Ep034: Start a Workshop with Sachin Patel

Welcome to the Perfect Practice podcast where we share the most innovative strategies to help you build a successful functional medicine business, attract your ideal patients, serve your community, and get paid what you're worth. Each episode is packed with practical steps that you can take to immediately grow your influence and serve more people. Our mission is to share golden nuggets from successful practitioners, technology experts and innovators from around the world. Your host, Sachin Patel, is a functional medicine success coach, international speaker and best selling author. He's calling in all his favors to bring this information to you so you can create your perfect practice.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Perfect Practice. One of the questions I get quite often is Satchin, what's the fastest way to grow my practice? How do I get this practice off the ground so I can help as many people as possible as quickly and of course, as efficiently as possible? So my question to them is, how hard are you willing to work? Because there's different ways to grow your practice and there's ways you can grow your practice fast. But the question is, how hard are you willing to work? Because some strategies are going to be far more effective than others, but they're going to be work. And so one of the strategies that I encourage each and every one of you to focus on is doing workshops. Now, there's several offshoot benefits of doing a workshop. It teaches you marketing, of course. It teaches you the most important skill which I talk about in my book, Perfect Practice, which is public speaking. If you're a good public speaker, if you can articulate your message, if you can be confident in front of crowds, then guess what, you can help a lot of people. And you can also make a lot of money because the amount of money you make is directly connected the amount of influence you have. And of course, if you're going to influence people, you got to be able to speak and communicate to them, usually standing face to face, because humans like face to face connection. So being able to articulate your message will help you with podcasts, it'll help you with interviews, it'll help you with a conversation at a coffee shop with somebody. It'll also help you with large audiences. So being a good or great communicator, rather is vital to your career. It's vital to your message, and let's say you decide to change careers. If you're a good public speaker, you can make an impact. If you're a great public speaker, you can make a huge impact and a huge income. So that's why I believe workshops are very, very Important. It gives you exposure into your community. You can help people on scale. Okay, so now here's the thing. One of the challenges that I encounter that practitioners face is now filling the workshop. And you don't just put an ad out there because it'll be very expensive to do it this way. You certainly can. Okay, if you don't want to do any work and you just want to spend money, then you can certainly spend a lot of money on ads and you can fill up a room. But the key here is not just doing a workshop, but having people want you to do a workshop. And so this is the secret that nobody really talks about. So I'm here to tell you a formula that's going to help you fill up your workshops way more effectively than anything else that you're probably doing right now and more organically. You know, let's face it, I mean, we can certainly pay for things, but I don't want my money going to certain people because I know what they're doing with that money, and I know what that money does in my pocket, or I know what that money does in my patient's pocket instead of somebody else's. I'd rather put in the effort and, and I'd rather put in the time and create the relationships instead of having to pay for people to sit in those seats. That's the thing that probably makes my philosophy a little bit different than the other philosophies that are out there. So if that's the case for you, if you want to build a rapport with people so they're excited to come to the workshop instead of being skeptical when they come to the workshop, then these are the tips that you're going to want to follow. Now, if you just want to spend a bunch of money and fill up your practices because that's what somebody else told you to do, or that's what's working for somebody else, then certainly you can do that. We can always buy our way to get people into the seats, but you can't buy your way into somebody's heart. And this is a heart centered practice philosophy. And you're trying to help people from the heart. Okay? Now, that being said, let's. I'm going to give you a bunch of different tips. I would take notes if I were you or even see if somebody's willing to type up these notes for you or transcribe it for you, because there's going to be a lot of nuggets here. So these aren't in any particular order, but you'll be able to piece it together in terms of what should come first. So what should come first is picking a date and a location. Okay? Now you might want to, if you're doing this for the first time, you might want to build this out at least a few weeks, okay? Maybe even eight weeks. So this strategy I'm going to give you is an eight week strategy, maybe even up to a 12 week strategy, depending on you and how fast you want to move. So first and foremost, once you pick the topic, once you pick the location, the important thing that happens is now it becomes real. So you've got to reverse engineer from here. What other thing that happens is once you pick the topic, now you've got to focus. Now you're going to only focus on this particular topic and nothing else. You're going to devote yourself to becoming a ninja and a master at this topic. And so if that's your goal, to become a master of this topic in the next, you know, 90 days, let's say 60 to 90 days, well, guess what, you're going to have to do a lot of reading, you're going to have to do a lot of research, you're going to have to put together a stellar presentation. And in order for you to do that, you've got to do some studies, you've got to become proficient in this topic. Now as you're doing that, that's going to give you content to share. So what I want you to focus on is over the next 60 to 90 days, only sharing information about this one topic. So if your topic's autoimmunity or, or if your topic is gluten sensitivity, or if your topic is thyroid disease, then that's all you should be posting about. Okay? So make that commitment first and foremost. Now you can post about your diet, but tell us how it ties back to the thyroid. You can post about the hike you went on, but tell us how it ties back to your thyroid. You can post about the workout that you just did, but again, tie it back to the subject matter. And the thing with functional medicine is we can tie everything into everything because everything's connected. So that's what makes it super easy as well. So, so you could use a strategy that somebody else is using, or you could use posts that you've used in the past or content you've used in the past, but tie it always back to the topic that you're gonna be speaking about. So again, subtly positioning yourself as an expert, if that's all you talk about, then clearly that's not the only thing you know about. But clearly you're a specialist or some sort of, you know, an individual that can be viewed as an authority or expert on the topic. Now, the next thing is you. You also wanna share valuable tips with people. So don't just share information, Share action steps that people can take. So if you tell me about foods that are high in iodine, that's great. That's an action step that I can take. If you tell me about the benefits of iodine on the thyroid, then that's just information. So give people simple action steps that they can take and give them clear direction. Sometimes people will be a little bit vague because they don't wanna give away their secret sauce. But when you give vague instructions to people, then they're confused and they either don't do anything or they do it. If they do it wrong, then they're going to blame you because they're not going to get a result. If they don't do it, then that's even better than doing it wrong because at least they're not pointing the finger at you. They can point it at themself. So be very clear. If you give a protocol or you shouldn't be giving protocols, but if you give a meal plan or if you give some dietary guidelines for people to follow or some supplements that people might want to take, or lab testing that people need to get done, then within your scope, of course, and within what's considered ethical, then make sure you're giving away the details that are required. Okay. And of course, don't put yourself at risk. So don't put out. Everyone should be taking this amount of iodine because you don't know. Right. You might recommend the exact test that they need and then follow up with you. So give valuable tips. Give your audience action steps that they can take. Remember, if you understand your audience, if you understand the problem because you're doing all this research, and then you also understand what people are struggling with, and you understand what you can help them with, and you understand what they can help themselves with. So the things that they can help themselves with, guess what? Let them help themselves. If over the next 60 to 90 days, the patient feels better because they followed your advice, guess who's probably gonna come to the workshop? The patient who got better. Right. Not the patient that didn't do anything, or the patient that never heard about you, or the patient that got worse because you gave vague instructions. The person that shows up is gonna be the person that wants to meet you because you changed Their life, okay? So you fill the audience up with people who are raving fans of yours, okay? And so you give out valuable information. Cause that's what you do for people you care about. Right? And you should care about everybody. The next step I wanna talk about is you wanna make sure that you're taking screenshots of slides that you're gonna be giving at the workshop and speak to those. So present an image or present a graph, an infographic or a chart of sorts of. And share information about that particular topic. Let us know what it means. And then you can say, hey, I'm going to be discussing this in more detail at my upcoming workshop. I'm going to be discussing this and five other facts that you didn't know about thyroid disease at my upcoming workshop. Okay? And then you can let people know, if you'd like an invitation, send me a message. That's one way. Okay. And that's. If you're just starting out, you might want to do that. Send me a message and I'll send you an invitation. Because you can start the conversation and you have a dialogue going with this person. Okay? Another thing that you can do is you can post the link, but don't post the link in the actual text of the message you're putting out there if you're using Facebook, because Facebook will throttle that post. It will make sure that fewer people see it because it doesn't want people going to another website. So one hack is that you can put it in the comments. But what I've also noticed is that it's Facebook, I think, is catching onto that when people post a link in the comments immediately afterwards. So I don't know what the total answer is. The final answer is. So you have the messenger option. Or you could post a link in the comments, or you could post a link in the body of the message, but make sure then you're spending some money behind it. If you're posting it through your business page, okay, You've got a. If you want more people to see it, okay. Especially if it's linking off of Facebook, then you're gonna have to pay for that. So share screenshots, share graphics, speak to those either through text or even a video, and let people know that you're going to be doing a workshop and they're invited to join you because they're going to learn even more. The next thing you can do over the next 60 to 90 days is share case studies. So these are case studies of people that are coming in to see you with the problem that you're going to be speaking about. And you can show people how you handle their care radically differently than what's been done for them to up to this point. Okay? So show people how your process is different, why you get different results, the testing that you run, you know, tell the story of the individual. And you know, there's a whole podcast that I'll have to do on how to do a case study. But you know, just get as many case studies out there as you can. Maybe one a week. Okay. And show people that you're an expert, you're an authority, and you get results because you do something different. Not because you're better, but because you're different. Because better is something they can probably get somewhere else. Okay, they can probably. There's probably people that are better than you, but if you're unique and you show people how you're different, then that's different is better than better. Okay? That's something I learned from Sally Hogshead. The next thing is you can share testimonials. So not only the process, but also share testimonials of people who have had great success. And if in their testimonials they can mention the condition that you help them with, that's even better. So if you're doing a workshop on thyroid disease and it says, hey, Dr. Sam really helped me with my thyroid condition and I feel better than ever, that's better than just saying how much better they feel. Because the condition is what people will identify with more so than the actual individual symptoms. Now the condition is going to apply to everybody who's interested in that topic. The symptoms might be a little bit more specific to certain people, to segments of that total population. If you can have both, that's ideal. Okay, if you could have one, then focus on the condition. The next thing that I want you to do in the next 69 days leading up to your workshop is share highly practical steps that people can follow. And one of the things that what I mean by that is that you want to let people know that when they come to the workshop as well, that they're going to get highly actionable steps that they can take. So it's not just coming in for a sales pitch that they're going to leave with immediately actionable steps that they can take to start feeling better. Okay? So you want to let them know, not by just giving valuable tips, but when you're promoting your event, let them know that you're going to be giving valuable life saving tips that they can apply Immediately. But it's important that they, of course, attend live. Another tip for you when you're posting on social media is to post a picture of all the books you're reading on the topic. Okay. Or maybe even share some of the podcasts that you're listening to. But if you share books that you're reading about the topic, then people are going to be like, wow, there's like five books which would take me five years to read that this person has gone through, and they're going to take the best information out of these five books and they're going to share it with me. So that's what you want to do. You want to edify the fact that you're doing all this research and you're going to be consolidating all the information into that one hour workshop. Not all the information, obviously, but the highlights of that information. And then when you become a patient, they're going to know. They're going to hold you accountable for knowing what's in those books, of course, because hopefully maybe they've even read them. And that's the other thing too. If you're reading the same book a patient is reading or a prospect is reading, they're going to get excited about that because they're going to be like, wow, nobody else I know is reading this book except this person. Which means I can have an intelligent conversation with them about this topic. And if they understand this book and the information that's in this book, then guess what? Then I can speak to them. Because my doctor doesn't know anything about this book I'm reading and he thinks I'm nuts or she thinks I'm nuts. So sharing books goes a long way, right? When you see the same book that you're reading on somebody's coffee table, guess what? That completely changes the nature of your relationship. Okay? So the books you read, and if it's the books people are other reading other people are reading, then you're gonna build an instant connection and bond with them. Another tip for social media is sharing did you knows? Cause most people don't know the did you knows? So it kind of helps open up their paradigm a little bit and maybe shatter it in some cases. So something, if you're doing thyroid, could be. Did you know that most patients who get thyroid testing don't get the right lab testing? In fact, the testing that they get done actually identifies a problem 10 years after the problem started by getting the right testing. If they had the right testing ten years ago, then they could have probably Even avoided their thyroid problem altogether. But they certainly would be in a much better place. At my workshop, I'm going to be discussing the exact lab markers that you should ask your doctor for to identify if you have blah, blah, blah, right. Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or if you have an underlying autoimmune condition that's destroying your thyroid. So there is an example I'm just shooting from the cuff on how you can share that post. Okay, so these things come naturally to me now because I've been doing it so often, but speak that person's language. Speak the did you knows. Now that brings me to my next point. When I say speak that person's language. Speak to the language of the layperson. So make it really easy for people to understand. The more fancy you get, the more impressive it might seem to you, right? Nobody else is impressed by your big words. What people are impressed by is how simple you can keep it. Okay, so that's what sells. Simplicity is sexy and simplicity sells. Complexity is not very sexy. Complexity is annoying. And nobody wants to buy complexity. People want to buy simplicity. And remember that it's our job to keep things simple. The body takes care of the complex work. Okay, so in your marketing, you want to keep things simple so that anyone and everyone can understand what you're saying. And that means that they can share it with other people. Right? If you use super complex language and that's the way you communicate with your community, then guess what? You know, your person who enjoys that super complex stuff may not invite their simpleton friends who need the help because it's going to go right over their head. Or at least they think it's going to go over their head. So not only in your marketing, but also in your presentation, you want to keep things simple. You also want to tell people why it's important to attend live. And again, this is closer to the workshop when you're promoting the workshop because let's say you're giving out like we give out mushroom coffee at our events. Okay? So we sample Organo Gold coffee, and people love it, especially in the winter. It's a nice treat for them. We love it because it raises their spiritual potency and their energy and their brain fog clears up and they have clarity and they're more engaged as an audience. And who doesn't love coffee? It's a nice surprise for them. But we don't. You know, what you want to do is you want to promote why it's important for people to attend live. So we don't tell them that we're going to be serving the coffee, necessarily. But we might tell them that we have a special gift when you arrive, or those who arrive early will have a special gift. Right. There's all kinds of ways that you can incentivize people to come. We're experimenting with a few different ideas. I'll report back when I tell you how they turn out. But make sure you acknowledge why it's important for people to attend live. One of the most important reasons to attend live, if you've got an autoimmune condition, for example, is because most people have not found their tribe. Most people have evolved over the last few years, either because of personal challenges they faced or because of circumstances that they've been under. And so they've had to evolve through the last five years. And as a result of evolving through those last five years, maybe they don't have friends anymore who have things in common with them. Just because you went to high school with somebody, your life went in a different trajectory than most of your friends did. And now you have unique challenges and problems and information that you know or information that you're seeking that your friends might not be seeking. So when people come live, they're surrounding themselves with people who have something in common, people who are looking to better themselves, improve themselves, optimize themselves, who are facing the same struggle or challenges, who are looking for similar solutions as you, who can understand you and empathize with you and be sympathetic and compassionate and be a resource to you as well, because they're going through the same thing as you can share notes, if you will. So attending live is super important because it helps you find your tribe, and a sense of community is vital for somebody who's trying to get healthy. If you're ridiculed by the people around you because of the choices that you make, that's not gonna help you. That's gonna create more inflammation in your body. It's gonna create more social anxiety, and it's gonna create more depression and problems like that. But if you're supported by people that you're around because you're surrounded by them and. And because they can understand what you're struggling with and what you're trying to accomplish, then guess what, you're going to feel much better. You're going to feel, you know, enlightened, if you will, and you're going to be able to serve other people as well and add value into other people's lives by sharing what you've learned on your journey. So being live in person is a huge part of healing yourself. And when you're in your community, when you're in your tribe, guess what? You lower inflammatory markers. We already know this. So it's important that you have your community and we're going to help create that for you. As I mentioned earlier, if you've got infographics on the topic, that could also be a good thing to share. People process images way faster than they process words. I believe it's about 60,000 times faster. Regardless, it's faster. That's all that matters. But here's the thing. If you've got graphics, people can see an entire process or a thought process or a clinical process in a few images. So images go a long way, especially if they show a process or they show a route that you're going to take with these individuals. The other thing you can do is share testimonials from previous workshops. Share images of, you know, packed houses or standing room only situations if you've had that before, or even just images of people you know coming in and having a great time. Share images like that. Okay, so take lots of pictures. This helps you build authority. Take pictures of yourself speaking and from the stage or from the front with the mic in your hand because again, that builds authority. Now one thing that a lot of people don't do, which is super simple and super helpful, is they don't invite their friends. So very low hanging fruit is people that you know love and care about, which I'm sure is your family and your close friends. Don't forget about those people because guess what, they might not be sick or they might not come to you for their chronic health challenges, but they know people who are, or they're super proud of the work that you're doing. And in fact, they're super happy that they know you because if they ever do get sick, they know who they're going to go to. So don't exclude those individuals. You can send a message that says, hey, Chris, I'm doing a workshop this weekend. This might be of interest to you or someone that you know. The topic is how to conquer thyroid disease. And guess what, Chris might not have thyroid disease, but he might have a co worker that does. He might have a friend that does. His mom might have thyroid disease or just got a diagnosis. And, and they didn't even know that you help people with this because you never reached out to them. So the people that know, like and trust you the most are your friends and family members. And I bet you if we were honest with ourselves, that Most of our family members truly don't know what we do. They know our title and they might know that we're in business for ourselves or we do natural healthcare. But could they explain your process to somebody else? Because if they can't, then you're closest ambassadors and people who want you to succeed, hopefully more than anyone else. Your close family and friends don't even know what you do. So how can they help you become successful if they don't know what you do or can't articulate it to somebody else? Those people should be your raving fans, they should be your proud ambassadors and tell as many people as possible what it is that you do. But you've got to get to that low hanging fruit. You've got to be willing to share with people. You've got to have. You know, it's. How courageous is it to invite a friend to a workshop? I mean, they'll either say, hey, I can't make it or hey, I'll be sure to pass this on. Or they're going to say, wow, this is amazing. A lot of people have been talking about this, I'm interested. So there's only three options and they're all totally fine. They're all, I mean, some of them are awesome and some of them are totally fine. What are they going to do? They're not going to be mad at you for inviting them. So reach out to your friends and family members. Also reach out to current and past patients. You know, send them an email if they're in between appointments. They might not see the ads, they might not see the emails. It's also an opportunity for them to invite somebody. So you could say, hey, Susan, I'm doing a workshop this week on digestive challenges and I know you came to one of them before or you haven't been to one of these yet and they're super awesome. I would love for you to come. Please bring a friend because there's lots of people that are struggling with this problem and you might know somebody or it's just great information for everyone to know because we're going to teach people who are healthy to get even healthier. So really simple invite that you can send out to your existing patients, but send them out personally. You know, if you send it out to 20, 25 people, I bet you half of them show up and probably bring somebody with them. And the next thing is I like using Facebook messenger when I send messages because it's trackable. You also have traceability and trackability with email. But I like messenger, because I can keep conversations popping, and having conversations is huge. The next thing is that you always ask people to share with those that are interested. Okay. So you're not directing the invitation to them. You could say, I don't know if this interests you or not, but I'm doing a workshop on thyroid disease. Would you mind sharing it with people that you think would benefit? Right. And they're gonna. If they can think of somebody, they'll share it. If they can't, then they won't. But ask them to share. Okay? And then you always wanna position yourself as an expert. And the way you position yourself as an expert is by, you know, sharing things, you know, on your social media feed through the emails you send out, like podcasts and interviews and blog articles that you've written again about this topic. Okay? So if you're doing a workshop on thyroid disease, and that's your specialty, that's what you're known for, and that's what you want to be known for, because that's what you've chosen as your expertise or your focus at least, then everything you talk about should be that. You should be writing articles about this, you should be doing interviews. Even if you're interviewing other people who are experts on the topic, it's great positioning for you. Okay? So do that. Okay. And then if you've been on podcasts, then share those podcasts with other people. The last thing I want to talk about today is try to keep your topic the same instead of constantly changing it. Okay? So I just gave you a whole bunch of work to do, a whole bunch of things that can help you really explode your business and your practice. But if you had to do this for five different topics because you're constantly bouncing around and you've got workshop add, then it's going to be very difficult. You'll never gain any traction. Because look at all the work that you have to do just to position yourself for people to show up. And if you did all this work, guess what? There's going to be people that are not going to be able to wait to come to the workshop. They're going to want to come in and see you right away because you're such an expert on this particular topic, they can't wait for the workshop. You've already. Whatever you're charging, whatever you're doing, just do it for me. Because you've shown them case studies, you've shown them testimonials, you've spoken their language, you've shared your story, you've shared simple Steps. You've given them action tools that they can do, and they're starting to feel better. You're sharing, you know, how you go through a case step by step. Right. There's so many touch points here that even if this was just a brand marketing strategy, it would work just fine. But again, when people see this information from you and then all of a sudden you post a workshop that you're doing, guess what? You're going to have lots of people there because you've created a rapport and a relationship with these people over a period of time. They're going to be excited. In fact, you might even get people asking you if you do live workshops, because that's the ultimate sign. People want to come and see you. They want to come and touch you, believe it or not. You know, it's really interesting how this works. When you build a rapport and a relationship with people, they literally will drive and come and see you. Okay? And when they do, they're going to be so excited, they're going to do exactly what you tell them to do, because they've already been doing that. That's why they're there, because they're feeling better from the advice that you've given them. So hope this helps. You know, you can look at this as a workshop promotion strategy, or you can look at this as a complete brand promotion strategy. Either way, workshops are the fastest way to grow your practice. The same things that I mentioned today also apply for webinars, but I believe that live workshops are superior to webinars. Of course, webinars are easier from a logistical standpoint. But then I asked you earlier, are you willing to do the work? Because if you're willing to do the work, then workshops are gonna be far more effective and you can create an experience for people. It's hard to create an experience on a webinar. Anyways, lots of love. Hope this helps. Love your feedback and keep the comments and reviews coming. We really appreciate that. It's amazing to see the impact this podcast is having, not only in individual practices, but in people's lives and also in the lives of the patients that you serve. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Have an amazing rest of your day.