Ep035: Online Strategies for a Successful Functional Medicine Business with Dr. Peter Osborne

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 and 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 everyone, and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today I have a very special guest with me, one of my dear mentors, Dr. Peter Osborne. Peter, thank you for joining me today. I appreciate your time, especially on a Sunday. I know that you're a very, very busy person and you've got a lot on your plate because of all the amazing things that you do in the world. So a big, big thank you to you. Today we're going to be talking about how to build a successful functional medicine business using online strategies. And I couldn't think of anyone better to discuss this with than you because you've done some amazing work to build up your practice, to build up your brand and spread your message all over the world. I love hearing some of the stories that you share with us and you've also helped many, many practitioners. So not only are you a doer, but you're also an amazing teacher and you've been a mentor for mine for the last five years. And I attribute a lot of my success and the way I think and the way I approach challenges with grace. I attribute that much of that to you. So thank you for being an amazing teacher to me as well. And I'm so blessed to be able to share you with our community and to help people build a brand that's ethical, a brand that scales, a brand that aligns with their values and make a difference in the world. So thank you once again for being here.

Well, thank you so much for having me. The honor's mine. You know, a good teacher is nothing without a great student, and you've definitely been that and more. And so thank you as well. I appreciate you.

Well, thanks, Doc. So for those of us that may not know your whole story, I'd love to learn a little bit more and share a little bit more about where it all started for you. Because someone who builds the level of business that you have doesn't do it without a burning desire, as Napoleon Hill would call it or just a strong purpose and strong mission. So tell us a little bit more about what drives you and what pushes you on a daily basis to keep helping and serving the number of people that you do.

We have a mission in our, in our practice and that's to help 100 million people. And you know, in a day to day practice, any of you doing practice out there know that 100 million is a lofty goal. And there's no way that in a one on one practice clinical setting you're going to be able to achieve 100 million patients. It's, there's just time wise, it's just not a feasibility, it's not a possibility. So when I set out to really, really begin this, we strategically sat down and thought about how we could reach 100 million with our message. Because our message, we believe, is recovery from autoimmune disease. I mean, that's really the driving core. My background was at the VA hospital early on and I saw my fellow veterans just being treated horribly, being medicated until their joints were destroyed, being medicated until their immune systems were destroyed, and then having their joints replaced. So by the time their health was totally deteriorated as a result of what medic was doing to them, the doctors then set them up to have their joints replaced and really ultimately for failed surgery because they were so distraught, their healths were so deteriorated at that point that surgery was really not a great option. But it was the only option left. And so when I challenged the status quo in the VA hospital here in Houston, I literally was told to be quiet or leave. And so I left. And ultimately one of my first patients in private practice was a young, a young girl. She was nine years old when her mom brought her to see me. But she had been struggling with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis since the age of two. And after seven years of heavy medications, the doctors looked at her mom and said, sorry, there's nothing more we can do. She's got six months to live. You need to go home and get your affairs in order for her. When she brought her to see me, I was pumped because I knew we could help her. But I was also pissed because I was the last doctor in a lineup of seven years of multiple specialists, multiple doctors. And here this little girl is dying after what they did to her, they actually left her in a worse condition than when she began. So we began the process of doing a functional medicine workup, as many of you probably do. We check for food allergies, we check for nutritional deficiencies, and a number of other things, gut integrity, et cetera. But one of the things that. That we found with her was she was allergic to blueberries. She was gluten sensitive. And within six months, we had her off of all medications. Within a year, we had her in remission. And today she's graduating college and often doing great things in the world. And this was after being given a life or a death sentence, rather within the next six months. And it was early in the point of her care that I realized, oh, my gosh, we've got to get this information in the hands of more people. We've got to do more. How many gingers are out there? How many chronically sick people with autoimmune conditions are out there? Statistically speaking, there's 46 million people with diagnosed autoimmune disease. But what are the ones that don't have a diagnosis? You know, so it's an estimated 100 million people. And that's where my goal came from. And I knew in order to do that, I had to reach at least 10,000 doctors and help them understand how to practice with integrity, with intelligence. And most doctors do. They already practice with integrity. They practice with intelligence, but they don't have that business. So I know some very, very intelligent, very, very smart doctors who struggle to keep their doors open, not because they're not great physicians or docs, but because they just don't understand business and business models and how to approach that. So I kind of went to the drawing board and said, how do we craft this message? How do we really get this word out? And that's part of why I founded the Functional Medicine Success Summit, is I really wanted an annual conference where doctors could come not have the fear or retribution of talking about business and talking about money and feeling like icky, because so many doctors feel icky when it comes to talking about money. Or so many doctors feel icky when it comes to talking about selling supplements out of their office or selling things out of their office, because the traditional model says that's not something that you should do and that that's unethical. So we wanted a safe place where doctors could come network with each other. We wanted a place where we could bring in the brightest minds, the best practices, and the best marketing tactics and techniques and skills so that doctors could walk away from this event feeling totally empowered to be able to launch a much more successful practice. Because the lifecycle of a doc, if a doctor, 10,000 doctors can each see 10,000 patients. And that helps us achieve that goal. And so the Lifecycle of most doctors is they're going to see about 10,000 patients. So that's kind of my background and where I came from, at least from the thought process of being in the VA hospital, seeing the tragedy of the way my veterans were being treated, and then seeing one of my very first patients with a death sentence.

Yeah, that's an amazing story. And I can see why you're so passionate now. And what drives you, and not just what drives you, what pulls you out of bed every morning is to make sure you're making a difference in as many lives as possible. And, you know, it's great to be able to help people, you know, not just through, you know, one degree of separation, but also multiple degrees of separation. That's when you can have a massive impact. And, you know, the cool thing would be if those practitioners would teach even some of their practitioners in their circle and bring them to these events so that they can have these major breakthroughs and serve more people. So I think that you can directly, through one or two degrees of separation, impact 100 million, but with your influence and with your, you know, positive work that you put out there to not only help the lay public, but also practitioners, because you put a lot of great content to serve us. You know, there's. The sky's the limit. So I help as many people as possible, and, you know, you count me in. So. And anyone who's watching this, I know, has a big vision and a big heart, right? And so one of the ways to get our message out there is to do it online, because there's never been a more, you know, fruitful time, because we have an opportunity here to leverage a technology that's been built out for us. We just have to know how to use it. And because. Because of what we do, the type of work that we do, it's so engaging to patients. It's so engaging to our prospects. There's a strategic way to do that. And so clearly, a big mission is important to have. And then the know how the strategy is important to have. And then also having the right money mindset is important to have, because this is not a topic that's discussed even at some of the more premier events that are out there that introduce practitioners and train practitioners. Very rarely is money talked about. And it's almost like the pink elephant in the room. And so it's amazing that you're bringing people together to discuss this, because the reality is, in order for us to help these people, we've got to be in business the first Place, right? And we've got to stay in business, and we have to have, you know, team members and employees that are driven and motivated as well. We have to pay them, and we want to hire good talent. So success is required for the mission to be accomplished. And, you know, this is an important topic that often gets overlooked and not discussed often enough. So my first question to you is, you know, maybe a little bit more nostalgic, but what was the first product you ever sold online? Wow.

The first product ever sold online was something called the Glutenology Health Matrix, and it was a series of video tutorials. As a matter of fact, a lot of people that are selling online programs, I think we predated that whole scene by, like, five years with this. With this particular program. We were in the online program industry before people were thinking about what programs were. But what I wanted, really the reason I created it wasn't so that I could sell it as a program to people online. I created it for my patients. So many of them had so many questions. After we were finding so many of them with gluten sensitivity, the questions just were rolling in. So basically what I did is I just took strategically a list of those FAQs as frequently asked questions, and I said, how can we go about in an organized way and create a program that answers all of these questions without me having to do it there in the office? I wanted to leverage my time while still being able to provide value to the people who are seeking my services. So we created initially for the people in our office. But, you know, then I had one of my. It's interesting because, you know, you talk about degrees of separation. There was a. One of my patients who was in the restaurant industry. He had a website that he was monetizing at the time. And what he was doing is he was teaching restaurateurs how to manage their restaurant better and how to make a better profit. And he says, do you monetize your website? Because all the information on it is just fantastic. And I said, what does that mean, monetize my website? And he says, well, let me tell you about my business. And he says, what we do is we teach restaurant owners how to basically how to have better restaurants. And he says, and we have about 10,000 members paying us $14.95 a month. And I thought, wow, no, I don't monetize it, but I definitely would like to know more. So here's a gentleman who is in the restaurant business, which is serving food and probably ironically, probably teaching people how to Serve horrible food.

Right.

Teaching me how to deliver wonderful value to reach more people. And what we did is we did, we ended up monetizing it. We sold it for $69 down payment and then offered a $12.99 a month. As long as they wanted to stay in our system. Every month we have a new video. We'd have something new coming out for them to watch and we'd have coupon codes that they could use and things of that nature. So it just got bigger and bigger and it grew and it got more popular. And I thought we're going to take this money and we're going to reinvest it back into the website. And that's what we did. We just kept reinvesting the profits back into the site and adding more products, adding more services, adding more things that were helpful for people who were trying to obtain a gluten free diet, even the ones that weren't my patients. Because ultimately again, the 100 million goal, you can't see 100 million. But if you can reach out and you can help 100,000 or a million people find the gluten free diet and how important it can be to help them reestablish their health and we can still reach that goal direct to consumer, not just direct to patient, and not just doctor to Dr. Or B2B as they call it in the business industry. Business to business, it's been phenomenal. I mean we have about 2 million people visit us every year on gluten free society. And many of those people opt to still that program is still one that we offer as a service.

Amazing. So my key takeaway from that is understanding your avatar, the questions they would have and then the people who are paying you are helping you do the market research. So the one on one interactions you have, pay attention to the questions that people are asking and then maybe you can even create maybe a Google Doc or something where you write these questions down and then you've got all the content that you need. And of course, if people are paying you hundreds of dollars to see you in the office, then certainly people will pay pennies on the dollar in this case to help themselves online. And we're certainly moving in that direction. Of course, you're a pioneer and ahead of the curve. So what would you say you wish you knew five years ago from today? So what do you wish you knew five years ago?

No, honestly, I can't say that there's something that I wish I would have known because the way that the business evolved was through the learning curve. So like, had we had all the information up front, I don't know that I would have held the importance on that information to apply it. I'm a big believer in not changing the past based on the knowledge that you currently have. I'm a big believer of evolving and letting the knowledge come to you as you evolve. Because, you know, it's like this, you know this. You're a mentor to so many as well. How many times have you heard one of the people who you've mentored say, you told me that two years ago, but I didn't hear it. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to accept that as something that I could use as a tool or use that information to be able to go forward. I was stuck over here at this place and I needed the other bits of information that you were giving me. So I think knowledge comes to us all. We probably all get more than what we need it. Just when it comes to us, we have to be open minded enough and we have to be at a certain point within our business or our mindset to be able to receive that information and utilize it. So there's really not a whole lot I'd say I wish I would have known this. What I do wish is I wish technology would have been easier today. It's vastly easier than what it was when I started. When I started, I was coding my own site. I was doing a lot of my own work using clunky plugins that, you know, that weren't supposed to fit with this program or that program. So we really had to go in and we had to custom and build a lot of this stuff in order to do that. I'm not a computer junkie or geek, but I had to learn a lot of that. So in order to apply it, I really had to dive in to more coding that I wanted to do. So if I could make one change, it would be, I wish things were as easy then as they were today. Today I just, I just have my guy do it. But he's got all these more resources and so many more tools that he can use.

Yeah, no, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Actually brings me to one of the questions I had for you, which is, you know, you're obviously, you know, not only do you have a super, super big heart and a super big mission and willing to do whatever is necessary, which means you're super resourceful as well, which is, I think, a vital skill to have as an entrepreneur. But you know, sometimes that can be Dangerous too. Right. So there's people that maybe aren't as prolific or as efficient and couldn't get it done even if they tried. Right. What would you suggest to someone like that? When does somebody need to hire or how does somebody know when to hire somebody to do the work for them instead of them doing it themselves? Is there like a magic formula? I know there's probably not a magic formula, but is there some advice that you could give somebody who's sitting on the fence of whether I should do this myself or whether I should outsource it to somebody else?

Yeah, I'd say that if you're having that question in the back of your head, the first thing I would encourage everyone to do is get out a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center of that piece of paper. And on the left hand side, write down what I love to do. So, like, just as a topic line, what do you love to do? What are you passionate about? And on the right hand side of that page, write down things I hate doing. And if so, like, if computer coding falls in that things I hate doing category, then obviously you want to outsource it. And there's there, you know, there's a number of ways to outsource this today that is relatively inexpensive. Now, there's two sides of this. So it's not just what I love and what I hate, but it's also what I'm trained to do and what I'm passionate about. And what better and what I should be doing that better serves my business versus what I have skill sets at doing. But take a lot of time and take my time and energy and effort away from the things that I'm really passionate about. Because if you're spending a lot of your time doing things that you're capable of doing and it pulls you away from your passion, then it deflates your mission to a large degree, because you find yourself doing those things that take you away from what you're really excited about most. So you kind of have to judge it in two ways. You kind of have to say, okay, what am I capable of doing? But also, what am I really passionate about versus what am I not all that passionate about? And then there's a third factor, and that factor is the financial piece of. It's like, at what point why was I doing my own coding? That's what a lot of my mentors have asked me. Why are you doing your own coding? You can afford to hire it out. There's a point where you're going to be able to afford to hire things out depending on where you're at in your business. And that should always be at the back of your mind. Is this something that I could hire a professional to do that would save me light years of time, or is this something right now that I really can't afford but is a necessity within my business in order for me to get going? In other words, I call it the. Basically the elbow grease. There are things that you have to be willing to do early on in business to generate enough income so that you can reach a point where you're making enough income that you can start hiring out those jobs. One of the best, you know, one of the best sayings I've ever heard was from actor Matthew McConaughey, who's a Texan as well. And he was doing an interview and the interviewer asked him, they said, you know, you grew up on a farm and you were shoveling shit? And he said, yeah, I was shoveling shit. And they said, so you're not afraid to shovel shit? And he says, no, let me clarify that. He says, I like to have the ability to be able to shovel shit, but I don't like shoveling shit. And he says, but if I need to, I can. And that's the lesson, that's the value, is that a lot of people think they're better than to get their hands dirty, you know, and to get some work done. They think they're too good for that. And so they never. They never succeed or they never achieve great things because they think that their knowledge or that their skill set is above that pay grade. But success does not come without elbow grease. I don't care who you are. You know, this Satchin and so many other successful doctors do too. You have to be able and be willing to get into the trenches when you are not making the money that you can afford to outsource everything. Today I make plenty of money. That's not the issue. The issue is how to intelligently spend that money and where I should recruit people to bring them in full time versus part time versus working with somebody overseas. You know, where is that most intelligent. Where is that resource most intelligently put? So that we can get the biggest bang for what we're spending, but so that we can also have the greatest impact. But also, who are we going to bring on board on our team? Who's excited about what we're doing? Because that's another important factor as well. So ultimately, I would say you've got to think about what you're good at what you love to do. But you also have to think, how much money do I have? And if, even though I might like doing that, somebody else could do it better and I have now the money that I could hire that resource out and that comes and goes. That's one of those things. It's really, really hard to make that decision. I'll give you an example. When I decided to hire a full time coder for my office, I probably waited two years too long. And not because of any other reason that I'm also cautious. Like, I also understand that business is about managing your assets, it's about managing your resources. And sometimes you hesitate to pull the trigger because you don't want to get such a big overhead and such a big problem going on around you that you then can't afford to pay your other employees if something were to go wrong. So you can't. It's kind of one of those things. You have to be cautious. At the same time, you just don't want to start throwing and outsourcing all of your money out the windows and making bad decisions in your business.

Yeah, super, great advice. You know, it's interesting to see and witness how practitioners make that decision, but I think this gives them a lot more clarity. You know, be okay with getting your hands dirty. Right? And if you don't like doing it, know it well enough to know when somebody is ripping you off. I think that's the key. So you should know something well enough before you outsource it so that, you know, if somebody is, you know, A, capable of doing it, but also B, that they're not learning on your dime and your time and that they're charging you a fair price. I think, you know, I think this is great advice to be able to give people. You know, you've got to be resourceful, you've got to learn your craft and then be able to do it in a pinch. Because sometimes you might be left, so to speak, with your pants down. And if you can't pick up the slack, then you're going to be in trouble. So there's probably some sort of benchmark that you use though. Would you say that there's a certain number or a certain feeling or a certain intuitive, you know, inspiration that you get, like, how do you know, how do you know to say, okay, I need to stop doing this? Besides thinking about it and saying, okay, whether I should be doing it or not, Is there a certain number that you look for or a certain KPIs that you measure for somebody who's thinking about, you know, hiring someone to do the work, but then also not just outsourcing it as a part time basis, but then bringing somebody in full time. What were your benchmarks that we just said?

You know, a lot of the benchmarks are what are we currently doing with our outsourcing. So for example, if I've got, you know, website that's being managed and we outsource, you know, the guy that's, that's monitoring that and making sure that the site doesn't crash, making sure that he's updating, everything needs to be updated, and I'm paying this guy, let's just throw a number out there, I'm paying him $20,000 a year. Right? It makes sense. And I'm using this example very specifically because you can hire a graphic designer, you can hire a coder, you can hire a web guy, so to speak, for about 35 to $40,000. So if you're spending half in outsourcing as to what it would cost you to bring a person into your team full time, then pull the trigger. And the reason why I say that is because when you're outsourcing, a lot of your time is disrupted with communication. Meaning that if you're outsourcing, it's like, okay, you've got to have somebody on your team who communicates to that other person about what are the tasks and jobs that need to be done. And a lot of that is lost in communication. Because when you're communicating over the phone or you're communicating through email, you're communicating even through like a zoom, that communication has to be scheduled. That means somebody has to be in charge of arranging that schedule and monitoring that schedule, etc. Whereas if you have an in house person that can be done instantaneously, you can, you literally. In my office we run lean and mean. I have seven employees and I keep it lean and mean on purpose, but I do. So I do outsource a lot, but I have a team of experts and specialists. So if we do need to outsource, I can basically hand that job to them and they can take it, take it on. And they, because they know enough about it, they can get it done. But a lot of the people that we've brought in over the last many years were brought in because we were outsourcing their job and we were paying at least half as what the full salary would cost. So I look at that, if I'm spending half as much, then I look at the time of communication, the Time of communication when it comes to thinking about hiring a new employee is the make or break. If you're spending like again, if you're spending half, that's in the time of communication that you're spending and the time that's being wasted trying to outsource and maintain that communication with that person, you're outsourcing versus having it in house, in my opinion, far outweighs. I'll give you another example. Let's say you have changes that you want to make to your website and you're growing and your website is getting stronger and you're building your online community and it takes you three weeks to get those changes made as a result of the time to communicate cost, right? So it's taking you three weeks to get simple changes done when if you had a person in house, it might take you three hours to get those very same changes done. That's lost revenue, that's lost time that you're struggling with. And it also creates frustration and negativity within your practice if you're dealing with somebody who's not getting the work done promptly. And so this is part of that cost factor, right? If you're paying half to outsource, you're losing the time, you're losing the lost opportunities. So bring that person in and you'll find that you'll scalably, you'll 10x your ability to get that particular job done and you'll actually make your life. It'll make your life so much easier. So again, I could give you another example, Sachin. We're getting ready to bring on a videographer. And the reason why is that last year we spent about half of what it would cost to have a full time videographer on staff. And so again, that was the magic number for me. I've been monitoring that number for a couple of years and hadn't pulled the trigger because it was just a little bit lower. It's just a little bit lower. But now we shoot enough video and we do enough in that regard that it makes sense for us to bring somebody on the team. Watch what happens this year. And those of you watching, if you watch what we put out and the content that we put out, watch, it's going to tenfold over the next year because we're bringing somebody in house and it makes sense to do that financially, it makes sense to do that at this time.

You know when you said that, I got goosebumps. So that's a sign from the universe that I think there's going to be some amazing Content coming out. And that's the thing. Like, one of my friends actually messaged me, and he's like. He's like, hey, you got to get someone like Gary V. Who follows you around everywhere and, you know, follows you while you travel, follows you while you're doing your workshops and stuff, follows you even in between patients, and just creates a ton of content. And I think that if you're in a position to be able to do that, which is amazing, I'm just super stoked to see what comes out of you this year, because I know that that's your genius, right? That genius zone for you is you love curating information, sharing it with the masses, and making a huge impact. So that. That's awesome, and I'm super excited to see that. So did you hire somebody locally or are they moving into the area? Like, how did you. How did you pick that person to do the videography work for you?

But we're in the process of hiring now, so we actually, we haven't picked that person yet. But I can tell you the way that we go about hiring is one of our first steps is we obviously want to make sure that they're qualified to do the job. So we, you know, we want to hire somebody with experience, so we want to see their, you know, their portfolio first. And then based on that, I'm looking for a particular type of person. We use personality testing to do our hiring. So there are a number of different types of tests that can be done, but I like to know if they're intj this particular job. And framing INTJ is kind of a Myers personality. That is, it's an introverted person who's very, very intuitive and who has an artistic ability to think. And so there's Colby. You can also do Colby. And Colby in this particular position. To me, Colby, the person would be not so much detail oriented. There are different scores, you know, about Colby. There are different scoring systems, quick starts, there's fact finders, et cetera. We don't want this person to be a quick starter or fact finder simply because they get buried down in the facts and they don't have the ability to move forward and do anything. So we're looking for somebody a little bit less in that regard. And then beyond that, we looked at different art schools, so that's actually where we're doing our interviews now. We're looking at different students who are coming out of the. We have something here called the Art Institute of Houston, and we have a couple of other tech schools who teach Videography. So we're actually going to the schools to see if we can, if we can curate a qualified person who's got the right skill set for us.

Amazing. So I've got a question coming in from Tracy, which I think is probably a question a lot of people have is would you put a lot of money into having someone design the best possible website or focus more on your content clients and have a more basic website?

So you've got to be relevant in your business and to be relevant, your site has to look good. Now you don't have to spend $10,000 in building a new website. You just got to have a good, you've got to have a good brand and a niche. So whatever your niche is, create your logo or create your brand around that. What that niche is by knowing who you are first and then knowing who your avatar is second and then have a clean site. It needs to be what we would call Web3. Oh, it needs to look like it doesn't want, you don't want to have those, you, Those from the 1980s, you know, those little like tiny pictures, you know, you don't want to have that archaic looking website. So invest a few thousand dollars in getting somebody to build it and make it look intelligent but more importantly, make sure that it's mobile ready. You know, a lot of our Traffic Today, about 60% of it comes from people who are on their cell phones, not from people on their laptops. So I would say make sure that your site is mobile friendly and mobile adaptable. So that, that would be the really one of the biggest things to focus on. The time, energy and effort. And king look, the reality is, look sites, you know how many times we've redeveloped gluten free society. I mean I've spent more than $100,000 in development of that website and you know, today it's paid me far more than that. But the point is, is that the site itself just get, get it up. Like, you know, don't, don't get so bogged down and is the site perfect? As much as you get bogged down and get it up, get it done, you can always go back and redesign. You can always go back and make subtle changes and unique redesign changes as you get going. The number one thing that is going to draw people into your business to your practice is the quality of the content that you curate and generate. And a lot of people use kind of pre done for you content. Like they'll go to content farms and they'll have somebody, you know, write them an article, a 500 word article or whatever. Those things are super generic. And there's no, there's nothing that sets you apart if all of your content is coming from a content farm. There's really nothing great that's setting you apart from the masses. If you really, really want to stand out and build a mega brand. Now this is, some of you don't care about building a mega brand. So this is kind of two different conversations. But if you're trying to build a mega brand for who you are in your practice so that you get a book deal and you can get kind of an international presence, then you've got to have content that's original and free thinking and that it isn't. It isn't just kind of more of the same stuff that we'll hear from everybody else giving the similar advice. Because a lot of function functional practitioners, what are they going to say? Get plenty of sleep, eat real food, make sure you get adequate sunshine, manage the stress in your life. There's the same pieces of advice that we all give. They're very good pieces of advice. But if that's all the content that you have to offer on your site, with no other elaboration of what really sets you apart, makes you unique, then you're just going to be another generic mill that's out there that nobody's really gravitating toward because the message isn't powerful enough for them to want to join your community. Community. So, like, let me give you an example for me, gluten free society. One of the things that we could have done a long time ago was just really strictly focused on celiac disease, wheat, barley and rye. But we went so far beyond that message. We started looking at corn and we started looking at rice and the different types of glutens and inflammation that was caused by those grains and the other problems that were in grain. And we expanded our message to include things that no one else had ever talked about before, thus basically securing our position as a unique message where people could come and learn more than what they were learning from the other sites. So we offered a value potential that was far greater than what other people were doing. And I would think if you're building your website, think about what that content uniquely is for you. Think about your unique formula of how you deliver care to your patients, your unique formula of how you deliver information and that set you apart from others. And focus on that more than you focus on the artistic design of your website. Again, make sure that your site is mobile friendly and make sure. That your site is integrated so that new patients can put their information into your site, into some form on your site, where now everything on the back end is automated so that you save time and effort in a number, a number of other things that need to be done as you're kind of managing your practice.

Great tips. Yeah. Being mobile friendly, but also making sure you capture their information. Because to get them there can be expensive if you're paying for it, or might even be through SEO if that's how they're finding you. But the key is, you know, is there a way for you to follow up with them? Because if they come once, they may never come back. But if you can capture their information, then you can take that conversation elsewhere and control it through your email list. Which brings me to my next question, which is what are some of the best tips that you can offer people to build their email list? Because with social media things might change overnight and we might not have access to the same people that we do and we might not be able to keep pouring money into marketing. So the key is building a list and taking that conversation offline, if you will. So what are some of the strategies that you guys have used? Because I know you've built a pretty massive following, but not only that, you've also built a very big list too.

If we're talking about list building, there are a number of different strategies. Probably one of the most effective strategies organically is the curation of a quiz. And so like what we did is we created a gluten free quiz. Answer these 32 questions and let's tell you whether or not there's a likelihood that you could have a gluten sensitivity issue. That quiz itself organically brings about 200 leads to my list a day. That's a day. And that a quiz is something people are interested in. A lot of them want to take the quiz, don't make it too terribly long, don't make it too terribly challenging, but also on the follow up on the backside of that. So as you bring them in on your list, make sure you don't just bring them in on your list and never communicate to them. This is like one of the hallmark problems that I see a lot of doctors make is they're busy trying to generate a list, but then they never have a follow up plan that is communicating to that list once they have the list. Because if you communicate, some doctors are scared to email. They're like, oh, I don't want to email them too often because then they might get Upset that I'm trying to communicate with them too often? No, you have an ethical obligation to hammer them over the head with your information repetitively until they either get off of your list or join your community in a way that is, that is, you know, helping you. So don't be scared to communicate to your list once you have it. But quizzes are a great, great way to do it. Lead generation magnets A lot of, a lot of doctors will create like special ebooks. We have a number of different ones that we've created. We've got an autoimmune recovery ebook. We've got a leaky gut recovery e book. We've got a what you need to know about gluten. We have something called a gluten free survival kit that people can sign up for. So there, you know, just depending on what your niche is, if you've got your niche picked out, then create some type of an opt in lead magnet that matches your niche and that is unique to you. Learn what you know and then write good headlines. That's the other thing is that copywriting, it's an absent skill amongst most doctors. Marketing is an absent skill amongst most doctors. So when you're trying to get people to give, to exchange their name and email for your information, the best way to do that is to have good copy, meaning that, have a good headline that somebody coming to your site said, you know what, I really want to know that information. And they came to your site because they saw a wonderful headline that actually attracted them to the site. So the copy, the headline matters and then the quality of the content matters. Don't ask them for their name and email and then give them shit. Like if you give them like a one page, you know, free ebook, one page report, it's like, oh no, duh, I could have figured this out. This is retarded. They're never going to come back. You've lost that opportunity to impress them. So make sure that you, whatever you're giving them, like our free ebooks are 60 pages long. I mean they're as long as what some doctors would call their books, right? And these are just our ebooks. So now on that note, here's a quick, easy way to write an ebook. It's to do a Facebook live where or to do a YouTube live where you're talking about a particular topic. Let's say today you're going to talk about leaky gut and how to help with leaky gut and record it, record the message and then transcribe it. Take the Transcription and then have somebody take that and reword it so that it sounds more like a book when they're reading it. And then pay somebody to, you know, dump some images in there as well. Now you have an ebook and it only took you an hour to create and it took somebody else who was at, you were outsourcing to maybe a few hours to convert and write. But that's a really easy way to create a really solid low lead or easy to get lead generation magnet. And that way you don't have to spend months. This is the other thing I see doctors spend months and months and months saying, oh, I'm going to have my ebook ready in another two months. No, no, no, get it done. Transcribe the thing and have, have somebody with an English major on upwork, you know, have them just write it from your transcription. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. And it might cost you a couple hundred dollars. Solid lead magnet. You know, let's just say it brings you in five leads a day, you know, and let's say you're doing a really good job on your funnel and you're converting one. Just 1%, right? Just 1% of your leads, which means that for every 10, you'll convert one person to a sale. And if that sale is, let's say, worth $10 to you, then it's only going to take 10 sales to basically to equal out the hundred dollars you spent creating that. And everything after that is cake. Everything after that you can take it's money you're earning and you can reinvest it back into your site, back into.

Your, into your clinic.

Lots of great tips in there.

Thank you for sharing that. And I agree, you know, it's not as difficult as we think. We're already, you know, experts on the topic in relation to the people who are going to be, you know, reading the content. So as long as we know more than they do and we can move them in the right direction, we don't have to belabor this because people want content that's easy to ingest and easy to follow. And if we're speaking to our audience in a, let's say, grade three tone, or even edifying them by speaking their language, that turns into great content. And then you can also take that content and have it written into blog articles too, so you can have that SEO traction and keyword traction that you can get from it as well. And I know you've got a lot of tips around that, but we could literally talk for hours. I Want to take a few questions and then we can wrap things up, Because I want to honor your time as well. I know how busy you are, especially on a day like today being Sunday. So one of the questions that's coming in is, what would you rather sell? Because we've talked about selling digital products and courses. Would you rather sell those, or would you recommend people sell products? And how do you know what to focus on? Because certainly you could do both. But is there one that you particularly focus on if you're starting out?

Yeah, I mean, if you're just starting out, I would absolutely go with the one that you can get done first. And what I mean by that is, we want to get profitable as quickly as you can, because when you start getting profitable, you can take your earnings and you can reinvest it back into making it better. And so whatever your skill set is. For me, my skill set was delivering knowledge and information. In most functional practitioners, that's where they shine, delivering knowledge and information. So if you deliver knowledge and information, what you create is you create something called reciprocity. Meaning if you deliver really wonderful information, then the people who are consuming that information who really value or have a benefit in their life from the information that you shared, they feel a reciprocity to you. So if you first have a digital product and then you come out with physical products, they already feel like you've helped them so much, so now they trust you. They know I can trust you, so now they're going to be more apt and more likely to use your physical products. Products. Whereas if you come out with a physical product first, how do they know they can trust you? There are other products on the market that you're going to be competing with. So if you have a unique digital information that you can give them that could alter their life beyond above and beyond what anyone else has been able to do for them, then selling physical products to that same person afterwards becomes a very, very easy endeavor. So if you're good at delivering information, come up with a digital product first. And again, don't take forever to get it created. What I love to do is I have. There's an application you can download through your phone called Rev.com or Rev. It's the Rev app. And when I'm having thoughts in my head that could be great information that I think that would be good for people to understand, then I just talk to my recorder and I send those things off and get them transcribed, and then I have somebody take those transcriptions, and then, you know, they can Work out the product, digitized information of the product, and then from there, if you want to pay somebody to take and create PowerPoint slides from that information as well, you can convert those PowerPoint slides into videos. And those are the best products that I like, are teachable videos. Because most people don't learn through listening as much as they're not audio learners, as much as they're visual learners. So if you can combine audio, visual in the same token, by offering up visual learning with audio as opposed to just audio, like a platform, just like you go to school, you want to see things, right? You don't want to just hear the teacher talking, but you want to see tangible examples. There's a really great software program called Camtasia where you can take, you can have somebody create your PowerPoints and you can take those PowerPoints and do your own voiceover as you're going through those PowerPoint slides and it records it in a professional manner. And so now you have a video tutorial, right? And in essence, that's the way we created the Glutenology health matrix, was using that very simple software and PowerPoint overlay.

Really good advice. I just want to reiterate what you said because I thought that was really valuable and a key takeaway which was build the trust first before you sell the product. And I guess also from an investment standpoint, the education based content that you share is going to be more of your intellectual property versus an actual investment, right? Because you know, if you're buying product, you've got to have the inventory, you've got to have the capital investment that takes place and if it just sits there because you haven't built up trust, then it's obviously not going to move. So almost, I would say create a demand for the product, right? And I guess it would be easier to know what products to bring to the market based on the questions that you receive as well. So really listening to the feedback that you get from consumers, you know, if they're asking you constantly, is there a multivitamin that you recommend? You know, is there a gluten free enzyme product that you recommend? I mean, we're talking specifically for the gluten product line, but then, you know, okay, there's a demand for this and obviously a problem that hasn't been solved yet. And if you've got the trust of the audience, then they're going to buy it from you because you help move the needle for them so much. So really, really great advice with that.

And I actually, I would offer one other thing, and that's never create a product because you think it will sell. And you touched on this earlier, Satchin, and that is, I made a $40,000 mistake early on in my career. I created a product line of supplements that I thought would be a brilliant idea, and basically it completely tanked because it was a terrible idea. Always go to the market first and ask the market what they want before you create the product you think they might want. Because you may create an information product that it's just like, it's wonderful. It's fantastic. And to us nerds who love to dive into functional medicine, like, we're all eating it up. But to the consumer, they're like, this is too deep. This is too much information. This is too confusing. So always go to your consumers and ask them, you know, what is it that you would if. What are the biggest struggles that you face? What are the biggest questions that we haven't already answered that you have? What were the biggest questions that you had when we first started out? So, like, if you're like, in my case, gluten free, like, what were the toughest challenges that you had? What were the biggest confusing points? What were the things that you struggled with socially? Like, what you know, ask those questions of them and get their feedback before you create the product. Because if you have their feedback, you'll create a product that the average person who wants to know about that topic is going to love, and it's going to be more comprehensive than if you just create a product that you think will sell, that maybe won't.

Awesome. Again, great advice. We're getting a lot of positive feedback on that advice about the ebook that you offered. And I also wanted to comment on Rev, because Rev is probably one of the most important apps that a lot of people don't have. So you were mentioning you can, if you have a thought, or let's say even if you're driving or you're out at the mall or you're running an errand and a thought pops into your head. That's usually when I feel like I get my best ideas, when I don't have a pen handy to write them down, or if I'm in the car and it's not very convenient. So Rev is just an app. You, you know, press the record button on the app, it takes your voice recording, and then for only a dollar a minute, it transcribes it, and then you can send it to the people that need it and can convert it into different resources like a blog article or a meme or a PowerPoint presentation or even an educational video or infographic. So our thoughts can become things if we have the right bridge in between. And that bridge can be something like rev or there's other services that do that. But I think REV is the one that I use. I know it's the one I use, and I think it's the one that most practitioners and Internet entrepreneurs use because it has the most accurate transcription, right? So the thing with transcription services is there's sometimes cheaper ones out there. But because of the words that we use or because of your particular voice or the way you say things, sometimes things don't get interpreted or transcribe properly, and then it becomes work to read through all that copy. If you're the one that's editing it, or if somebody else is editing it, it might take them longer. So make sure you get a good transcription service because that will save you a lot of time, energy, and effort in the interim. So a couple of questions, Doc, that I want to ask you. One is, what was the best advice you ever received? So if you had to think back and say, wow, that was like an amazing lesson that I learned, or tip that I got, and particularly if you could think about somebody who's, who's just starting out or may not have an online presence yet, what was the key thing that flipped the switch for you to really get your online business off the ground?

Probably the most profound words. Well, one of the most profound phrases that I learned from one of my early on mentors was that money follows passion. Don't chase the money. Get passionate about what you do. And because there are a lot of people that are in business to make money, and if you look at the quantity of those individuals that go out of business because they've got it backwards, you know, half of all businesses fail. The ones that really succeed and succeed well are the ones where the owners are super passionate about what they're doing. So passion comes first, then elbow grease, hard work, intelligent thought, followed by a hell of a living. Right? And I would also say one of the. On a follow up, one of the most intelligent phrases that I had to learn, or that was an important lesson for me, especially for new people, is money is not evil. Money is something that can change the world. Money is a lot like a gun. It depends on how you use it. It depends on how it's being used. Money itself is an inert object that has no good or evil connotation. But I would say this. My life with money versus my life without money. Is vastly different. I mean, I grew up very, very poor. The first year out of school, I was making about 18 bucks an hour, if that. I made $18,000 my first year out of college, out of chiropractic college, and I had three children to support. Now, it was my fault. I had three kids, and I was only making $18,000. I'm not blaming anybody on that. But my point is, as soon as I found passion in what I was doing, I never thought about it. Because the work. Work is the reward. Like, if you're passionate about what you do, then every day is a reward. It comes to you, it comes to your heart, and it fuels you and it fills you, even if that doesn't come with the money, but the money will come with the passion. So the other thing beyond that is that you will be rewarded financially based on the quantity of people you bring value to in the world. And so if you're passionate about what you do and you help a lot of people, then your cofers are going to overflow with more than what you know what to do with. And then you can start taking that and you can start investing it and making the world a better place if that's what you also want to do.

I love that. Money follows passion. And certainly there's so many, so many passionate people out there. The money is chasing you guys, but you have to know how to receive it. You have to know how to leverage your time so it flows into your direction, and it's not flowing past you because it's following you. But you've got to be there to capture it and have the resources in place and the infrastructure in place, as we talked about today. So, Dr. Osborne, you're a mentor to myself amongst many other practitioners around the world. You're also hosting an upcoming event, which is one of my favorite events. It's the event that I say launched me. The first time I came there, you know, I was nervous because I was surrounded by so many successful people, But I was also inspired. And, you know, I saw your passion come through, and it ignited a fire in me. And that was, you know, a real turning point in my life. And since then, I've never looked back. I've always looked forward and, you know, been inspired by the work that you're continuing to do. So this event is the event of the year when it comes to marketing your functional medicine practice. So for those of us that are interested in really taking things to the next level, I'd love for you to spend a few minutes and share A little bit more about the upcoming event and what people can expect if they attend.

Yeah, I mean, the Functional Medicine Success Summit, the big thing this year, we're going to be talking about the power of story, specifically how stories can sell and how stories can make a difference between a mediocre practice and a practice that launches to ultimate success. Success. So I've got a lot of people coming to talk specifically about teaching you how to share your story, how to craft your story. We've got Pete Vargas, who's an expert on teaching people how to speak from stages. We've got Chandler Bolt, who teaches you how to get your book out. Who teaches you how to get it out in record time. We've got Dr. Jack Wolfson, the paleo cardiologist who's going to be teaching about successful storytelling in the community to recruit new patients to come into your office. We've got Eric Zelensky who's going to be talking about passion and the story. He's going to be sharing his story, how he went from virtually almost living out of a car to having a seven figure business in less than a couple of years of really, really fast success. We've got Ann Louise Gittleman, who achieved success in New York Times status before the Internet. Like, she's been around. We call her the mother of nutrition. She's been around. I mean, she's been around a long time. And before the Internet and technology and all these things, tools, she was the one who figured out how to take nutrition. I put her in the same camp as like a Jack LaLanne who, you know, a mega success that's going to come share the elbow grease part, how you can actually become successful using intelligent business strategies. So we've got lots of great speakers, lots of great lineup. We're extending to your group, Satchin, just so your group knows those of you listening. The first 10 people that take advantage of, of purchasing, we're going to bring them to the office, to my personal clinic and we're going to let them tour the clinic and hang out with me and they can ask me as many questions as they want for the evening, which you know and I know both. That is one of those things. It's an invaluable gift. So the summit itself, this is our seventh year. I'm super excited because again this, this year the theme is unleashing your superpower. And we're going to teach people how to unleash their superpower and really, really get out there to the world.

I'm super excited. My whole team is going to be there. They're super stoked and thrilled to share this experience with other like minded practitioners. And listen, guys, you know, the people that you're going to meet there are on a massive growth trajectory. They're there because they're super passionate and now they want to know how to monetize that passion. And really, when you go Back to what Dr. Osborne said, money follows passion. And money is directly correlated to the number of people that you influence in a positive way and how much value you add into people's lives. There's never been an easier time for us to do that than now with the Internet and mobile phones. I mean, let's face it, we can't even get people off of these things. So the content that they should be reading is yours and ours and it should be helping them live a better life. And if they're not doing that right now, staring down at their phones, staring down at your content that you're producing because you don't know how to do it, then you have a responsibility to your patients, to yourself, to your future self to go to events like this because they're going to transform your life. And like I said, this was the event that launched me. This was the event that I go to every single year. My team is going this year, every single member, because this is where stars are born. And so you're going to get very tactical tips, you're going to get very heart centered tips that's important to understand and you're going to learn the ins and outs of running a successful practice. You know, the key is to follow people who are a few steps ahead of you and to follow people who are at the top of the mountain. And I would say, Dr. Osborne, that you're both of those people, right? You're a down to earth guy, willing to share, willing to open up your space and office and you don't hold anything back. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for my community for sharing this and thank you from all of us in the functional medicine world for leading by example and hosting events like this. It takes a ton of work to put something like this together, guys. And you'll realize how much effort has gone into this event when you attend and you'll leave with tremendous, tremendous amounts of value. So thank you. Dr. Osborne, if there's any parting words that you'd like to share with us, the stage is all yours.

I would just simply say to any of you who are new to functional medicine, are really trying to get off the ground and launch your practice. Passion is where it's at. There are a lot of management companies, there are a lot of guys that are out there that are telling you to implement systems and there's no passion in a system. You can implement a system with passion, but you can't implement a system without passion and be successful. So keep that in mind and follow your heart. That's where it's at. If your goal is to be successful, you got to follow your heart first.

Thank you, my friend. Have an amazing rest of your day and lots of love to you and your family.

Yeah, same here, Sachin. Right back at you.

Bye for now. Bye, everyone.