And most people have like longer upgrade cycles now. Apple's even transitioning to services. It's funny, like I'm trying to transition away from services like digital even though I think it'd be great to have something that everyone would pay for. I mean I don't have like content even Apple can't launch tv. Right. They just like, that's a spectacular failure. So yeah, I just had to, I had to quickly shift and I had to look at the next big thing, which currently is like blood flow restriction therapy. But I'm trying again not to put all my eggs in one basket. So at least for my E commerce store, I went from all, all in with like purchasing different products and from different manufacturers. And now I'm trying different things like drop shipping to keep my cost down. Because I'm trying before I had this like what I can what I thought of as like an unlimited budget to buy, just buy products. Oh, this isn't working. So I'll just kind of like fill the warehouse and throw that away. And now instead of doing that I'm like soft launching products by drop shipping which kind of keeps my costs down. I don't make as much profit, but there's a lot less risk.

Right, right. Yeah. And I think like, I mean you're even selling coffee, which I've had some, which is the Colombian and the Brazil were really good.

Yeah, yeah. You know, and it's just, it's just another thing people keep on saying like, oh, that's like a weird departure for you. I'm like, is it really? I mean every healthcare provider likes coffee.

Right.

I mean it's like everyone likes coffee and everyone would also want a product that actually doesn't appeal to a niche. It actually appeals to everyone. Even though my niche with my E stim coffee, which kind of still e branded, you know. Yeah. East Tim. That you actually want in the clinic. Right. Use every day. I mean what I really want is something like, like a coffee or even like a lubricant like or what Graston would call an emollient. Right.

Emollient.

Maybe I could call it something that people buy as a recurring. Right, yeah. As opposed to just buying an edge store which you buy once and you don't buy it unless someone steals it.

Right, right. They buy it once and then they may or may not even come to one of your seminars or buy one of your other products. It's just like a one time thing.

Right, Right. So I really tried to diversify I also started selling treatment tables and then, you know, have all my products in the clinic starter kit, which, again, I told you about it, but I haven't really promoted because I just have so much of my table, and I'm still. I still don't have a va, Right. After all this time, I still don't want to put in the time to do a VA because I'm just doing everything myself. You know, the clinic starter kit, which. Which I think is of interest to, like, your audience, is just everything you need to start a clinic for a lot less. It's my whole model, but it's. Yeah. A table, all my seminars, you know, all the equipment that you would need, like BFR cuffs and suspension trainer and. Yeah. The tools.

Little like the.

The.

All the, like some of the hard goods and like the learning soft goods, too. Right, Right.

Yep.

You know, I think the incredible thing Erson is like, is just seeing you, like, pivot and create these other. Other things. Like, you're creating faster than people can copy.

You know, it's like, yeah, that's my aim. I mean. I mean, you know what it's like to be copied too, right? We talked about this. Like, all of a sudden, someone out there might be in your mastermind group, and then a couple months later, they literally launch a product that looks like all they did was they. They took your copy and they put their face and brand on it. Yeah. You've been using the same color, right? I don't know if we're naming anyone specifically, but you know what I'm talking about. But I mean, yeah, it's just. It happens. And if you have a product, if you have a good idea, granted, again, don't just put all your eggs in one basket or find a way to make your product that might even be more or the same value. Just find a way to elevate your value in the customer's perception, because someone may absolutely copy your stuff. Then some guy just emailed me recently. It's like, hey, what's the difference in your mobility gun and this mobility gun that's cheaper? And I'm like, that actually looks like almost the same exact product. But the difference is that you're talking to me right now. He's like, yeah, you know, I emailed and I did chat requests and everything. You're the first person to ever get back to me. That's just one of my things. Like, you text me all the time, right?

Yeah.

How often do I email you or text you? Like, how often. How long does it take for me to get back to you within my business hours, it's pretty quick, right?

Yeah. You know, it's pretty impressive that you're doing. You do all this, like, without a VA and yet you have an incredible work ethic and flow. And how do you do it? Like, what's your secret?

Well, yeah, I mean, five years ago, I definitely was not doing this five years ago. I was just working my butt off and working as much as possible. And even leading up to that point, seven years ago, eight years ago, when I started blogging, up to that five year point when I was first on your show, I was creating so much content and writing so much that it was taking up a good portion of my day. And I had no, I had a creative flow, but it wasn't that organized. So about three or four years ago, I started doing time blocking. And I talked a lot about this in your Mastermind class. If you have a workflow and certainly, yeah, your patients, you know, if you're treating patients, but you're also trying to create content, you're trying to do other ways to promote your business or come out with products. Patients are easy because you have like this, you know, you're seeing Mrs. Jones at 9 and you have novel at 10, and maybe you're going to do a little marketing to a doctor at 11. And that is set out. But then once it gets to creating content and making podcasts or working on your email list or that kind of stuff, that is just like, oh, let me just do it, because I have time. And it never works out that way. You know, an email is one of the biggest time sucks ever. So when I heard about a podcast on time blocking, it just made a lot of sense. Like, why not block off certain portions of your day for content creation, for answering emails, for getting back to voicemails, instead of just doing like, oh, man, I just got a voicemail. Oh, look at this email. Let me check to see what's that. We're having an irate customer that really needs to deal with now. You know that stuff when it's unorganized, you're just gonna get on your phone, look at your notifications, waste a lot of time. Oh, now I'm scrolling Facebook and next thing you know, you just basically did a whole lot of nothing. Yeah, so time blocking for me was, was, was huge because I just set aside a certain portion of my day and only certain days a week to, you know, check on my metric, check on how my ads are doing, to edit video, to create videos, always on one day and edit them a little bit later and put up my podcast on a certain day as opposed to just doing it whenever I had a chance.

Right. But Mrs. Jones angry that her edge tool is too sharp. Like, I gotta get back to her right now. Like, what do you do?

Well, the irate customers, I still actually drop whatever I'm doing because most people, when a human talks to them, especially on the phone, I try not to do too many phone calls. But if someone's super upset and even over a course of a couple of emails, they can't really detect, they kind of even get more upset. I try to actually reach out to them, make a personal phone call. Because there's something about just hearing someone's voice and you just assume automatically on email or text or chat the other person's an a hole. I don't know what it is. I don't think, I don't think they are. But this, you can. Unless you're writing like all these emoticons everywhere, like a lot of smiley faces, people just, just automatically get upset at you, right? In this day and age where most, you know, most of it is outsourced to like a, you know, the lowest common denominator and someone in a different country who absolutely cannot relate and their only job is to basically talk you down and get you more upset. I've had people go from like, I'm quitting your group, I'm telling everyone about how bad you are and this is a crappy product and it's all misunderstanding to hey, you know, you know, I call them and all of a sudden they're attending my seminars and they're telling everyone about me because I just kind of talked them down. You know, I was able to like talk them off of the, whatever the opposite of evangelist is, you know, the one star review. I was able to talk down from one star review that ledge like that, that suicide ledge for your business. So those people I do make priority for, but I also, again, I made absolute business hours before I would just kind of work whenever I know again it's affecting my life, affecting my marriage, my wife, and say, you're on the phone too much. They have these, these business hours, you know, that are like from 9:30 to 4 or something that I do. I try not to do anything when I'm with my family outside of those hours.

Yeah, no, that's so great because I know over the last couple years it's like you've been like, yeah, no, I can't talk today. I got to go be with my kid, I'm with my kids. Or, you know, I can talk to you Friday between 12 and three, you know, and. Whereas at some point, like, even me, like, I would be like, all right, I'll take a call whenever. But I know that my most productive time is from like 11, 8am to 11, you know, and if I interrupt it with phone calls and all these other things, then I don't get nearly as much done. I mean, is that you find you're more efficient doing this?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like that. That whole concept of deep work. Right. That a lot of people talk about you. There's no way, like, you're fooling yourself if you. If you think you're gonna be productive for five to eight hours a day. I mean, you're like. There are just certain days it happens maybe like once or twice a month where something happens to me.

Right.

I just, like, put out a ton of content. I edit, like, all my websites. I like, revamp all these email automations and do all this stuff all within, like, two hours. And it's usually kind of like, because I travel once a month for seminars, it's usually like on a plane or something like that where I'm just like, you get in the zone. That does not happen every day. Right. So that's again, why time blocking is so important, because there's just. You're just not going to be. Going to have this creative spark. I mean, think about people who create content for a living, like Stephen King or, you know, people who are just like these amazing writers. I don't know if you like Stephen King or not, but.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But people.

Christine, that was my first novel in, like, high school.

Yeah. I just did the whole Dark Tower series over audible, like, and it's really amazing. But even he talks about just going for, you know, these authors go for years without being able to. They lose their muse. Right, Right. So. So I think people are just really. It's different. Seeing patients day after day after day after day is different. But even you'll know, like, sometimes you'll just really connect with people, and other times you just, like, go in and you're in a funk and you just can't wait to get home. And every patient's kind of like, you just have to keep on, like, acting like you're really interested, but you just are not really into being there. And it's, you know, everyone has good days and bad days. And that's why I think you can't just be on all the time.

Right.

You Know, and so I focused a lot on instead of work, work, work, work, work. In the past five to six years, I've also focused on not working. And that is so huge. And people say there's so many people out there say there is no work life balance. And I think that's. That's really sad for them. And if they have families, it's sad for their families.

Mm. I think, you know, I think that. I think there's two different types of work life balance. While we're on that, it's like, I feel like there's the entrepreneurs work life balance, and there's the work life balance for people that work for someone else and maybe don't like their job, you know?

Absolutely.

Like, you don't like your job. Well, shit, you better have a work life balance, because life means a whole lot more than work. But for you and me, like, work life balance, like, my work is like what I want to be doing. It's a challenge, but it's a little bit. It's not. I think it's like a different. There's a different definition to what my work life balance is, you know, versus, like, if I hated my job. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, I love what I'm doing too, but I think because we love what we're doing and you might just have this idea again at like 11:00pm, you know, or I would, like, wake up at like 3am and I'm like, oh, man, this is a great idea. And I haven't already brought something down that's hard because you feel like you're always working.

Right, right.

You know? So, yeah, I've started actually just like, going for walks and doing a lot of mindfulness to really kind of just think about nothing.

Right, right. No, that's a good point.

I would.

This week I was wait. What was I doing? I was getting them. I was waiting. I was going to get a massage and I was, like, just waiting. And I had this great idea. I was like, I was so relaxed. I had this great idea. Like, I got to go back and write it down on my phone and then come back and get into my relaxation zone. But I knew if I couldn't, I had to. I had to get it out of my head, written it down, so I can go back and, like, get back into my nothing, like, relaxation, nothing zone. And writing things down has helped me do that. But sometimes it comes up in inopportune moments when I don't have a pen, you know, but like, yeah, you know I've woken up at 3am and like this is a great idea. Write it down, go back to sleep.

Yeah, I know a lot of people are. They say they're supposed to create like you're supposed to keep that notebook or the most moleskin on you. And I just keep everything in like Google keep. You know me, I'm a guy and I just hate writing. My handwriting sucks and it's so sloppy.

Yeah.

But yeah, I have like all these notes and these to do things and like basically.

Yeah, yeah, I got the Google keep right on my. I just go right up here. I've got one account for purse. I've got my personal, my clinic and my coaching business and I just swipe between them too and get it all in there and it's an awesome little tool. Is there another tool that you use that helps you become as efficient as you are?

Yeah, I mean I definitely use things like I prefer Google services even though I'm on iOS now. Google services because they're on every platform.

Right.

You know, and I have like a Chromebook and I, you know, because of all an all in with Apple now. I have like a couple of Macs, I have a Mac desktop and I'm on a MacBook now and I have an iPhone. But if you get too tied into like using say something like Apple Notes or Apple Reminders, it's really only going to show up on your iOS or your Mac devices versus you use Google. It's going to show up everywhere.

Right.

You know, and even if you're like a library or something, you're at a hotel and you just happen to whatever, forget your phone charge, you could always like log into their accounts and hopefully it's secure and then you know, log into all your Google stuff and get all your, get all your notes, your docs, whatever you're, you're storing because it's all in the cloud.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean I, you know, I use everything. I use Google for my notes, I use it for my emr. I use it for the majority of my websites that aren't like my Shopify sites, you know, because I use Shopify for my E commerce store. But even on my websites, like my clinic site, I build all on Google sites because it's all included with like your, your one time kind of monthly fee.

Right, right. Which is like $12 now, I think.

Yeah. Or less if you, if you just opt for the basic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah, we, yeah, G Suite is like so powerful. I use like probably 5% of it, you know, and it does a ton for us. You know, what do you think? Let me ask you this question. I want to shift gears a little bit, you know, and this is something that's come up in a couple conversations today and this week. There's a big misconception out in the public about what we do as physical therapists. You know, you're educating pts, you got your seminars, you've got some other things. Like what, what do you think's missing? Like, I mean, you're, you know, like, what do you think's missing in the way that we're either promoting physical therapy, marketing our stuff or talking about it that is keeping, like, potential patients from understanding that they should actually come see us first when their back hurts or their hip hurts or there's something goes out or they wake up with a crick in their neck.

I have no idea, Erin. I mean, I think that's kind of like this one step at a time thing still after all this time. And it's crazy now that it's 2020. You know, if we had to date this podcast five years ago, we could have talked about the same thing.

Right.

And when I first graduated 21 years ago, now I'm practicing 21 years, this would be my 22nd year practice that was like this really hot topic. I remember reading an article in advance magazine about this new emerging concept about PTs in emergency rooms for back pain and neck pain. And that's still like this niche concept that. But I mean, if like a certain percentage of people go there with acute neck and back pain and they're seeing an ER doc, like, what are they going to do for them? Right, right. I mean, like every ER and every emergency care should have a pt. In most states, we have direct access. But yeah, even 10 years ago, they did a very or more. They did a very simple, basically public perception study, like, who would you go to? The questions are always the same, like, you know, who would you go to for. For back pain? It was like orthopedics, chiropractor, massage therapist, physical therapy. The physical therapist is basically answered for none of them unless it was something like rehabbing after surgery or I can't walk after a knee replacement. It was never anything that the majority of us treat day in and day out. I mean, public perception of our profession. I'm not necessarily sure why and how we can change it. It's certainly, you know, we're cash based. Right. So the majority of our. Of your audience and the people who attend my seminars, they're already all awesome clinicians. Yeah. But it's a problem that high volume practice where there's no value in it. The majority of my patients are patients who have no problem paying me, you know, my fees that are like triple their copay because they've already just paid that until they essentially broke up with their pt. That's what I hear about it. Like. Yeah, I eventually said to break up with my PT because I was seeing them for a year and a half for like two and a half hours and they spent like five minutes with me twice a week for a year and a half. And when for as long as as that is. I don't know if it's the norm, but it seems like a high, high volume kind of meal clinic is the norm in so many places where I go. And again, it's mostly people who complain to me who attend my courses and people who, unless you're like a high volume practice clinic owner who randomly ends up in my courses and you don't follow me. It's the people who really follow me who are just complaining about all the other clinics in the area. And I've just heard that. And even in different countries it's like, oh yeah, pt, it's all just passive care and everything and everyone else around us, it all sucks. It does that bring the rest of us down? I don't know. I don't really know what the answer. What do you think the answer is? I know how to promote myself. I could promote myself one patient at a time and those patients become my evangelists. And you know, it takes like, it takes like one to tell 100 which eventually gets you five in your door, which is basically how I kind of think these things work. But I don't know how the paradigm shift happens.

Yeah, you know, I don't know. I think, I think there has to be a. Yeah. I mean, I think this started before I was in the profession and I think it started before you were in profession. I think part of it started as, you know, PTs were. We were physicians extenders. Right. And so. And a lot of people when they view us as technicians, don't see us as decision makers. I think there, I think that's the problem. How do we get that perception? Big part of the perception changed. I think there needs to be a critical mass of physical therapists and business owners speaking to and educating the public about their conditions and their options versus what we've done for marketing. And I don't know, maybe there has to be some more higher profile people. But Some of these beliefs are so ingrained in people. Like there was a post this week where, where someone like, I think the. It was. I don't know which page it was, but it was a neuroscience and technology page. Posted something about this new intervertebral disc. And hey, guess what? This disc is just as strong as the human disc. And I'm sitting here going, well, if everyone's concerned about it rupturing, why are we celebrating it being just as strong? It should be stronger.

Right?

Because then it wouldn't rupture. And there's another pt and I can't remember who it was, just commented like, this is great. I think this is great for some people need it, but majority of people need X, Y and Z because discs and heal don't need surgery.

The typical kind of like pt, trying to be positive. Yeah, yeah.

Trying to be positive. Trying to help people understand. And basically there was like 50 comments from patients saying, I've never heard of someone's disc healing. It can't be true. I've had a bad disc for 24 years and it hasn't healed on its own. I don't know what you're talking about. Where's your proof? And it was just comment after commenting.

Yeah. I mean, that's also even perpetuate. You even know that there's all this infighting on social media, on the pts who are actually in social media. It's hard. I don't know if you experience this as a massage therapist when you're a massage therapist, but I mean, we can't even agree. Those of us who are trying to have positive messages like that or try to promote things like pain science and empowering patients, we have a real uphill battle ahead of us still to this day. Because pain science has literally been around since 2002 and it's still not widely accepted. I mean, most pts are patho anatomical. They're saying, I'm gonna fix you. I have magic hands. Like, nothing drives me more crazy than that. Yeah, I mean, my whole brand is modern manual therapy, yet you should use manual therapy as little as possible, you know, and PTs are out there saying, like, magic hands, I'm gonna stretch your fascia. You have a weak core. I mean, that is, That's a problem. And anyone who ever tries to go against the grain, it doesn't matter how much evidence you have. So, yeah, that's. That's tough. I always just take one patient at a time. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, like, you know what got me and gets me so many times is how many people are actually out there? Like, there are millions of people out there who like, need us and don't think we can help them. And then how many of these people who had this ego and identity about their condition and how it was never going to be solved outside of a surgical procedure, which we all know based on research isn't going to solve the problem better than a sugar pill. And yet they were convinced. And it was just like, we have a very big uphill battle. And I don't know how to solve the problem, but I think. And then, you know, I want to ask your opinion, but it's like, I think where we need to go is chip at it and chip at it until enough people see it and their stories about to their friends change. But, you know, like, I mean, I just, I mean, research isn't. No one cares about that.

No, no, research is not. No one ever cares about. Hey, research says.

Right, right.

And that, that's like one of been my focuses in the past couple years is just better ways of communication because not only will help me to move people or sell people anything, because we're all in the business of sales. Right, right. But just really kind of getting that. Getting those difficult patients to see what you're trying to tell them. Because, no, I mean, people just, you can see them like kind of thinking about what. What's the next best thing that I can do for myself. Right. Like if you start. You start talking about research or percentages where you start citing things, some people might be interested, but I mean, ultimately you just have to really make it relevant to them, you know, so I've just really started focusing on that kind of patient communication. Try to get a better, better interaction. And again, I always just take it one patient at a time because my goal, My goal is not to help. My goal is to help as many patients as possible, but really it's by teaching physical therapists how to be better and more positive, more empowering physical therapists. Because it's all about, like, are you gonna help the 10 or you can help the 10,000? For me, it's helping the 10,000 or more by teaching as many different physical therapists as possible to be better. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. What's the. What's the number one thing that you teach people to do that, you know, the therapists do that helps them be better or empower their patients more? Be better clinicians? What is there one thing that you're.

Well, I mean, I think that overall for the majority of people, they have to realize that most people are going to get better on their own no matter what you do. Right. So it's not like I teach one specific technique or assessment or anything. But physical therapy can be easy. And patients getting patients better faster can be easy. And from a business perspective, getting people better as fast as possible and empowering them just makes you busier. Because no one evangelizes your practice, or at least a small percentage of people are going to evangelize your practice. If on average you see people 50 times, but if on average you see people two to four times, like I do, people tend to talk about how awesome you are versus like, I went to this guy 20 times. Yeah. Or went to this guy for like two years and I eventually got better. I mean, no one's gonna say that they're gonna make you, you know, no one's gonna evangelize you if you just take that. Those are the people who are like, oh, yeah, you've been to pt, Who'd you go to? And they're like, I don't know. You know, I don't know. For the first five years of my practice, I'm like, how could you not know? You're seeing me like two, three times a week for like 20, 30, 40 times. Yeah. If you're like this nameless, faceless PP that you just get handed an exercise card and then someone like measures you, they're not going to remember you. But I mean, cash based practice, technically they're definitely going to remember us, you know, if only because they paid us so much, but usually just because we have more time, the time affords us, you know, the quality is there because that's what they're paying us for. But the number one thing, really, I just teach patient education, patient empowerment, and how to motivate the patient, how to really change the behavior. Because ultimately it's all about changing the behavior. And the high dosage. Essentially everything we teach should be at high dosage. Whether it's doing home exercise program or thinking about a problem a certain way, or doing exercise or stretches at a high enough dosage to make a difference. So it's, I'll say, I don't really care what treatment you do. I only, I only care what you educate the patient. And if you educate the patient, change their behavior enough to form a habit, then that's where all of a sudden you'll, you'll make a rapid change. Yeah. Because most of us can do something magically in a clinic that will make a rapid change. But the problem is getting a Patient to keep it. And that's where, that's where the breakdown all happens. Is that when a patient thinks you're responsible for the fix. Yeah. It's the carryover. I teach, like basically modern manual therapy. I teach. It's all about the carryover and home exercise program. Yeah. Which I actually just this year started calling a recovery plan. I don't even call it home exercise program anymore because no one wants to do homework.

Right.

People like, hey man, I have homework. You know, do your kids come home thinking that homework is awesome? We've been through so much school. Like, did you ever think, man, I love doing this homework.

Right.

He knew it was necessary and you knew that. But the whole connotation behind homework is negative. And one of my patients in a Google review said he gave me this recovery plan and all I did is I followed it step by step and I was better in one visit. It's like, recovery plan.

That's awesome.

Now on all my spreadsheets that I give people, I call it a recovery plan. I said, aaron's recovery plan. Follow this step by step. And hey, that's part of my. That's part of going to be talking about a bizcon too.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

Dude.

I just wrote that down. We're giving out recovery plans from now.

Yeah. And I, you know, I implemented that in my mastery group and everyone's like, yeah, people are excited to get a recovery plan. Like just the change in the connotation behind homework versus recovery plan. You just make it positive and like, you follow these steps, you'll recover.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to try that out and see how people react. And as you mentioned, Yeri, you're coming to PT bizcon in March. We were talking about what you're going to talk about. Can you just give people a little sneak peek of what you're thinking about presenting and what we're basically the four

ways I've identified or four ways I've identified to get that base. Best patient connection. Yeah.

Which is important for, like we were saying, like it was like important for buy in. Right. For getting people to say, hey, like I can connect with Ersin, like he understands me.

Right.

And I'm willing to, you know, like, do what he says and do my recovery plan.

Yeah. I mean, people, if you can't, if you don't get that buy in, if you don't have that instant connection with the patient, um, if I visit like two or three and they're still kind of like very skeptical. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like you should really just know your leash. That's like, that's like an additional. Not even one of the four steps. And I can tell you right now, someone doesn't really. Someone hasn't listened to you by the second or third visit. I just basically discharge them. Yeah. Even on visit two. Hey, did you do your exercises? No. You ever plan on doing them? No.

What are we doing?

Yeah, I was like, hey, you know what? It's been nice knowing you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I mean, you can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped.

No, no. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I go down that road. We don't have. I don't have as much time left on the show. Ersin, we've got one more question for you before we, before we finish up. What do you think the. Because you mentioned this in sales and you're selling like patients and we're selling physical therapy where you're selling digital and online products. What do you think's the one thing that you're doing differently or that you've learned lately about sales or promoting yourself, your products, your business that you think people would benefit from?

Well, I would just say, again I mentioned it earlier, I would just say diversify, you know, and try to promote as different services. And again, you could have like the most popular PT clinic in the area, but someone could just open up PT clinic that's just like yours, but also not only has a CrossFit gym, but also has nutrition, whatever. I mean, and all of a sudden people just will flock to that, you know, or maybe the rates are higher, but they offer more services so the perceived value is there. So yeah, I've just learned the hard way to diversify and never really settle. You know, I think my. I got. In the past three or four years, there's a, there's a period where I was flying high and I thought I was invincible. It just sounds like when someone just like came out with the exact same product that I didn't patent.

Right.

And started selling it for a lot less. And that was my Halo product. Yeah. And I relied too much on my blog and organic Facebook reach. And also that like within one month I told you, like Facebook basically just stopped sharing my posts organically. And it was like when I was like, whoa, I just looked at my traffic. I looked my traffic from once prior, I'm like, wow, my traffic was like 80% Facebook. So now I just, I'm just trying to promote myself. That's why I went to Instagram, that's why I focus on my podcast, that's why I just don't really. I'm not really tied to any one main platform and I focus mostly on my list. Like your list and the people who stay on your list are your evangelists. And don't just try to go for the biggest list, you know, like every quarter or so. You should really kind of purge your list of people who have not opened up more than, you know, 50% of your emails. Don't purge it completely because there are people who just wait for the holidays. And I've heard this from a lot of different marketers. People just literally stay on your list just for your sales. So don't like purge your list from people who have, you know, not opened like more than like five or ten emails. Whatever you think is best for you. But I mean, if you just build and build and build your list, then you're just paying for people who aren't doing anything. Yeah, you're just paying mailchimp or aweber or whatever because they just, they charge you for the number of people. So that wasn't really just one thing. That was a whole lot of things. But these made.

Yeah, yeah. I've set up an automation sequence in activecampaign that moves people to a, you know, who haven't opened emails in a while. It'll send them one email that says, hey, are you, you still interested in hearing from me? Basically. And if they don't answer it, it moves them into like an inactive list and they hang out there for a while and then I don't message them. And so that increased my open rates. If anyone understands what we're talking about, that's a helpful tip.

If they are your audience, I would hope they're understanding.

I hope so.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Ersin, thanks for.

Definitely should not assume.

Yeah, right. You know, if you're unclear about email automations and email marketing, it is still the number one way that we, we get new patients, new business in all of my businesses and it's incredibly powerful and you need to be on it. That's all I'll say about that today. But Erskine, thank you so much for being on here. It's always a pleasure chatting with you and you probably need to record all our conversations.

I know, gosh, man, we're all over the place. But that's because I do everything off the cuff.

Yeah, but this is incredibly helpful and if you're listening and you want to hear and learn more from Ersin, he will be one of the featured speakers at PT Bizcon coming up in March. And you can find information about that@ptbizcon.comersin where can someone find out about you and learn more about your products, services and what you're doing?

Yeah, well it will be in the show notes, but basically if you go to modmt.com like M O-M T.com Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, you could choose your social media platform of choice. I know people have certain preferences, but I tend to share the same content across all platforms. So yeah, it's modmt.com facebook or/instagram, slash YouTube or slash twitter.

Awesome.

Modernmanual therapy.com edgemovility system.com is my E commerce store and Untold Physio Stories is my podcast.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Well, your podcast, Untold Physio Stories, you'll find that I was on there a couple times too person. So episode three to episode one hundred and something. We'll have to get you back around before episode 200 for sure.

Right? Yeah. What will I be doing in five years? Hey Aaron, you remember when Instagram was big, right?

Now we're all over here on TikTok.

I know. We're making videos that last five seconds because that's all people's attention span will be in five years, right?

Right. Oh my gosh, it's going to be crazy. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks and thank you again for being here. If you're listening to Catch Me to Lunch Hour, this is Aaron LeBauer and Ersin. And we'll see you guys next time. Empower your patients, take action on your business and diversify. We'll see you soon.