Doctor Marketing: The Secrets Behind First Settlement Physical Therapy’s 48 Locations with Kecia Barr

Where would you say most of the new evals are coming from at your practices? It sounds like it's like the doctors, right?

Most of them are doctors. I would probably say 80% is doctor referrals.

How to get smarter in business and in life. This is the question, and I'm on a journey to get you that answer. I'm going to interview the world's top entrepreneurs and deconstruct their winning secrets. Going to talk about everything from marketing money and living a bucket list life. I'm Rick Lau, healthcare entrepreneur. I grew and exited my 127 locations in my 30s. Welcome to the Clinic Boss Show. All right, everyone. Welcome to the Clinic Boss Show. So today we got a special treat. We got my good friend Keisha, and she is a marketing director at First Settlement Physical Therapy out in Ohio and West Virginia. So Keisha, how many locations you guys have? I think it's changed as of this week, right?

Yeah, it has because we just purchased or acquired a business that had five locations and we're getting ready to open another one. So I think that puts us at 48 locations between West Virginia and Ohio.

Wow. That's insane. You know, that's insane. And. And Simon was supposed to be on the show, and Simon is, you know, the CEO. And you sent me an interesting email this morning. Like he was supposed to come, but then, you know, he had to cover, you know.

Yeah, yeah. There's so many family emergencies and sicknesses and there's so many people out. He didn't have anyone to cover.

And I was sending you an email, but I was like, LOL. I was like, oh my gosh. Like the CEO of, you know, of an organization that has 48 locations till this day, you're still covering. And I think most clinic owners still actually do that to this day. You know, does every leave? I don't. I don't think so. Right.

Yeah. No, no.

Wow. Wow. That's crazy. And. And how did you and Simon meet? You know, like. Cause I think you've been with him for a while, right?

Yeah, I've been with first settlement for 10 years and I actually sent my resume through their website. My husband and I had moved back from North Carolina. I was looking for a tech job. So just helping out in the clinic.

So not tech?

No, no, not tech. I was gonna go to PTA school. Cause my bachelor's degree is athletic training, so. So I was going to go to PTA because I hated athletic training. But I went in for the interview and he saw my previous sales experience My athletic training degree. And he's like, hey, we need a marketing assistant. Would you be interested? And I was like, well sure. It gets me out of retail. And he gave me a shot in marketing and I loved it. Never went to PTA school. And 10 years later I'm the marketing director.

Geez, that's crazy, you know? Yeah, years ago. Eh, that's interesting. And then, and then how did we first meet? Do you remember?

I believe we met at. It was either pps or ascend of 23. I can't remember which one, but I listened to one of your talks at one of those conferences and then you did a round table.

Okay.

And we met at the round table.

Yeah. That's cool. I think. Yes. I think you came to my Instagram talk and then we were geeking out, right?

Yeah, yeah.

How you manage like 45 different Google review accounts. I'm like, this is insane.

Yeah, it is like 45 like plus.

Google reviews, like accounts, Google business, like profiles, you know. And I think I shared some tips that you should hire a virtual assistant to actually do some of the, you know, five dollar hour work, you know, of like following the strategy and, and, and I'm sure we'll talk about that a little later, right?

Sure. Yeah.

And then this year I think you also came to the clinic boss summit in Florida, right?

I did, I did. Walked away with all kinds of good stuff from there.

Too much, right?

Yeah, too much. It was so much. I had to pick one thing and focused on that and got it done.

So I'm curious, you know, what, like what do you, like, how do you do marketing for 48 locations? You know, like why don't you paint like what a typical week looks like or a month looks like for you? Because it just sounds like so much to do in. And I meet a lot of owners as like they're scaling from like maybe two locations to five or ten locations. Like they have the same issue. Like what do I do? Like what is done, you know, in house, what is outsourced? Like should I hire like a marketing manager or marketing director or should I just do everything myself? Right, so.

Right.

Why don't you paint what your typical. Yeah, like what do you do?

So a typical week for me is I'm in my office Mondays and Fridays just catching up on emails, doing manager social media accounts. So I do all of that. Do answer Google reviews. I still do that kind of stuff too. So managing all of that. And then typically Tuesday through Thursday I am out on the road, boots on the ground. Going into doctors offices, talking with them and just drumming up business that way. And some of our clinics, they just run themselves. There's not really much competition out in that area. So we may not have to focus on that one as much as we would like. One that's got a lot of competition or they're really slow. So we kind of like plan our week based on how our clinics are doing.

Okay.

If that makes sense. Yeah. So if we have one that's struggling, we're like, okay, we're gonna go take care of this one, make sure it gets everything it needs. And then some of the other ones, like I said, just for themselves, you don't have to do much with it.

Yeah. Actually I love this because when I talk to most people who have like an in house marketing person. Right. Typically when I ask them what they do, they're like, well, we just like they create content and social media. Right?

Yeah, I do all of that, but I do a bunch of other things.

To drive like evals. Right. You know.

Right, right.

To the business. Right. And when, you know, when Simon and you chat, they'd be like, well, you know, like he's probably looking at like how many new emails do we have this weekend month. Right. Because that's what matters. Right. That's like the leading indicator. Would you agree or.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Does he care about how many social media impressions you have or.

No, no. Our social media really is just brand recognition. We celebrate our, our patients on there. We try to recognize our staff and the things they're doing in the community. We don't really use it that much to like drum up business. You know, it's just really brand recognition.

And I think we talked about that, you know, at, you know, in PPS also in Florida, was that your social media is great for brand and also good for like recruitment and celebrating like staff. Right. You know, because.

Right.

This new generation coming in, you know, these Gen Z's like, you know, they are typically checking out your social media on Instagram, you know, or even on TikTok to see like, hey, who are the people like behind the curtains or behind, you know, working there? Like what is it like working in that clinic?

Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Or is it like a medical clinic where it's very.

Right. Yeah. And we try to make all of our clinics fun. Hopefully that comes across with some of our social media. But.

Cool, cool. And so, and so. So it sounds like majority of your activities is around, I'm gonna call it like doctor, like marketing. Right. Or community marketing. And Then and then and about. Like it sounds like Google business, like profile and social media. Right. You know?

Yeah.

Is there anything else that you're working on outside of those, like three?

No, it's. Oh well, I am working on our website because our website currently is a little dated. So I'm trying to work through all of that building new content and getting a new website done that's more like SEO friendly because ours isn't super SEO friendly right now, but it's gonna get there.

Okay.

So I build that in on my Mondays and Tuesdays. I work on that a little bit.

Oh wow. Simon's super lucky to have you.

Yeah, well, I do have some help with like the, like the Dr. Marketing. We use some of our PTAs.

Okay.

To do some of the Dr. Marketing. Like the routes that I might not have to. Routes. When I say routes, it's like a city. Yeah. We just call it the 48.

It sounds like you just like, like you, you cherry pick the ones that need consults and you're like, hey, like let's just double down. And it sounds like you. And maybe some of the local clinics, you grab their PTAs and you guys do it together, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if, if there's one that's really struggling, I'll take that one and I'll take care of the mark, like the Dr. Marketing for that and then that PTA will go out and do some of the areas that might not need as much attention. Okay, cool.

So, and, and, and correct me if I'm wrong, like is your, is your, are your 40 clinics like in the network? It's in network, right? Not.

Yeah, we, we are in network with everything. We, we don't go out of network with anything. We take all insurances, which is a huge talking point for us because some of the doctor's offices that we go into, they have a hard time finding a physical therapy company that will take Medicaid for example, or just some of your lower payers. So when we go in there and tell them we take everything, they're like, oh, okay, well you guys are going to make it easy. So it's just a nice talking point for us and the areas that we're in. We can't really not be a network with everything. With everything because you know, in the entire state of West Virginia, the whole population might be like the less than what's in New York City or something like that. Some of these bigger cities. So we can't really cherry pick because the population is too Small.

Yeah.

No, I guess that makes sense.

Yep.

Yeah.

You know, like, I see a lot of like practices kind of moving bit of a hybrid model and doing what you're talking cherry picking. I'm going to do this insurance company, I'm going to reject this one based on payers. And it's, I think it's good on, on maybe on, on a, on a P and L standpoint. When you look at the profit and loss each month, like, because your billables are like higher. Right. You know, but it, you know, it sounds like what you're telling me is that it also, but by, but, but also with that strategy, you get less like leads in the funnel. Right. You know, because you, you're making these doctors to think, you know, well, if it's this, they go here. If it's this, you go here. Know.

Yeah, yeah. And we don't. We kind of take that out of that, that we just really make it easy. And they send to us and we like to make sure everybody gets the care that they need. No matter if they can pay cash, if they're Medicaid, Virginia, no matter what. We want everybody to know they can come to us to get the care that they need and we'll get them taken care of.

This is kind of a mindset I have with how a practice should operate, you know, if I'm being honest. Right. Like, yeah, you know, like whether, regardless of what their funding sources like that pt, you know, should, you know, have like, you know, the appropriate amount of like visits in their plan of care. Right. Regardless of like whether they're in Medicaid or like one insurance company or whether like private pay, it doesn't really matter because they shouldn't change their treatment plans or care plans.

Right, right, right.

I think a lot of these clinicians like have a very like, different, you know. Right. Especially like, you know, you know, I see this, I see this across all these different practices. I was like, why would you treat this person, five visits for the exact same injury when this insurance company like you would bill like 15, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And whenever a patient comes in, like all of our, all of our patients get one hour, one on one appointments.

Okay.

So it doesn't matter because I know sometimes I've heard of some clinics, depending on their insurance, they'll adjust the time that they see him. And we do one hour, one on one. Sometimes there might be a double here and there, but we really try to keep it one on one with that therapist.

Wow, you sound like you're Pitching to me as a doctor right now, you know.

Oh, I'm not trying to.

But I'm going to give you the referrals right now. One on one. There you go.

Yeah.

And so where would. Where would you say most of the new evals are coming from or new patients are coming from at your practices? It sounds like it's like the doctors, right?

Most of them are doctors. Yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot of. Oh, I would probably say. I would probably say 80% is probably Dr. Referrals. We have a lot of people that have been to us that they come back or they know somebody that's been to us and they refer them here or we're just the closest one to their house.

Okay.

And they. They want to go to wherever's closer to home. So we have a lot of those patients too.

Okay. And I do think that, you know, like, I do think you getting your new website is going to make a big difference. Right?

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, I do.

You should start seeing, you know, I think if you play this right, you would see more new patients coming out there. Right. You know, so. Or.

Yeah, right. That's kind of my hope is that like the website will really help get more leads in the door for different. All kinds of things.

Yeah. Cool, Cool. I'm not gonna get too much about your website.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

You know, but I am gonna say that when you have 48 locations, it is way more challenging to rank on location specific by each community. Right. You know, because you're, you know, you know, if you're in this. Because when you compete with a clinic that is in this one city, that is only in that one city. Right. They have way more. It's way easier for Google to rank them compared to like you representing like, you know, 40 clinics across Ohio and also like West Virginia. Right. And yeah, I would, I would actually challenge you to actually. Look, I know you're doing it yourself. I would challenge you actually working with an agency. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

To actually ran for. Because it's a completely different game, you know?

Right, right.

And yeah. And if Simon was there, like you get Sam to talk to me, I could share kind of like my thoughts, you know, but yeah, I. I would consider. But I think you getting it going will be like amazing to start off with, but if you want to take it the next level. Right. Ranking for multi city is. Is a different game, you know, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But let's talk about Dr. Marketing. Sure. So, yeah. Why don't you describe your process? Because you know, I remember the round tables. Like, you know, you clearly have figured out Dr. Marketing. Right? You know, and so what is your, like, what is your process on? Like, you know, like, you know how to get the gatekeeper to like you, right?

Sure.

And then what do you say? What do you do? Right. And then how do you get them to actually, you know, like, either send you over the doctor or like, maybe it's just a referral coordinator. Because I think you mentioned that as well. And then, you know, in the process of them sending you referrals, like, what does that look like in your world?

So for me, whenever I walk into a doctor's office, you got to read the room. So that's the first thing you got to do. If you walk in to an office and you can tell that that gatekeeper, front desk person is slammed. I'm just dropping my stuff off saying, here's our stuff. Call me if you have questions. Here's my card. You know, I'll come back another day. You don't want to bother them when they've been slammed because they're stressed out. They're probably not in a great mood. So you just drop your stuff off, leave, come back another day. So I do that, do a lot.

Like, what do you drop off that is effective? That's not a waste of money?

Well, we have. Sometimes I'll take goodies. Most of the time it's like donuts, cookies, things like that. But not usually, Duncan. We have a local place here that I like to get that people love, so I'll usually do that. We try to support local stuff when we can, but we also have like these trifolds that have all of our locations with faxes, numbers in it. And we, we put a QR code in that, that trifold. So that way if somebody does get that and they want to schedule an appointment, they can scan it and schedule online. And then I'll drop off flyers that have information on it. Sometimes very specific ones about like, pelvic floor, dry needling, things like that.

The special programs that you have, right? You know.

Yeah, yeah. But if they're not stressed out or anything, I'll talk to them for a few minutes, let them know who I am, be super nice, obviously. And then I always ask to speak with their referral coordinator. I never asked to speak with the doctors because honestly, the chances of you speaking with a doctor when you're just dropping in or slim to none or you're going to be waiting forever. And then they've got two seconds to Talk to you. And the referral coordinators are the one that's doing the referring. So I'll talk to them and ask them, what can we do to make your life easier?

When you're doing referral, what can you do? What can we do to help you make your life easier? Right? Yeah. What do they normally say?

Well, normally they were like, dude, all insurances. Like, we have a hard time finding somebody to take all insurances. And I'm like, yep, we take all insurances. Like, my three talking points are, we take all insurances. We don't have a waiting list that's really big because a lot of our competitors do. And we do all the insurance verifications for them. So they. All they have to do is send us the facts. They don't have to schedule. They don't have to do the insurance verification. And when they. I always tell them when they get scheduled, our system automatically sends them a fax that says, hey, this patient was scheduled on this day and time with this therapist. Call us if you have any questions. Because a lot of the referral coordinators have a list of people that they have referrals for or they've sent referrals for. And they need to know if they've been scheduled for their MRI or their PT or whatever blood work, whatever it is that they need, they have to follow up on that. So we send them that letter that just says, hey, here's the date and time of their appointment. And they can just go in and check it off without calling us.

Okay. It's really helping them, like, reduce their workload, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We want to try to help them. So that way they want to refer to us. You make it easy.

And it's interesting because you said this earlier. You said, we take all insurance. And the reason you came with that was because when you talk to the referral coordinators, that is like, their main pain point is like, we're like, we want to send, like, make our life easier so that it's like one stop shop to send all the referrals. Not like, this insurance go here and there and all of the places, right?

Yeah. Yep, yep. Because they can't remember that one PT takes these insurances, this one takes these insurances. That's. That's too hard for them to remember. They've got too much going on. So you want to make it easy for them to send to you, and then they're going to want to send to you no matter what the hospital system says, like, hey, that you have to refer in house, they're going to want to send to you.

Right.

Because you make it easy. And then we also make sure that they get all of the evaluations and re evaluations after that. As soon as our therapists sign off on their notes or on their evaluations, it triggers that to automatically send to the doctor's offices. So they always know what's going on. So they're not having to call us for notes either.

Yeah. So you're in essence sending them the care plans, evaluations, the progress notes. So it's just done, like, and discharge as well, like when they. When they wrap up and you're just really cutting out their workload of, like, following up, like, you know, like what's happening with this patient, you know, and you just factor three goes in their system and it's, like, done, right?

Yep, yep, yep. That's it.

It's pretty basic, right?

Very basic. Very basic.

It works, right?

Yeah, it works. And then, you know, if they're also having a bad day, I'll ask them like, hey, would you like Starbucks too? And if they. They say, yeah. I'm like, okay, text me what you want. And then I've got their phone number.

You know, Are you having a bad day?

Yeah, if you're having a bad day, text me and I'll bring. I'll bring you Starbucks or I'll text you when I'm in the air.

When do you bring it? Do you bring it like, you bring it, like, because you're chatting with them on the moment, right? So you're like, text me and then you just go grabbing and bring it back. Is that. Is that what you do? Yeah. Okay. Or you bring on the next visit?

Both. I'll do both sometimes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Especially if it's a hard office to get into. And I'll do the whole office. I won't do just the one. The one person. As long as it's not an office of like 60 people. You know, I can't bring 60 cups of Starbucks in my car without them spilling. But if it's smaller offices, definitely, definitely, I'll buy it for everybody. And then when I bring the coffee in, I get right past the gatekeeper who I'm also giving coffee to, and then everybody comes and talks to me. So I'm getting the nurses and the doctors and all of that kind of stuff too, because I'm bringing them coffee.

Wow, I love that. And then you literally grab it after, and that's the way you get their phone number. And then now you also remember how do you keep track of, like, what people like in their order? Because if you revisit this person, like, the next time, like, you put it, like, somewhere, like in your charting notes or like, I don't know how you manage all this, but how do you remember that this person likes, you know, an Americano or a cappuccino or one of those fancy lattes? Right.

Well, you know, we have spreadsheets that we can put notes and stuff in that we keep track of it. But also, you know, I'll just text them again too and say, hey, I'm going to be in your area today. Would you like Starbucks again? Or would you like treats from this place? And then they'll. They'll text me and let me know. So.

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Yeah, that's the main concept. And I think a lot of. When I've gone to conferences and talk to a lot of people about Dr. Marketing, they try to talk to the doctors. Which doctors are important? Yes. But you're not going to be able to talk to them. Just stopping in. You're going to have to schedule like a lunch meeting or something like that to be able to talk to them, which we do those too. But in the beginning, we start with the referring coordinator.

I actually like it how casual you make because, you know, when, when I think about Dr. Marketing, other people doing, like, it's very salesy. Like, you're doing it like, very personal. Hey, like, you're also talking like you're a good friend. Hey, I'm. I mean, I'm in your area. Like, like, text like, like, what do you want? I mean, Starbucks. Let me grab something for you, right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You don't want to be sales. Yeah, you know, I know I don't like to be real salesy. I actually really hate it. So I just go in and talk to them like they're my best friend.

Okay.

You know, and I try to remember, like, I'll get into conversations with. There's like one person in particular it comes to mind. She really likes to go to Disney.

Yeah.

So every time I go in there, I'm like, when's your next Disney trip? You know, So I try to remember little things like that, or if they had grandkids or some. Or children or something like that. Try to take mental notes, write them down. That way, next time I go in, I have like, a casual conversation with all these. I would say, yeah, yeah. They get updated.

Oh, my God. That's. You're doing, like, a filter of like. Okay. Like.

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Wow. And then what's the. What's. What's the frequency that you would meet that referral coordinator then? Like, is it once a quarter, once a year? Once every two years?

What we are in. We try to be in every single doctor's office every three to four weeks.

Wow. Really?

Yeah. I mean, some of them, yeah. Once a month, we try to get into every office. We may not get to talk to that referral coordinator because then you walk in, and if they're really busy, you're not going to want to bother him. So sometimes it's me just saying, hey, don't forget about us. We're right here. Here's our information. And other times it's me asking to talk to that referral coordinator. So it just kind of depends.

With 48 locations, and it's just you and you got clinics in Ohio and like. Like West Virginia. Like, are you driving everywhere or. Once again, I guess it sounds like you're leaning on the PTAs doing this.

Yeah, our PTAs. Yeah, we have four PTAs, one's a coda, but we have one coda and three PTAs that are helping us out to do some of this. So, I mean, it's too big for me to do by myself.

Yeah, I still manage the entire process. Right.

Yeah.

Okay. Wow. That stuff sounds insane. Once a month like that?

Yeah.

Yeah, a lot, you know. Right.

Yeah. Well, you don't want them to forget about you because then they'll. They'll start to get into their routines again. Or if the hospital has made it really easy for them just to click a button and the referral goes to their PT department. You don't want them to forget that you're there. And that's how you build up those relationships, too. You got to be in there frequently so you can build up a relationship with those referral coordinators, the front desk people, because if you only go in and once every six months, they're not going to remember you. They have other reps and stuff that are in there all the time trying.

To sell them stuff. Right. You got the pharmacy guys. Right. You probably got another physio Right. You know, like some. Some.

Yeah, yeah.

Like.

Yeah. And it's. It's funny with, like, some of the other reps I'll see. Some doctors will put rep, like, no reps on the front of their door, like, signs, and I'll walk in and be like, I know you said no reps. And they're like, oh, you don't count. Like, they don't even count me as a rep because I've built those relationships with them, and I'm not salesy, so.

You don't seem salesy, you know? Right.

No, no, I don't like to be that way at all.

You seem like a good old, like, country girl from Ohio.

Yeah, well, West Virginia, but yeah. Yeah. Not Ohio. I was born and raised.

Doctor's office where they don't have a referral coordinator. Right.

So most of them do they have somebody that does the referrals. If they don't have a referral coordinator, maybe the office manager is sending the referrals or the nurses are sending the referrals. So if it's one of them, like, sometimes the nurses you can talk to, sometimes you can't. If it's the office manager, you can just. Or the front desk person, you can just talk to them while you're there. And so somebody is sending.

Right. Like, who's responsible for the referrals? Right.

Yeah, I just ask them, who's responsible for your referrals? Who's sending your referrals? And can I talk to that person?

Yeah. And then how do you open a cold conversation? Right. Like, do you make them laugh or you just go cut to the chase?

Oh, I usually make them laugh somehow. Or the weather. I know that sounds cheesy. I'd be like, oh, it's freezing outside. I can't wait till I'm done. You know, just things like that. Is that your best.

Oh, my gosh, it's freezing. Right? Yeah. Right now. Yeah. Yeah.

Or I just. I just can't get warm because I'm in and out of the offices so much. Like, just cheesy stuff. I. I know that it. It seems strange, but it works.

So, you know when I used to do doctor marketing.

Yeah.

And back. Back in the olden days, you know, my opening line would be like, find a way to compliment them. Right.

Yeah.

Usually. I hate to say this, like, usually, like, I look for something to talk about, like, that's in their workspace. You know, it could be a picture, right. Of, like. Yeah, kids or, like, sport. Whatever it is, I'll find A reason to talk about it. Or like I look at their nails and they'll compliment on their nails because some of them like really nails or their fancy tattoos, I was like, oh my gosh, like that's such a cool tattoo. Like, like, like what is that? You know, like why'd you get that? You know, it's like this, a quick like instant reaction, right? You know? Yeah.

Oh yeah, I've done a lot of that too. But you really can't go in and get straight to the point because they're not going to want to talk to you. You really just gotta lighten them up a little bit. Yeah, you gotta do the ice cream, right?

Is that it?

Yeah, yep, that's pretty much it.

Yeah.

And I tell you what, the, the donuts work. Yeah, Donuts and cookies work. I know it, it. Some people laugh at it, but it, it works.

Yeah, but you have to get the good stuff that they're not, they're not one to spend money on. Right. You know, like don't get the Dunkin Donuts.

Right, right, right. No, you know, in Ohio, West Virginia we do. And I usually don't get them either. I usually just stick with the local places. The one chain place I do get from frequently is the crumble cookies. I don't know if you've ever heard of crumble cookie or not.

It sounds good, right?

But yeah, they have different cookies every week and they're huge. They're massive. So we'll get those a lot.

A big one where like the staff shares.

Well, they're like, I don't know how. No, they're not that big. But I don't. I know nobody else can see this, but they're kind of like this big.

Okay.

You know, like the size of like a softball. Maybe like round wise. It's a big cookie and I'll buy. If it's the first time I've taken crumble cookies to that office, I'll buy. They have special cutters that you can use and I'll buy them the cutter too. So that way they can cut it in four and share the cookies. So yeah, it's cool. Things like that.

I love it. I love it. And then, and then do. What about lunch and learns? You do lunch and learns or is.

That like a waste of time like with the doctors?

Yeah, because I see a lot. Yeah, we do this but like it's also like you gotta get the PT in there. Like you can't really get your. Unless you bring your. Do you have your PTA doing it or we.

We will bring our pts with us sometimes to do lunch and learns, especially if it's something very specific. Like if we're talking about dry needling. If we're talking about dry needling, we'll even bring our dry needles with us and. Or the needles with us and do dry needling on the side staff. And we don't charge them anything. I have one office that messages me or calls me once every, like two or three months and be like, hey, can we schedule a meeting? Because we always bring our dry. Our needles for dry needling and do needling on them or massages and things like that during their lunch break. So we'll do things like that. And sometimes I can just do the meetings on my own. Like, I don't always need the, the PT with me, especially with my background in athletic training.

And you're doing dry kneeling too, right?

No, no, I don't do any of that. They don't get that if a therapist isn't there. But I can, I can usually get by and give them enough information that they. They will the lunch and learns.

Typically, like, you're feeding them?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm bringing them food. And most of the time I let them pick what they want for lunch. Sometimes I'll say, okay, you can. We'll do catering from this place. That way I'm not carrying in like 30 individual lunches, but yeah, I'm feeding them so that, that makes it good.

And so, so if you're meeting them every single month, like, so in a typical year, you meet them 12 times. Right. And then how many lunches learns. Is it once a year type of thing?

Well, the lunches. We don't do lunches with all of them all the time.

Okay.

So we'll. We're very strategic with where we do our lunches. So, like, if we're looking at our referrals and we see an office that has stopped referring or the referrals are lower, they've decreased for whatever reason. We don't know why. We'll call and schedule a lunch and get in and try to figure out, you know, what's going on. And most of the time it's nothing. It's just ebb and flow of the. The thing. But sometimes things happen and we have to, like, correct it, you know, so we do that. And if we're opening a new clinic or purchasing a new place, then we kind of hit all of those doctors pretty hard and have lunches at those places. So we're pretty strategic with it. If we have an office that just wants us to come and feed them. We do that too. But if we're scheduling it and we're very strategic with. Right, yeah.

Because it's more. Right. You know, for sure. Right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's no way we could feed every single office on our list every year, and we couldn't do that. But.

Well, it depends on how many referrals they send over. Right. So.

Oh, yeah, yeah. If they're one of our heavy hitters, then I'll feed them as much as they want.

Actually, on that note, what is like, like for a typical. Like, you know, like for a typical full time doctor. Right. Working 30, 40 hours a week, you know, how. What, what is a good benchmark of how many referrals they should send in a month, you think?

Well, it depends on the doctor, you know, are. I would say probably 10 or so. 10 to 15. And that's for our orthos. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you mean like orthopedic surgeon or like just. Yeah, gp.

Right, Orthopedic surgeon. Yeah. And then like our general, like physicians, if they send us like four or five a month, you know, they're really good for us.

Yeah. And then like, and then how do you. What's your split of like, how many, you know, is. Most of the people you're doing these meetings with are like Ortho practices or GPs. 50. 50.

It's probably 50. 50. Especially if it's a new clinic. It's definitely 50. 50 because we're gonna get. Try to get into every office that'll let us.

Right. Is there any other specialty you like, like sports medicine or.

Oh, we like all of them. We do.

Really? I don't care.

Yeah, we don't care. We don't care where they come from. We like them all. So ortho, neuro, you know, I love it.

Yeah. Like brilliant, you know. Right. And so 50, 50. Yeah, I would say so. Like, I'm just thinking back my days of doctor of marketing. Yeah. Like the good ones send 10 to 15, you know. Right. Like, and I usually would have a relationship in this case, like you have a relationship with referral coordinator. But I was having a relationship with the doctor. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

We would just like when we meet up, like, we're like, we're, we're talking about life, we're golfing.

Yeah.

Stuff. Right. And we never talk about business. That's a beautiful.

Yeah.

Right.

We, we do have pts that do that as well. Like that they're on texting basis with Some of the doctors, they go golfing, they exercise with them. So we do have that as well.

20%. Not the 80%, right?

Yeah.

The 80% is like what you and your team do, which is like a scalable doctor marketing, like effort, you know.

Right, Yeah, I love it.

That's, that's, that's like, you know, that's brilliant. And so the other question is how do you keep track of, of whether, like, what's your tracking process of like evals or referrals coming from doctors? Right.

So every week we look at every Monday, because that gives us the system over the weekend to gather all the information. We have a couple of different reports that we look at. We will look at how many referrals came in for each clinic and we have it color coded. Like all this clinic is in the green with this many referrals. This one's in yellow, this is in red. So we have it color coded so we can easily look and see which ones might be struggling. And then we also have it set up to where it will pull a report that says this doctor referred to this clinic. This is how many referrals we got from that doctor. So we just go in and we look at it and see all the information. Yeah, yeah. And then we look at our visits that come in too. The two numbers that I look at the most are our referrals and our visits.

Right, but how do you, because you mentioned that part of your trifold, you have a QR code. Like, do you look at the QR code too? Like, is that a number they actually use or like they're just like calling.

No, honestly, I know this sounds bad. They, we don't, the, we don't actually, they, we don't get very many from the QR code. Most of the referrals are coming directly from facts. Yeah, they fax directly to us.

They're still faxing in this dinosaur age, you know.

Yeah. I can't believe it is. It is, yeah. Yeah. West Virginia is quite a, is quite a few years behind, I think the rest of the the world, which I don't mind. I like it. It's a little slower paced, but I don't mind it.

So the faxes come in and how do you, like, do you keep track of like, hey, last week we got a hundred like faxes from doctors and like this was how many that was converted and this was like the average, like callback time. Like, you know, like you look at all those metrics about how to improve the conversion rates of incoming taxes.

No I wish we did though, but we don't. We just look at how many. We actually just look at the referrals that were scheduled and the, the, which doctors sent those.

Sounds like a good opportunity here, right?

Looking at it is. It's very low hanging fruit to. Yeah.

Than your website, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, especially if you're telling me 80 of your like new patients like, or evals come from faxes. Like looking at that ratio of like, hey, I got 100 incoming faxes, right. You know, out of those faxes, like, you know, 70 or 60% of them are actually scheduled in eval. Well then what are you gonna do with the other 40? You know, can you actually, you know, I think, I think I brought this up to you maybe in Florida. Like, you know, can you win them back? Can you call them like a day tomorrow, a week later to like rescue maybe out of that for you another like, like maybe convert like another 25% of them. You could get another 10, you know, and then.

Right.

That's a nice like leading indicator because that in theory should, if you get that process right, have hire someone to own it, you know.

Yeah. Not you right now when they. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, sorry.

And then this way, like that's kind of like a nice leading indicator because that will increase your evals and then obviously if they come to the, to the clinic and they do a plan of care, they'll increase your, like, your, your visits as well.

Right, Right. Yeah, we do. Whenever we do get a referral that comes in, they're calling them probably three to five times.

Okay.

Yeah, so we do that. They call probably, I think it's like twice the first week and then we'll call again the following week. We give them a month and then they call like once a week or something after that. I can't remember the exact frequency, but they do call them quite frequently to get them in.

What do you think your conversion rate is from, from fax to, to eval?

I don't know. Okay, that's bad that I don't know that.

But next time I see you, you're gonna let me know, right?

Because you're. Yeah, yeah.

You're going to tell, you're going to tell Simon that. Oh my gosh, like, I think this is the one metric that we should track. Right. I bring this up. We're working with, we're working with like, you know, they're not as big as you. I think they go about 28 locations and this is the metric they're looking at. They're looking at like that conversion rate of their staff of. Of. From inbound. Sorry, from fax to scheduled eval. And they're trying to. Of. And the time of like them getting receiving the first call.

Right. So how are they tracking that? Just out of curiosity? Because we don't really have a good way. I mean, we, we have in. We use Raintree and we kind of. We use one of their. Their system to say, oh, this, this call, this person was called on this day at this time. So many calls until they just get put into the declined referral for whatever reason. But how are they tracking that? Like, because there's not really that I know of in rangtree a way to track that.

You can't track it on RangeFree, but we track it on Call Hero. Right?

Yeah. Okay.

Is that you track how many of the faxes come in. Right. You know, and it comes into like an inbox. And then once come your inbox, you start having like all those like analytics and metrics. And this is like, you know, this is like what this, like this, this group wants. And we've kind of.

Okay.

And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this is totally makes sense. You know. Right?

Yeah, yeah.

Managing the. And then like they want to know, they want to know like, hey, how long did it take for that first call? Right. You know, because when you deal with like, you know, I think like 20 locations, they're also competing with other like in network clinics. So speed is important.

Right, Right, right.

Because they're not just dealing with the one like provider. They deal with like two, three other ones. So they're like speed and then conversion rates and then like, and then. And they could hear the calls to see like, hey, like, why didn't they book in the follow up? So but yeah, that's something I would look at like at least that ratio, right?

Yeah. Oh no, that's a good ratio.

So like, hey, if we tweak this process or tweak this script, can we lift it by another 10%, 20%, you know. Right. So.

All right.

All right, cool. Wow, that's awesome. And yeah, no, this is like mind blowing. I love actually what you're doing with Dr. Marketing. It sounds like your hand's going to be full for the next little bit with like the website. What's the. When's the launch of the new website?

I'm hoping to get it done in the next six months. That's my goal because it's just me working on it and there's quite a few pages. So my goal is to have it launched in the next six months. Cross my fingers. If nothing big comes comes up, that kind of puts it on the background, but that's my goal.

Cool. I'm excited about your new website and hopefully it's going to also help you with on their recruitment as piece as well. You know, once they hit up your website, like, oh my gosh, like this is amazing. They're about us page, join us page and then they go to your social media like, oh my gosh, like I kind of want to work here, you know. Right. So yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show. And how do people find out more about you? Right. If like, you know, if I'm a pt, listen to this and I know I want to join your marketing team or maybe like I want to be part of like first settlement, you know, like, how do they find out more about you and the biz?

Well, if they want to reach me directly, they can feel free to email me anytime. My email is kesha k e c CIA.barrsptmail.com so feel free to email me anytime. And then you can find me on social media too. It's mostly Facebook, but I've got. It's all family stuff. But feel free to message me on there too if you want to do that. And I'd be happy to talk to anybody about Dr. Marketing or any questions they have any time.

Awesome. Well, thank you and so grateful that you shared some of your question cool business tricks and tips, you know.

So yeah, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation today.

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