Successfully Marketing Your Business Online with Will Boyd | CashPT Lunch Hour #63

Foreign.

Welcome back to the podcast. This is Aaron Labourer and today my special guest is Will Boyd. Will is a physical therapist turned digital entrepreneur. He is a. He's just a really awesome guy. Met him a couple times. He rocks the shirts that I've given him, you know, you know, he's healthy, you know, he's the co owner of Healthy Is it Healthy Funnel and the Digital Online. Digital. I don't know. Will, tell me all your stuff. I met Will, it's been a couple years and met him in person at SSPT Live. And Will and his business partner Alex and I have always hit it off. And because we all kind of speak the same language, it's like we're all physical therapists and we speak online. Right. So Will, can you introduce yourself? Let us know, like, where you're from and, you know, what are you doing and who are you helping right now?

Yeah. First off, Aaron, it's a huge honor to be on this podcast. You were probably one of the first. I remember you and Jared Carter were, I think, the first two people I ever found online that had. That were speaking differently about the profession. And I just, I just remember listening to you seriously three years ago when I was still in PT school and I remember watching one of your webinar, I think was the first webinar I ever watched as, as an adult. Like, I don't remember ever watching any other webinar. It was awesome. So it's a complete honor to be here. I never thought I'd be on the Aaron LeBauer podcast. It's just crazy for me to think about. I feel like a little kid, but my name is Will Boyd. If you're out there listening. I'm a physical therapist. Two years out, I was doing home health. Found a passion for doing digital marketing. After I started a podcast and realized I could help people, I realized the biggest problem beyond anything was figuring out how to actually get business. And so I realized, wow, maybe if I could learn that, that could help me grow and be more attractive as a new hire. And so did that. Started a business with my business partner, Alex Ingar, who's also been on the show called Healthy Funnel. And we work with pretty much online business owners and private practice owners, or soon to be startup practice owners, help them understand social media and the Internet to grow their business.

Yeah, that's awesome. So you're so good at your online presence, your videos are great. So the way you deliver the information, because one of the things that you do really well, Will, is you find the. You find and take some technical information, and you make it sound really easy, and you deliver it in a video that's really amazing and easy to follow along with. So how'd you figure out how to do that? Where did that come from?

Well, thank you, Aaron, for thinking that way. I think it's probably because I'm inherently pretty dumb, to be honest. I think it comes from. Truthfully, I found it in PT school. We. I would watch my clinician. Like, when I had CIs in my first rotations, I'd watch them sit down with patients and just, like, you know, they'd ask. Like, we'd have patients come in and be like, I have diabetes. What does that mean? And they would be like, you know, my clinicians would be like, well, and they start going into insulin and dive into these, you know, fancy medical terms. And I was like, I don't even really know all the details of that. Like, I mean, I know, like, if I read it, I understand it, but, like, that's not how I learn it. Like, I learn it through a story. So for me, like, arthritis, right, for example, I can't just sit there and tell you about the osteoclasts and osteophytes and all those things that are going on. Like, I just. I'd be bored within two seconds and realize, well, I could just change it into a story for them, right? Like, you know, you have two bones, and bones have little nerves, which are like electrical wires. So if they hit each other, that's not good, right? And so people are like, yeah, that doesn't sound good, right? So your body naturally produces this little synovial fluid, which is really. Just think of, like, you know, lubrication. Like, makes things go smooth over each other, right? Well, as you age, some of that starts to thicken. The only way we can soften it up is if you move. That's what allows it to break up and move more. I just kind of watched my patients. This was actually part of the reason for starting the Nobody's Podcast was I was like, what? People don't learn from technical things? Like, if you explain diabetes to someone in technical terms, I just watched them not understand it, or arthritis. But if you told them a story that they could relate to, they tended to actually change behavior more often. That's not saying that I was best at changing someone's behavior, but I just noticed the ability for them to quickly get it and see the importance change. So I actually learned a lot from watching other. Other people and seeing patients not get what's going on and realize there's got to be a better way to connect with people if the ultimate goal is behavior change. Right. Like, the ultimate goal is to get you to move more. Me saying as many medical terms as I can for me to feel smart and validated still isn't helping you reach your goals. So I think that's where it came from. And just for me, I operate on a pretty dumb level. I need stories, so think it's just me helping myself more than anything.

It's kind of like.

It's kind of like.

Right. That's my favorite segue into the story. Well, it's. It's kind of like two little kids walking down the street. One's got, like, a lot of dirt on his foot and the other doesn't. And so he walks funny.

Yeah.

You know, it's kind of. It's kind of like. So tell me. Let's go back. Like, tell me your story. Like, how'd you end up in PT school when you're not really treating patients right now anyways?

Yeah, and maybe that's part of the reason I'm not treating patients. So I was probably like, most typical early young twenties. I graduated college with a degree in international studies in Spanish, which obviously lend themselves to physical therapy, of course. So important.

Yeah, Mine was history, so, you know, hey, we're probably the most company.

Yeah, I. Yeah, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I kind of thought law school was going to be the answer. I left to go teach English abroad for a couple years after school and actually took the LSAT while I was living in Spain thinking, I'll just go to law school. Yeah, it sounds like what. What people should do. And I kind of was sitting at a desk and was like, this is going to be my life sitting at this desk for the next 30 to 40 years if I go to law school. And if you're listening and thinking about law school, or you have a child thinking about going to law school, I don't think it has to be that way. But that's what I pictured in my mind. And for me, I've dealt with anxiety and depression, a good part of my adult life. And I saw a sedentary lifestyle really probably affecting me in really negative ways. And so I thought I got to find a different alternative. I started looking at kind of active jobs. What are jobs that you could do on your feet? You could move, but still use your brain. Feel like you're, you know, you're providing value and helping people. And they kept saying, the medical field. I was like, that's a good one. Ask Jeeves, because I don't like science. So, you know, we should. We should work on your search algorithm, because I don't think that's for me. And PT just kept coming up over and over again. Never really had pt. I had one session for an ankle sprain, but other than that, I never really thought about pt. But after a while, I was like, you know what? I think I should give this a shot. And I moved back to the States, did a year and a half of prereqs, and applied, got into school, and then we'll dive into it. But during school, I quickly realized that loved physical therapy. I loved helping people. I learned quickly. Didn't have, like, the magical aspect that I thought, like, I thought I was gonna learn cool hand techniques that would, like, you know, cure people of diseases. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking, to be honest. And I was waiting for that, and I was like, ah, it never came. And that's okay. But I realized quickly, too, that my income potential was gonna be capped working for someone else. And the system that we were getting into, I didn't really believe in. I didn't believe in the traditional system after being a part of it on my clinical rotations. And that's led me to where I am today, trying to find a different way to help people who. My big passion is helping people who don't want to work for traditional health care, not work for traditional corporate healthcare.

Right. That's awesome, man. So, sg, you're old enough to remember Ask Jeeves. Oh, my gosh.

I'm so old that I used to type in, like, exact phrases like, you know, if a girl is at a bar, what do I ask her? And I thought, like, Jeeves would pop up and be like, hey, Will. So I researched that real quick. Here's the answer. I was like, this is a poor man's Google.

Yeah. What year did you graduate college?

I graduated college in 2000. I should have graduated in 2009. 2010.

Yeah. Oh, wow. So was that like middle school? You're doing Ask G's?

I can remember we got our first. I remember logging into dial up Internet in, like, sixth grade was a big deal that we. We, like, the sound got quicker, so instead of the longer, like, it actually went faster, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is so cool. Like, we can get online.

Yeah. So when I was in middle school, there were two guys. These were the dorkiest guys. One of Them is like an airplane, airline pilot right now. And the other, I can't. Don't know what the other one's, but they were able to. We had modems and they could, you know, dial each other up and type to each other. They're like PC juniors. But when I was in college, I'm going to tell you my quick story about this. So I went to school. I graduated in 96. So in 94, we had to go to the other campus, to the other side of campus, to the bottom of the engineering building, all the way to the back into this, like, little closet room and sign up for email. And at that time, you had to log into a UNIX computer on campus, log into the server at Duke. Then I had a friend at Indiana who's the only other person I knew had email, so I had to log into the Indiana server and then I could send her an email.

You log into the Indiana server too?

Yeah. So from the Duke server, I had to then open up the Indiana. There was some code. You just. Indiana server would pop up and you could search for people and I had to have the match. And then I could send her an email because it was. The servers had it. And then the next year. So that's all. So the next year, every incoming freshman was assigned an email address. So my friend and I, Eric and all the other, we weren't even the dorkiest people around. We had vanity emails and no one else after us, you know, basically did. And then in 95, I created two HTML websites. And then by the time I graduated, there was Internet in every room, you know, Ethernet in every room. That's all fast.

You created HTML websites? Like code?

Yeah, I coded two websites with HTML back in the day.

I mean, if I had a gold medal to send you,

I had to tell someone who understands, right?

Yeah. If you're listening to this, an HTML website is like imagine doing calculus on a blackboard and it turning into digital, like a website. It's crazy.

They were pretty basic. But then I got mad the next year when someone came in, like, I gave these. They were for campus groups. It was the LGBTQ campus group and legalized marijuana campus group.

Right?

Yeah. And I gave them away. And then the next year, one of them got updated and I was like, you didn't give me any credit. There was no, like, created, but originally created by Aaron LeBauer Link or anything like that. I was just like.

I was crushed.

I was devastated because this work just. It like vanished. But. So you've obviously had a different experience growing up with the Internet, how is that? You know, like, how do you feel like that's affected you versus someone you know in my generation, which is tail end of, you know, Gen X,

how

has that affect, like, how do you feel like that's benefited you? And as you're teaching this stuff, you know, how does that like relate or how does that hinder you in helping other people?

That's a great question. I think that first off, the really beautiful thing is, yes, I was born kind of fairly in the time of growing up with the Internet. But I think the great thing is, for example, social media, websites, all that stuff, I knew zero about it as of three years ago. I'm 31 right now, soon to be 32 in a couple weeks. And I knew nothing about it. I mean you, if you had said, hey, get on Facebook, like you could go back and look and I don't even really have Facebook before. I don't have Instagram or any that stuff. Once I started a podcast, which sounds crazy too. And luckily, you know, nowadays you can start a podcast with pretty much if you have a computer, you can start a podcast for free. Other than. Yeah, with anchor, which is a platform, you can literally do it for free, which is amazing. And reach the masses, millions and millions of people. I started learning that we had something valuable to say to people or people were interested and I needed to figure different ways to get it in front of people. And that's what introduced me to social media and understanding. And I think what it really taught me though was you can't really break anything. And that's probably the biggest thing. I think so many people, you know, I've helped my mom a lot with technology and stuff and there's always this fear of, well, I'm going to. What if I break something or I ruin something. And I think the reality is you can't really break anything. And the cool thing is you can get most things back if you mess it up. And that's a really big thing. And I think it's just a life philosophy of going into it, of saying, look, I'm a big believer in growth mindset and that just because you're not good at something right away. I started a stand up comedy class actually two weeks ago and bombed yesterday. Like, just brutal. Like I was up there like, hi, super nervous. First time I went up, actually, like we didn't have to prepare anything. It went really great. I had to prepare something. I was like more nervous because I had set expectations like, this is going to be this should be great. When it bombed, it was like. And normally five years ago, I would have been like, I'm just not funny. I'm not good. But now I look at it as a way of cool. I learned that I need to be more prepared and I'm going to come back better and I'm going to come back with this. I think for some reason we view technology as either you get it or you don't. Versus having a growth mindset of it's no different than math. It's not like, you know, or for you, Aaron, like coding an HTML website. It's not like, hey, Aaron, day one, can you code an HTML website? And you're like, no. And someone being like, well, you're terrible at this. No. You haven't put any effort into learning it, how to do it, how to grow with it, how to get better. Just like a cash practice. Right, right. I'm sure when someone comes to you, Aaron, they're like, you know, oh, I've been at this for a month and I'm not. I don't have a full schedule. I'm sure you're thinking, yeah, not many people ever do, you know, like, you've got to grow and you've got to build and what you teach is all those lessons of mistakes. Right. That speed up the process for people. And I think that's just so important to have a growth mindset that you can learn anything when you put time in and you just have to be willing to commit to learn. So I think for me, that's the biggest thing. And I'm sure you see it all the time when you're coaching people too, I imagine.

Yeah. I think a lot of people say, oh, well, I'm just not good at technology. I just can't do the technique. I'm just thinking, well, if you really want to make this work, you gotta just commit to the technology. I don't feel like it's. I feel like the technology is easier than neuro. I struggled neuroanatomy.

Yeah.

Because it was all memorization. And, you know, and I tell people this just. It's just easier than your anatomy. But how do you deal with that? When someone comes and I've got a couple people in mind who I know are a little older than me, you're like, Aaron, you know, it's just the technology is my struggle. And the reason I'm asking is because you do such a great job of explaining it in videos to people in your. That I've seen in your group. And then in your course. So like how do you pick out the things and how do you, how do you relate it to them? Like maybe, I don't know if you want to pick out something that you've done, whether it's, I think like maybe like email people don't get the email automation. So can you explain to me or explain to us listeners, like just give me that one quick lesson, like why is email automation or autoresponse, why is that important? And if someone is like, I'm having a hard time with technology, like what's the way that it makes sense to them?

Yeah, that's, man, that's really, it's really great that you asked that because I think it's so important to, for anything going forward in life is because we have a problem of until you're busy, you have more time than you have income in the sense that you could go out to community events, you could go door to door knocking on people. We never really talk about that as pts, but there are door to door salesmen still that exist, which is why I live in an apartment, so they can't find me. But door to door salesmen, so you could go door to door, like you could do that with your PT services, right? Hey, I'm Aaron, I sell pt. As far as I know legally there's nothing against that you could do that. The problem is at some point you actually do get enough patience that you're too busy that you don't have time to go door to door. The purpose of an email automation is imagine that you have a conversation, you're a door to door salesman, you go and you knock on your door. Hey Aaron, I'm Will, I sell physical therapy services. I'd like to talk to you about it. And you're like, oh man. Yeah, I know, it's just not the right time, right? We get all the objections. Oh, it's just probably too much money or what do you mean you don't take my insurance. And the reality is you don't have time to go back to that person's house every single day for the next week because you're busy. You've got to run a business, you've got family, right? What an email automation is, is it goes and knocks on that door again every single day without you physically going and knocking on that door every day. That's what an email automation does. And the great thing is you can control the conversation to a degree in the sense that you can present the next logical thing and overcome one objection at a time. With an email. So if you're listening and you're like, I don't even know what email automation is. If you, let's say, go to my website and I have a contact form that you fill out and you fill it out and you want to know more about your services, if we take your insurance or how much, when are you available? Well, what I can do is have it set up in a program that just says, okay, every 24 hours, send them a new email. It can get way more complex than that. But at the heart that's just something that it does. Why it's so important is it clones you without you physically having to be somewhere. That's why it's so important.

Yeah. Awesome. So now I'm going to ask a question. For someone who already has email automation set up, they've already got like an autoresponder for their free gift on the website or becoming a patient or client or enrolling in a course, what's one thing that they could do that maybe a little ninja that maybe they haven't thought of yet that, you know, isn't like, you know, take hours, but it's like this one ninja thing that they can do that would up their game, you know, 10x.

Yeah. In terms of emails, I mean, I think the biggest thing is giving. And it sounds really weird, but we've worked with a lot of people, you know, and, and the number one thing I see is pushing sales hard, pushing like come in, come in, come in, come in, come in. And not really understanding that selling comes through story. So if I could recommend anything to, if I could recommend anything in terms of emails is instead of describing your features and benefits, change those emails to stories of people who have gone from the pain point they're probably in and have, have gotten to the result that they're looking for. And that could be your own personal story. It could be stories of other patients. We don't. And Aaron, we've learned a lot from you in this that you don't learn from. You don't buy. Sorry, you don't purchase or make a purchasing decision from logic. Like we don't learn, you know, I'm not going to go buy something because the features and benefits are great. I buy because of emotion and I need to picture myself in that. And that's why I love story in general because stories are what are what move the needle. It's what gets you mentally in a place where you feel connected in that and you really can put yourself in someone else's shoes and Say I want to get to where they're at, because I can resonate with that. So it's not a. There's no, like, add a tag here or, you know, use some cool HTML thing. Truly the biggest thing that we've seen is to change everything from features and benefits, to continue to tell stories.

Mm. It's kind of like.

It's kind of like, yeah, it's kind

of like if grandma sat there and, you know, what gave you a list of steps to tie your shoes? Something like, I don't know, instead of actually talking to you and giving you some cookies and warm milk and saying, you know, well, it's okay, you can learn. You know, I use. I just use Velcro shoes anyways. It's easier, you know, like, something like that. Right? And then now you get, like, people go, oh, I get it. All right, I'm gonna go work with this guy.

Yeah, right.

So tell me about. So you got out of school, you started working for someone else, and then somewhere along the line, you started a podcast. What was that? What was the turning point in there? Like, was there a day, a patient, something, you know, the boss said, something you experienced? Like, the turning point in which it was like, oh, I'm going to start a podcast. Or was it after I started this two Nobody's podcast? Like, oh, I need to explore more into, you know, helping people. Helping people learn how to grow their business. Doing more online business versus treating patients. What was. What. What happened? Where was that story?

Yeah, there were a couple things. So, first, my first clinical rotation. My. It was a small private practice with one pt, and he took insurance and had one other employee. Sorry, one other pt and then an office manager. And I watched. He asked me, do you want to learn how to run a business? And I was like, yeah, I'm really interested. I think I want to start my own clinic one day. And I watched how much time he spent trying to generate new patients versus treating people, and I could tell quickly, like, that's the problem here. That's the pain point. Right? Like, that's. It wasn't get better at physical therapy. It was like, how do we get enough people in to fill up someone's schedule? Was constantly the issue, and not just for him. I think in general, that's a private practice, is how do we fill up the schedule? And I kept thinking, so that was number one. Like, okay, I kind of see this is the bigger issue. Like, it's not a how good are you? And then the PT there happened to be amazing. Like, really, really great. I loved what he was doing. I felt like he was an amazing pt. And I asked him, like, hey, man, how much do you make? And he told me, and it was way lower than I expected. He was really good at what he did. I was like, yeah, but you're, like, really good at what you do. He's like, well, I don't get paid based on how good I am. I get paid by how many people I see.

I was like, how low are we talking? Like, under 70?

Yeah, right around there. But he had been out for, I think, two to five years and had, like, experience and done all this extra training. My first job offer in Pittsburgh as an outpatient PT was for $50,000 a year. Yeah, 155,000. So this was before. This was after all this, because this is what really changed my mentality. I also saw how much we were billing and how much making per patient and how much. Like, I just ran the math in my head, like, where's all this money going? Like, where do people like, what's happening? And then I kind of realized, well, so insurance dictates how much someone you can bill for, but that takes into no account how good the therapist is. In fact, if he's good and he gets them better quicker, that's actually a negative business impact.

Right.

And the whole system started to open my eyes. And then we had a. What really turned the scale for me was I had a business panel in school that came in. It was three practice owners, and I was one of the older students. And they were like, do you have any questions? And I raised my hand. I was like, yeah, you know what? If I have three job offers out of school, and let's say one's for 70 grand, one's for 80 grand, one's for 90 grand, how do I leverage those to get a higher offer? If, let's say that 80 grand is the one I really want to work at, how do I leverage that for what it's worth? And one of the business panelists just said, I wouldn't be thinking like that at this point. I was like, it just really rocked my world. I was like, what do you mean? He's like. He's like, you know, I don't think as a new grad, you should be asking those questions.

Oh, my God.

And I was like, what other industry on the planet would tell you that? Like, I've got $155,000 in student loan debt. Like, three grand more a year is like, it's not a lot, but, like, Anything at this point helps. And obviously I have three offers. That means I'm doing something right and I'm valuable. And that's what led to the Nobody's Podcast. I realized then I wasn't going to get the answers I needed in school. No one else could answer them. None of my professors were really treating full time and could answer those questions about business. So I was like, I got to figure something out. And so I started to go look for people like you and other people who could help answer those questions. And that's what really led to the Nobodies Podcast and kind of lit a fire under me that once I realized the better I got as a pt, did not correlate to me getting paid better. And I'm not a huge, like, I need more money. But I thought, as humans, you're incentivized by several things. Am I incentivized by my patients getting better? Yes. But that's going to be regardless of my payment, if I am really good at it, and actually if I'm really good at it to the point that I get them better quicker, and that's a problem. And I'm gonna have. I would actually have talks with my, you know, CIs, like, hey, well, we're expecting them to be here for eight visits and they're gone in four. I was like, I know, it's really great. He's like, no, it's not great. Like, we're counting on revenue. He's like, we should charge more if it's better. Like, well, if it doesn't matter, like, insurance dictates what the rate is. It all just really got my mind rolling that working for someone else in traditional healthcare wasn't going to be the option because I didn't want to give up more time to get more money.

Did you consider at that time opening your own business or were you just, like, was that a consideration?

Yeah. Prior to that, it was totally my consideration. And I still think about it from time to time if I want to do that. Um, but, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's why I was watching your webinar. I was like, there's people out there who are. Who are doing things differently. Right. That's how I found you. And I got super interested. And yeah, I. Absolutely. And it's something that I still am interested in. I've just found, like, building businesses now my. My true passion. I guess so. I love treating patients, though. I love. I love helping them. But I. I never knew it, never realized it, but it's been just A blast. Helping people.

That's awesome. So you've got your business. So you've got the two Nobodies podcast. Are you doing it like, are you an Al. You're saying. But those guys that you're doing that with, they're not what you're doing for business with Alex, it's completely separate. Right. So how did you and Alex come up with this idea to create the Healthcare Digital? It's the Healthcare Digital. What's the name of your group is the Healthcare Digital Marketing. So if you guys haven't been Healthcare Digital Marketing. Facebook Group. It's awesome group. You guys started this group about a year ago, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Got like 2,000 people, right? You're coming in. You're coming in hot, you know? And how did that whole idea come. Come to be, like, where'd you guys meet? What was the idea? What was the thing that, like, connected? And it was like, we've got to do this. You know, I want to know. I want to know that, and I want to know how's, like, you know, I want to talk about the partnership as well, because partnerships are difficult. Yeah. Where'd this idea come from?

Yeah, we both met in Greg Todd Smart Success PT program. And we. Alex actually invited me to be on his podcast, and that's how we really got to talking. And we both. At the time, I had been helping a local business in Pittsburgh start their podcast, and I was getting more interested of, like, wow, someone would actually pay me to do some of these things that I've just been doing for free, for fun, like HTML websites. If someone's like, hey, I'll pay you $1,000. And you're like, what? Sure, yeah, okay, I'll do that. I was like, wow, there's more ways than one to make money. And I really got me interested. And so Alex and I were talking about it because Alex was really interested in online courses because he wanted to start his own clinic and have online courses, be a part of his clinic. And we both just started talking. And for me, it really clicked when Greg has a. Has a part of his course where he teaches people how to build a WordPress blog. I just kept seeing over and over again the comments and questions, like, I'm so frustrated with this. I'm so frustrated with not. Not with Greg's program, But with the WordPress part of the blog. And I told Greg, I was like, you know, there are things like Weebly and WIX which are just like, literally drag the thing over, you know, because no one was looking to build like a membership site or anything. Just a simple. I want control over how it looks. And I was like, there's so many simpler ways. So I just made like four tutorial videos of how to start a weebly website with a blog on it. And I sent it to Greg and he's like, well, let's put it in the course. And I was like, whoa, I think there's a way to help people. And Alex and I would be in all these different marketing groups and everyone talked about high level strategy of marketing, the philosophy of marketing, the sales. Right. But like we talked about earlier, people felt so overwhelmed by technology. And I thought, Alex, we should. Alex and I just kind of agreed, like, we should start a group where we just teach people literally step by step, what we've been learning.

Mm.

And so that's all it was, was it's a lot of. You could go. If you join, you can go in the search bar and just type in anything that you want to learn. And we do step by step tutorials. All of our paid program stuff's pretty much in there. It's just that it's not organized because it's a Facebook group and everything gets shoved down and moved around. But yeah, it's all in there. And we. Yeah, that's what it started. We wanted someone because I kept waiting, I kept waiting for someone to teach me Facebook advertising and physical therapy. I was like, I want to help people with this and do a business. And no one ever did. So I was like, fine, I'll go pay $1,000 and study it myself and learn it myself and go teach people. And that's what it started from. Like, I just kept waiting and waiting and waiting, and I didn't. I never saw like step by step tutorials. It was like, oh, you should incorporate some Facebook stuff or do email marketing. I was like, that's great. If I don't even know how to log into mailchimp, how am I gonna do that though, right?

So you found a hole. You found a hole, you found a need and you guys filled it, right?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if we were the first. Yeah, you've been out there helping people with it for a long time, but yeah, right.

But there's a need. I mean, there's. There's a lot of holes. You know, it's like, how do you do this? Well, it's like, I can tell you what to do, how to do it. You know, you can go find some of this stuff, but there's still people like asking like, how do I do this? So you said, oh, gosh, there was something. Oh, I wanted to ask you. Like, I want to ask your expertise. I got a couple of things I want to talk about, but I think this will be helpful. And let me ask you this kind of question about my clinic. Yeah, my website. So you're mentioning WordPress and Weebly, et cetera. So when I started my clinic website back in the day, I was. I actually the one I got, I got a Weebly website. It was when Weebly first started and I was like, sweet, okay. But I also, at that time. So this was 10 years ago or 12 years? 10, 10, 11 years ago. WordPress was best for search engine optimization. So if you had didn't, you know, I didn't need to have my clinic one on there, but I built my blog on WordPress. My clinic blog is still on WordPress. My clinic website's on Weebly. You wouldn't know it because they look similar enough and the menu bars are linked. But let me ask you this, would it be better or different? Or does it even matter if I moved my blog or any new blog stuff to Weebly just to, you know, for simplicity's sake? Is that even a consideration in search engine right now? Is it more just like don't fix it if it's not broken kind of thing? What would you suggest?

Yeah, and I'll be honest, search engine optimization is probably not my number one expertise. But if I were in your shoes, I mean, I probably wouldn't change it if it's working. But I think moving forward, search engine optimization definitely important. So if you're listening and you're like, I don't even know what that means. Essentially, if someone were to put words into Google, would your content come up on the first page or second page? And you can write things in a way that optimizes for your chances to get ranked higher and higher. But I think that the biggest thing is, I think for most people, the biggest thing is don't worry about it right now, for most people, for you, since you've already built it, right? That's it. That's a great question. I think right now for you, I think for most people listening, I think that's what scares most people is they see all these things. I know I need SEO. I know I need all this. And it bogs people down and paralyzes them. Just like, you know, I think we're seeing it in society, right? No one, we've never had so much access to information or choices and it's just paralyzing people because there's no sort of structure of. Here, limit yourself and focus yourself, I guess, in certain ways. So for me, my biggest thing, the number one thing that I have seen with people, just purely anecdotal and empirical, is people want to control their websites and they don't know how. And so I'm a big fan of not using WordPress to start unless you're really committed to wanting to learn website stuff. And that's not. WordPress is still probably the most. It's easily the most powerful platform still for websites. It's probably still one of the hardest in terms of customizing to how you want it to look. And I think for most clinicians, you just want it to look the way you want. Not that look is everything, but to be able to change it and update it. I mean, there are people paying 300 to 500amonth to manage a website and those folks aren't doing anything other than you send them a picture and they upload it. And like Aaron, you or I could teach them in two minutes how to do that.

Right?

Right. Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is feeling confident and in control of what you can do. So I'm a big fan of drag and drop builders because is the reach of SEO lower? Potentially. But I think for overall feeling in control of your digital presence, I find that in the early stages, it's much more important to feel in control of what you're doing and not get swindled paying ridiculous amount of money for a website that you don't even know how to use. Or go in and update.

Right. Or just not getting one out at all because you feel like it's so overwhelming. I'm not even going to start. I'm going to spend all my time figuring out which platform to use. That's the. So there's the two things that I see lot are the what if, like, what if I break it? And. And the. And people spending too much time on which platform is going to be best versus, you know, like, just pick one and go. And, you know, I've been there on both of those. But now that I've done that, I've seen it. It's like, okay, are you thinking and asking the wrong questions? Because which website platform isn't as important as, you know, how do I craft a story on my blog that's compelling for people to read? And it also gets found on Google.

Right? Yeah. And more importantly, I think beyond that is how are you going to get People to your website. Right. That's where SEO comes into play. Right. It's one tactic. I think the biggest thing is you can have the coolest website in the world if you don't know how to get people to it.

Mm. So let me ask you this question, and this is for some people. Like, I've got a couple people who've asked me. So, Aaron, I've got my free ebook, I've got my free gift. My website's up, but no one's downloading it. What are the possible problems and things that they should be doing?

Yeah. So they're getting to the website, but they're just not opting in for the ebook.

Well, now the website's built the ebooks up. No one's downloading it.

Yeah, Gotcha.

Okay. That's all the information you view, because that's all information I get. Right.

So I think the biggest things are if you use something like a drag and Drop Builder or WordPress, they have kind of ways inside where you can look at the statistics coming in. How many people are coming to your website every week, every month? If you don't have that, I can send over a free tutorial on how to install Google Analytics, which will track all that for you. The first thing is understanding where people are coming from. Right. So, for example, if you had a brick and mortar shop, if you had a clinic down on the street, one thing, and this probably doesn't happen a lot, is you could just track how many people walk by your clinic every single day outside. Right. What you could also track is how many people actually stop and look inside or look and stop at your office or window. Right. And we would call those people somewhat more interested. Right. You don't typically just stop, stare inside a window unless there's some reason to. Right. There will be a percentage that aren't interested. But usually someone stops and they're like, what's in there? Right. Or even better, what if they come into your shop and stare at stuff on the wall? You'd like to write that down. Hey, there are these people who are stopping and staring at this stuff. Right. But they're not buying. We need to change something. So in this case, we need to know where people are coming from. So I recommend using something like Google Analytics, which you can install. There's probably 7,000 YouTube videos that are two minutes long that teach you how to do that. That would be step number one. Step number two is finding ways now to get people to your website. And I'm a big fan of SEO. I think for most people where they're at, that is a long term play. And SEO search engine optimization is typically months to a year, if not longer, to really see a lot of traction happening. Aaron, how long has your blog been going?

Oh, 10 years.

10 years, right? We're not going to be able to get that back in a week. Like we're not going to compete with that in a week. We got to be smarter and look at the ways that things are changing and luckily the world has opened up. So Aaron's actually amazing at this and what I would say the number one thing right now if you have a chance, is Instagram is the place that you need to be. If you don't know how to use Instagram, it's an app on your phone, you can download it really quickly. You need to learn how to use Instagram because Facebook is a pay to play market. If you want to, you want to advertise on or if you want to post on your page on Facebook, I say this and almost literally no one is going to see it. Almost no one is going to see it because it's free marketing. And Facebook was like, hey, we've already given you guys billions and billions of dollars of free marketing and we're cutting that off now. And you know, I know people are upset about it, but when someone's giving you free billions of dollars, eventually they're like, hey, I'd like a cut of that. Normal. But Instagram still has the biggest natural reach. If you have 100 followers and you make a post, there's a good chance somewhere between 30 to 60 of those people as of current knowledge now will see that post, which is awesome. And Instagram doesn't really know the difference between a business page, profile page, right? They have business Instagram, but it doesn't separate the pages of knowing one's business and one's personal. So it's going to be hard for them to ever adapt to that. So I highly recommend being on Instagram. The second thing is you've got a better chance of ranking on the first page of Google using YouTube right now than you do writing blogs. I highly recommend doing YouTube. And think about if you're a local business owner, you need to be using local terms. It's the number one thing I see. I've seen some people with hundreds of videos on YouTube and they're great and they're like, you know, lateral step, raise into bird dog, downward pose, like amazing exercises. But then we go into like keyword planner and adwords. Those phrases have never been searched for ever on Google. In the local area, like no one is going to find them. You need to do back pain, whatever your town is, or back pain or neck pain. Your town name. Right. Those words need to be in there because it's all just a catalog. I think that's what people really to help them understand is like the words that you put in to the Internet get cataloged and they dictate actions that happen. So you saying the best, coolest exercise name. Unless there's a lot of people searching that cool exercise name, it's not going to show up. And even if they do, what are the odds that they live in your local area?

Right.

Because all this should be about getting new patients. Not if you're trying to build an online brand. It's a little bit different. But local patients require local things. If you're using Instagram. Number one mistake. Number one mistake. I see. By far. Sorry. This fires me up. Using the hashtag physical therapy. And you're a local business owner. Do you know who follows physical therapy? Physical therapists. Physical therapists are the only people who follow physical therapy. All of your hashtags. If you have a local business, you can have 30 hashtags in a post. I get fired up about this because I just see it over and over and people putting amazing videos out there. I think they're paying people to like to curate their videos. They look great. It's an index of and it's cataloging and you need to be putting hashtags so local eyeballs see your stuff. Because I'm sure in, you know, in North Carolina, if you use North Carolina, most people that follow that probably live in North Carolina.

Right.

There's no guarantee, but I think that's the number one thing is just thinking differently. How do you get local eyeballs on your business? And Aaron, you've been doing this a lot for Instagram. It's been so fun to watch. I'd love to throw back to you and hear what you think, but that's kind of some of the things I think about of getting people to your website.

Yeah. I think that when that original question comes up, I think a couple things. I think, number one, are we actually getting traffic to your website, which is what you just answered. Number two, is the free offer visible? You know, when people first land on it so it's above the fold? Is it compelling? Is it something that they want? You know, when they click on it? Let's say it's. It's not just a one stop opt in where it's open boxes on your page, but they have to click the button and it pops up, they click on it. Is the next thing they see in congruent with the first message? Yeah, because there's a lot of things that I see where people aren't delivering on their promise or every step of the way is not congruent. It's like something different. And something like, that's where you lose people. So you gotta find out, okay, people aren't downloading my thing or they're not clicking my button. Where along the way are we losing them? And you know, that's what Google Analytics helps with. It's like, hey, where are we losing them? And is that a message that they want? Are we speaking to the top of the website? Athletes? But the ebooks for moms with moms with pelvic pain, you know, it's like there's a small amount of people that are going to be there. And if you only have 100 people coming to your website in a week, that's not enough to judge. And you have to get it in front of other people.

What a cool practice. So in general, of reflection, right? Like, we think about this with our patients. Where do they tend to fall off? Right? Is it. Is it visit 4 when they haven't seen the result yet that they want? How do we use language to help them with that? I think, I think the biggest thing I see, and I know you didn't ask this, but I think the biggest thing I see is people think that the Internet's different than real life and it only is if you make it. And the reality is the only people behind the Internet are people. People behave the same way when it comes to decision making. Right. Do they behave differently on the Internet sometimes? Yes, I think we see that, but I don't think it's any different than talking under their breath or talking behind someone's back. I mean, it's just more visible. But I think in general, people have certain things they go through curiosity, trust, and do I trust you enough to make a decision? And the same way that you need to be congruent with your message in person, you need to be online. I think that's a really, really big thing.

That's awesome. So tell me, you guys created a. I want to shift a little bit because I think that's. Well, I think that's an awesome point. And I want to, I want to dive into a little bit about, about how you guys, you and Alex, like, how'd you create a partnership because partnerships are difficult. Okay, like, what is the thing that. Like, how'd you know that this other person was gonna be the person that was like. Like, had the same vision as you, and you guys aren't stepping on each other's toes and all that stuff?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it just comes down to values more than we. So I think Alex and I's vision is probably a little bit different in that I'm super passionate, facing the debt that I had and dealing with my own anxiety and depression, issues of feeling trapped in the system. So for me, that was a big one. I know for Alex. Alex has a family, and it's a lot about just living life on his terms, where he can be there with his family. So our vision, I think, is a little bit different, but ultimately, it's helping people get out of bad situations into good ones. And I just. I just trust Alex. And we even created our partnership without ever meeting in person. We just talk through zoom calls. And I felt like our. The biggest thing for me was finding someone with a similar emotional intelligence is really what it came down to. The way that Alex handles talking with people was very similar to the way I would, and I felt comfortable with that. I felt like if Alex knows how to. That, for me, that's the biggest thing. I just needed someone who. The other stuff we can figure out, we can figure out finances, we can figure out that kind of stuff. Like, I needed to know, how does Alex talk with people, build relationships with people? And I noticed it was similar to mine in that he was much more of give 100 times before asking for anything that it could work. And so we went into it, and we've definitely had, you know, in the last year and a half. Year and a half, I guess, close to no. Little over a year, starting a business that we've probably had four or five really intense talks of, like, expectations and where we're at. And I think that's just healthy in a relationship. You know, it's definitely hard. It's not either one of I. Either one of our styles to be. To confront someone else. We're very much more. How can we fix this and be. You know, but we've had to learn, like, okay, sometimes you have to say what's on your mind and say, hey, I'm not happy with this, or I'm, you know, I need to be honest that I'm feeling this way, and I'm not married, but I can imagine, much like a marriage where you. Everything's not rosy. All the time. And you've got to be honest. And usually we grow from it. Usually things change much better. So it's been great. But I think for me, ultimately, the question was values and emotional intelligence. Do I align with those? Do I feel like we're in agreement on there? The rest are just skills we can learn. And, you know, as far as I knew, Alex hadn't robbed anyone or we were in the same circle, same people, so I felt really comfortable with it.

Yeah. If someone was considering going into, like, a business partnership with someone, is there a. Is there something that you would advise them to either make sure that they do or avoid when setting it up?

Yeah, I think. I don't think there's a. I mean, there could be, like, legal things we get into of, like, an actual partnership or doing something else. But I think more than anything, it comes down to being really honest with yourself. Are you going to be resentful if you're not the top dog all the time? Are you going to resent? Because once resentment kicks in, it builds and it's hard to slow it down? And are you going to be willing to bring that up when you start to feel any hint of that if that's not you? I think a partnership could be really hard. Or if you're not willing to develop that, it can be really, really tough because. Sounds silly, but it's just communication and honesty. And I think more than anything of going into a partnership, it's knowing more about yourself, which I know is a lot of internal work, and a lot of us don't want to do that. But partnership, to me is just. It's only as good as you trust yourself and feel comfortable being honest with yourself. And if you can't do that, then it's probably not a good time to start a partnership because you're also really affecting someone else's life in the process, too.

Right. Right. What. When you guys create content or create courses and do things, how do you guys. Do you guys have, like, different roles? Have you split up the roles or it's just like, hey, you do this, I'll do that, or, you know, do you guys have, like, roles in the bit? Like, one person's more on the marketing end of the business, one person's more on the customer service. Do you guys split those things up?

We are probably the most nonchalant business operators that you could meet. We're pretty much like, hey, we have an idea. Cool. I'll do this part. And it's like, cool. What's left? Okay. I'll go do that part, which has been really great. Neither one of us really has a. Has an ego of, like, oh, I need to be doing this, or I need to be the one on the first video. We don't really. Luckily, we don't either think that way, so it's just kind of like, okay, cool. You knocked that out great. That means that part of it's done. Awesome. What's left? I can go get the other part. As we move forward, we're probably gonna have to think more about it. You know, I like to. I just. We're not as structured as we could be. I would say everything gets done, and it gets done on time, and it all turns out okay, but we probably need to build more structure into that. But I don't know. You know, I really don't know an answer to having defined roles versus not having defined roles, because I think it's. I think it just totally comes down to personality and communication. Again, if you need it, it's great. If you don't, I think it's probably harder, and we're making it harder on ourselves, but it works for us at this point.

Yeah. That's awesome. So what's next for you, Will? Where do you see yourself? Like, what's coming up this year? And where do you see yourself in five years?

Yeah, man, I really want to help. It's a great question. So this year coming up, our goal is to help, in particular online business owners really grow their ideas. And so, for example, if someone has a following and they don't know how to monetize it or what to do with it, you know, that's something Alex and I have done and we've done over and over again with people that we've realized we can really help them. And I think just seeing the level of burnout, the level of frustration, being able to help those people or if they have an online product to sell or an online service to sell, that we can really help them understand that part of their business. So that's what we want to do. I think in five years. Gosh, I would love to. Truthfully, in five years, I would love for the average student debt to be down by, like, $50,000. Because I taught kids how to make money while they're in school. That's really probably my passion. Yeah. There's a course coming up at some point called how to make money while bored in Class.

Oh, that's a great title.

That's so good. We're gonna teach kids how to. And kids. Sorry, Teach. Teach students how to make websites and how to do podcast editing, video editing, do some social media marketing, how to

do

write sales letters and email marketing at a low price that, you know, I think you and I both know how many clinic owners don't want to do it or afraid to take it on? If you could pay a student 100 to 300, $500 a month to just take all that off your plate, there's no reason they shouldn't be doing that. While, you know, I genuinely think about me, we'd have four hour lectures in PT school and I mean, I was 28 years old and, you know, I should be able to do that. I could go maybe an hour and a half before my brain just was like, I can't keep. Instead I just go, you know, go to study fantasy football stuff that didn't matter. And if I could have built a website in that time and sold it for $500 to a clinic owner who really needed it, how different my student loan bills would be now given interest. So for me in five years, like, that's, that's truly a major, major passion. And to have an army of people like you who can go and say, I don't work for corporate healthcare and I actually make a really big difference in people's lives. That's. Wish I had more like numbers for you, but that's the, that's the vision and the goal.

That's really awesome. That sounds exciting, man. That's great. I learned a lot from you, Aaron.

I've learned a lot from you, honestly.

Awesome. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate that. What advice do you have for someone who's either trying to market their business or getting into creating their own business online or brick and mortar, whatever. What have we left out that you feel like is important to say to people?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is know who it is that you want to serve. And by that I mean you've got to narrow it down from anyone and everyone to finding a niche. And that doesn't mean that you can't help other people. It means that your messaging is really clear on who you help initially. And they'll bring you the other people, though. You know, if you do a good job within that niche, they'll bring you people from outside of that niche. And I think so many people are afraid to narrow down who they help. But when it comes to marketing, that's how you separate yourself. It's how you become different than every other person who wants to try to help everyone. So I think that's the biggest one. And then second is being creative and understanding. There's no one magic bullet. I think we've had plenty of people come to us and say, hey, can you run our Facebook ads? It'll solve all of our problems. And it's not though, it's not going to solve all your problems. Right. Even if I sent you a thousand people more a month to your website and you have no way to capture them and you have no way to follow up with emails or you're not willing to get on the phone with them with the opt in, like I'm really just taking your money at that point and that's not what I want to do for you. So we would turn people away and say like you've got to know a process. You know, I would say the biggest thing is study from someone like you, Aaron, who understands marketing and sales and Greg Todd always says if you're, I think it's either 500 grand or a million dollars a year. Like if you're not hitting that number a year, 80% of your time should be marketing and sales. Not getting better at pt. Not that it's not important, but if you're trying to run a business, if you have to think like a business person, I think that's probably the number one. Like getting, getting better. Adding Grafton, adding all those things. Awesome. They're not. That's not what's gonna be. It's like another Facebook ads. Oh, that's the missing tool that's gonna get me more business. The reality is no. Learning more about business is what's going to get you more business.

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. So thank you, Will, for joining us today. It's amazing having you. If someone wants to get in touch with you online, where can we find out more about you?

Yeah, if you want to learn more about me, you can find me@willboydpt.com if you're really interested in learning step by step tutorial stuff on online, the online world, social media, you can go to healthcare Digital marketing, our Facebook group. If you're interested in cashmere tea, definitely to go to Aaron's Facebook group in there. The Cashpt Nation Facebook group. Yeah. And we have the Healthy Funnel podcast. If you're in your car and you don't have a chance to do stuff, you can just jam out there and learn some stuff on the fly.

Awesome. Awesome. We'll put those links in the show notes for sure. Thanks for joining us. I'm looking forward to seeing you in person sometime soon and connecting and it's always great to have you on the show and chat and talk shop. You know, I really appreciate you spending your time with us today, Will.

It's a complete honor, and I'm humbled. Aaron, thanks so much for having me.

You're welcome. Thanks a lot, guys. We'll see you guys next time.