Getting Patients as a Niche Practice with Jessica Drummond

Need some kind of funnel. It can be digital or it can be, you know, in person. Speaking in some way is the fastest path because people then know who you are, they know your energy.

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, 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. I see you everywhere, like on like Instagram, you know, like, you know, all over the place. And I felt like I know you, but I don't. So this is kind of our first time actually meeting. But like, you know, like I went on your website, I was like, oh my gosh. Like I see Nara Yoon on there. Right. You know, and she's actually, you know, she's actually someone I, you know, is actually inside our like, clinic. Oh my gosh. Like we're associated, you know, and then you know, like, you know, Nicole, I've been talking with, with Nicole Cozen for years, you know, and you know, we talk a lot about like kind of our business, our community models. And then, you know, I see you on her pelvicon, you know.

Right.

I think you were speaking at her event last year, I believe.

Yeah, it was in September of this year.

What an insane community, you know, like, you know, like what they put together and like you speak in there like it's insane. Like this, this pelvic floor, like movement in the US is just like gone bonkers. Right? You know?

Yeah, for sure. It's a wonderful event. I mean, I really think they've done an amazing job in just such a short time, really, you know, a couple of years. That's fantastic.

She's a very humble and caring soul, you know, so. And she's doing from the right place and I think people see that in her, in her Facebook group, you know, she's also surrounded with her husband who is really good at marketing.

He is, he's a good marketer. We were talking when I was down there about, you know, all the, some of the business stuff and yeah, I.

Remember me and Nicole, we spoke years, years ago before they kind of watched their, their community and paid product and I was speaking with the husband. You know, we're just sharing like kind of, you know, different like community and business models and we're just talking about that. So I still remember that day. And then like a few years later, like. Like, she just kind of took off. Right. So. Yeah. And then Aaron Labour, you know, I think you spoke at PT bizcon, you know.

Yeah, I never spoke at one of his live events. You know why? Because it was March of 2020. But I am sure I've done line with him and we met actually at Greg Todd's event.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Wow. So it's the same round of people.

Yeah, it's all the same people. Yeah.

But back to PT bizcon, I actually spoke at that virtual event involved. Because we were supposed to have it like, in his hometown, right?

Yes, right. It was supposed to be like in North Carolina or something. Yeah.

But I remember you were one of the people I was looking forward to meeting in person. You know, there I was like, who is Jessica? You know, like, I see her all over the place. She's like. She's like, you know, like about these niche practices. And it sounds like. It sounds like, you know Greg Todd as well.

Yeah, absolutely. He's great. I love Greg. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to see him in Florida this year, you know. Yeah, I'm running my own event down there this year. And yeah, we're going to swing by our Florida. We're going to swing by. I think he's out in Tampa. Right. You know, so we'll hang on.

Okay. Yeah. Tampa area.

Yeah. So I've been following, like I said, I've been following you for, like, years, and I think on Instagram you talk a lot about, like, niche practices, like, you know, women's health, like, you know, like, coaching. So I'll go on your website, like, how many, how many. How many people have you trained or coach over the years, Jess?

Oh, thousands at this point. Probably actively in our programs. We have 500 or so at a time. But we have, you know, actually we probably have more than that because we now have an advanced mentorship which is essentially starting to. To shift. We're going to refine that as an alumni association in 2024. Because, you know, I've been doing this now since. Well, I've been doing digital health coaching since 2006, but I actually started teaching almost simultaneously to the launch of doing the coaching because I was working at the Women's Hospital in Houston, and my boss down there, Fatima Hakeem, was an early pelvic health expert, you know, when the field was very, very new. So she's kind of a generation older than me, but she actually, Tracy, sher and I used to work together at that practice. So that's when we were very young. And when we were pretty young and just out of school, we were in this very subspecialized area. I was only about three years out of school or so when I went there to focus on women's and pelvic health, which was a very rare subspecialty at the time. But what she did for us was she essentially threw us on stage before we knew how to do anything. She was like, you're teaching at CSM this year. And we were like, okay. You know, so it was good because. And like, probably less than six months after graduating from PT school, when I was still working in an outpatient orthopedic clinic, I started taking students. And in fact, Blair Green, who has a great practice in Atlanta, she was one of my first students. So, you know, I was always teaching almost immediately when I started practicing. So same thing happened. So I was. I was still working at the women's hospital at least part of the time around 2006. And Fatima was surprised, interested in all the stuff I was learning, because I was. I was learning functional nutrition at the time. I was starting to learn health coaching, and none of that was very well known at all. Like, no one had heard of functional medicine, functional nutrition at that time. But, um. So I didn't expect it to be helpful at all. But then it was helpful for my patients. And so she was like, well, teach us what you're doing. And so she would put on a course and, you know, they would host it. So it started very organically that everything I was doing converged. So now, you know, 2023, where it's like 17 years later. So we've trained thousands of people in more than 60 countries. We just kind of stopped counting at that point. I used to travel a lot. Like, every few weeks I would be anywhere.

Like workshops and like, events, you mean, or.

Yeah, yeah, like workshops or on all those stages like you were talking about. But, you know, that stopped pretty abruptly. I. I did a ton of it in 2018 and then. And. And some in 2019, but then it fairly abruptly stopped. And then I got. I got a first wave COVID infection personally, and so I. I got a third wave, so.

Good.

Lucky for you. So I was really, really, really sick for like, two years.

Oh, geez.

And I still have long Covid. In fact, just today, I was at an ozone IV appointment. So, like, I still have to do things to take care of my body, but I wasn't even physically able to like, walk through an airport for probably two years. So I had to change everything about my practice. But the good thing was it was all. It was always. I didn't have to change everything about it because it.

How virtual wasn't it your practice?

Yeah, it was always telehealth, but the travel piece changed. But that still wasn't too difficult because I was already doing a lot of, like, podcasts and digital speaking and things like that.

Yeah. Wow. So. So do you still maintain, like a virtual practice as well, Jessica, or is it just mostly working on the Con Ed side?

It's almost entirely continuing education now, but I do have two clinic days a month because I just love it.

Yeah.

And we have a digital group program for people with endometriosis that we're wrapping up the 2023 version. And we're kind of putting that on hold for right now because I'm focusing on, you know, really scaling the. The educational side because we've done a lot of testing of that over the last few years, and we're very, very clear on what's. What our community is looking for. So that's where we're shifting our attention.

Cool. Cool. And then on the. And I guess the outcome of the Con Ed is like, you train them to actually be virtual, like, I guess, like coaches as well. Right. Like specifically to women's health. Right. Is that what I understand, Jessica? Yeah.

Yeah. So our women's health coach certification program is the only one in the world that has been third party approved by the nbhwc, which is the oversight organization for health coaching schools that then you can actually get a job at a major hospital system or something like that. Now you certainly can start your own business as well, but can you build.

Can you bill under like, physical therapy fee code under that or no?

Well, you can bill health coaching soon.

Coaching, but. But not physical therapy. Right. Because it's not physical.

I mean, it depends. I would say that it depends because health coaching integrates with any clinical skill set. So we work with a lot of physical and occupational therapists, but we also work with total career changers who are just shifting to becoming health coaches, professional health coaches. We, you know, who maybe were attorneys or in HR or something before that. But we also have a lot of nurses, acupuncturists, physicians, gynecologists. We have a cancer physician right now. We have all kinds of lots and lots of fitness professionals, yoga teachers, midwives, anyone who focuses on women's health through the lifespan.

Yeah, this is, this is interesting topic because I meet a lot of, you know, like, you know, like I work with, you know, there's a, there's a thousand, there's a close to a thousand clinics inside our community. And, and we, we. I talk about this all with, you know, people in our communities saying, like, oh, you know, like, yeah, maybe you could do more like virtual like coaching. Right. You know, but they've, but I think like, what the, the struggle I always hear is that, well, I don't want to be a life coach. You know, like, I think that word is quite dirty. Like, well, not dirty, but like, I think they're at conflict with it because, like, I'm a professional. Like I went to like so many years of being. Become a physical therapist. Like, I'm a physical therapist. I'm not like a life coach or a health coach, you know, like, so I'm curious, I'm curious what your thoughts when like you hear a physical therapist say something like that.

Well, for me, I think that health coaching and honestly life coaching, like the skill set of coaching in its purest form is a skill set of communication skills. So it, even before I was doing purely health coaching, when I was integrating the skill set into my physical therapy practice, it makes my job much, much easier. So we have lots of PTs with hybrid PT and coaching practices, and sometimes we have PTs that stay doing mostly PT, but they change how they practice and how, how it changes your practice makes you obviously work a lot less hard because you're, you're learning to connect with your client at the beginning, making sure they are motivated to lead this journey, not you grab dragging long from day one. And so you can, you should. I think actually every clinician should be coaching their clients, their patients from day one. So you're both aligned with the goals, with what health is defined at. Also, at the end of the day, we don't really fix people in the way that we think we do when we're trained in PT school. Like, ultimately we're creating an environment in their bodies and their lives and their mindsets for them to heal. We don't like, put them back together in the same way as a mechanic, you know.

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. You know, so, so yeah, and just back to what we said earlier. So you're saying that like, if as a physical therapist, like you could actually in theory bill it as a telehealth or like, it sounds like there's new fee codes coming out that you could bill under like coaching. Right. You know.

Yeah. And you can just have. Yeah.

And is that a trend that you're seeing right now with insurance in insurance.

Companies and stuff or that they will, they will cover health coaching? Yes. So we just have codes now and it's just kind of rolling out. So.

Amazing. Yeah.

But honestly, the vast majority of our students do cash practices. Yeah, it's just much easier. I mean, that's what I've done since day one. But you can really just the way you can do with hybrid coaching is you can run people through a health coaching program which is all of the lifestyle things that they have to change. What's their bedtime routine, what's their, when are they exercising? You know, what is the quantity of exercising in their day? What does the quality of that look like? What's their social support network? You know, I like this.

It's more like a holistic approach to care, not just like, hey, let's just look at, you know, your knees right now.

Right.

Because I use all this physio jargon to like do something to your knees and then like it's gonna hurt, you know.

Yeah, it's nothing like that at all. My perspective is, okay, if I have someone who comes to me with a, an ACL repair, you know, that's a little specific because they have a step by step recovery, but let's say they have a meniscus tear, that they're not going to recover, right? That then it's like they're not going to surgically do anything about. Then it's about, why did you tear the meniscus? What do you want to be able to do with your body? What, you know, how are you, what when in your schedule are you going to exercise? Are you on an anti inflammatory diet? Are you taking any nutrient support supplements? Are you working with anyone else on your team? Is it, are you falling into depression when you're not running with your friends? Like we really have to think of their entire lives. So we're not necessarily life coaching them and that we're like, you know, I don't really know what people are thinking of when they're thinking that, but it's not really very fluffy. It's actually very concrete. What does it mean to you to have a healthy knee and in your whole life, what are you going to do to get there? And then what resources do we need to put in place to do it? So, you know, if I have a coach in my, one of my students who wants to do that, who wants to fully recover knees, they'll put people through a health coaching program and they can do it telehealth. And this is what I do with women with endometriosis who have chronic pelvic pain. Most of them need hands on physical therapy at some level for the pelvic floor. They might need dry needling, they might need manual therapy, they might need visceral mobilization. So I used to have a physical space, so I would essentially refer to myself if someone lived within, you know, 25 miles of me or anyone else or now I work, you know, I have clients in Singapore or whatever. I help them find a physical therapist that's going to know what they're doing.

Oh, I like this. So your treatment plan involves like sending them off to maybe a clinic near their house to do some type of like physical assessment and you just put that part of your treatment plan or your care plan. Right, right.

So that's. Yeah. So like the coaching may include any number of health interventions that they need to explore. So with endometriosis they, they need an excision surgeon on their team, they need a gynecologist on their team, they may need a mental health professional, they need a pelvic floor pt. You know, some of them have yoga teachers and often, especially with the pts and the fitness professionals. I'll do a co treat session with the patient, the PT and myself on telehealth.

Okay, interesting. So what would the typical treatment plan look like? You know, like, and how much is that done virtual versus how much is done through, I guess with one of like at a physical like brick and mortar location with the parts.

So it, it that depends on their pt. So I'm functioning as their health coach.

Okay.

And unless I've like self referred, which like I said, I haven't, I don't do that.

Oh, I see. Okay, so you, you're going to have your own care plan and part of your current plan might include like eight visits from the physical therapist.

Right, right. They might go see a physical therapist. That physical therapist will essentially create their PT health plan. Now if I'm the physical therapist too.

Yes, if you're the physical therapist and, and you're taking patients from a different state. Okay, let's just say that like.

Right, let's just say let's say somebody else was doing their health coaching. Now I could do both just under two separate windows. Right. I could do their health coaching program and I could do their pt. That's what most of our PT students do in my program. Unless they want to do the coaching way across states, way across countries. Then they refer people who are outside of their scope for PT to other PTs, and maybe they collaborate with those PTs in some way. If they're special, you know, if they have a subspecialty. But if, you know the other PT is great, then awesome. That's where they do the pt. So if you're doing both, you could. So if I'm doing knee rehab and I'm, you know, as part of the health coaching program, they need knee rehab, I'll say, okay, you can come see me next Tuesday as a physical therapist under my physical therapist umbrella. And we're going to spend a whole hour or half an hour, whatever the time is, really focusing on specific exercises for exactly what you need for your knee recovery. That's a PT session that you can do telehealth or in person, depending on what's appropriate for that client and what makes sense. Like, you might live in Amarillo, Texas, and this person lives in, like, Corpus Christi. They're probably not going to come to your clinic, but you're still licensed in Texas, so you can just do telehealth.

Yeah. 100. Like, I, I love this. What do you call this? You call this a hybrid?

Like, hybrid? Hybrid PT and coaching hybrid.

And so if, if a nurse is doing it, do you call it a nurse health coach? Is that. Is that kind of like you're labeling with, like.

Well, the health coach is the health coach. So, okay, you can be a physical therapist and a health coach. You can be a nurse and a health coach. You can be a doctor and a health coach. So the doctor who's training with us now, she works in a hospital, she sees patients, and then she also has her own separate practice in health coaching.

Okay, interesting. And so, and how do you see this as like a, like a trend that's happening? Or, like, like, you know, is it like, is it kind of like where pelvic. Pelvic. Pelvic floor physiotherapy was like, maybe three, four years ago. Like, now it's taken off. Like, do you see that's happening with this, like, health coach that's done by maybe like, like a PT or. Or even like a Cairo?

Oh, for sure. I. I think it's accelerating, probably even faster than pt, you know, kind of pelvic, PT specialty, mostly because in the pandemic, so many people had a shift to a telehealth model that the clients are much more comfortable doing TE health programs.

Yes. And the docs are doing it right now anyways. Right?

Yeah.

So, like, they're. They're already, like, setting, like, the Bar of, like, this is what's normal.

Yeah. And I love to do group health coaching programs for similar niches because the, the people in the community help each other so much just with that collaborative understanding.

Yeah. And I guess you would group them based on injuries and like, demographics like that.

Right. So with our students, most of them, I strongly recommend they just choose one niche and go all in because then you get really, really skilled there.

Yeah. Which is. And most people are doing pelvic floor. Or, or, or can't.

I would say cancer recovery, fatigue. Perimenopause is a huge one. Menopause, fertility, postpartum recovery is a big one. Pregnancy.

So it's going after the con. It's going after the, the problem, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. The challenge.

Jessica, that's genius. How come. How come more and more people are not doing this in the profession? Like, what's going on here?

I'm happy to train them. There's so much. There's so many people looking for this especially. Gosh, I can't overstate how many people are looking for this in the world of perimenopause, menopause and longevity because it's so complicated and there are. Their options out there are so limited to either kind of one size fits all, hormone replacement or nothing, you're fine. Or like antidepressants. Sorry, you're just kind of crazy.

Can we also talk about the money aspect, Jessica? Like, what's the typical care plan for. Yeah. Like a health. Like, you know, let's go back to the example with like that. Acr, acl. Right.

Right. So let's say you were entirely focused on. This would be a great niche, like runners with. And even better, like postpartum runners with knee pain or something like that. Right. So if you're focused on postpartum runners with knee pain, then you could. I would set up a coaching program where you give educational training around that, that integrates all of those things. But the more value, the even more valuable thing that people don't know is valuable until they get into it. Which is why you, you know, at some sense have to sell the information. But give the transformation, if you will, is that then people meet with you every week for roughly six months. I wouldn't do a coaching program shorter than three months, but I. Six months is a nice sweet spot for most.

And that's a once a week thing.

Once a week or every other week. We. Our endometriosis program was about six months for every other week.

Wow. And this is group or one on.

One that was a group program.

Oh, wow. Insane. And then, and how, how many people in a group?

I usually cap it at about 35.

Do you feel it at 35?

Oh, yeah, for sure. I would start at 5 or 10 just to get comfortable. But in fact I would recommend all new coaches start one on one just so they get good at it. But you know, within a year you could do five or 10.

And then, and then, and then like what's your typical like charge per session? Like fifth, I guess. You're charging 100 bucks, right? You know, right?

No, no. Well, we charge by the package. So one on one for six months would be 12,000. And for the private, for the group program, I think we charged 3,500, something like that.

Wow.

But it might have been 5,000. It's in that range. I do now in the clinic when I see people one on one, it's about 500 an hour. But I've been doing this for 17 years. I would say people start at between 50 and 150 an hour or something like that.

Wow.

But you can easily scale because you can do group models.

Yeah, yeah, 100. Yeah. There's a, there's a. I really what you're telling me right now, like, I'm kind of like, wow. I was like, why, why don't I see more like pts doing this when they're all screaming about how much student loans they have, you know, about the declining reimbursement model. And up in Canada, like there's an insurance reimbursement threat going on about like them saying like they're not even covering like physio if you work with an assistant or, or like even like some of the, like, you know, anyways, it's another story. But like it's just like, it's just mind blowing.

I mean to me it's a no brainer, right? Because more and more we're getting these recovery gyms. Like you can go in and lay in a red light thing for like a hundred bucks. Right. So if people are going to pay for three minutes of cryotherapy at literally a hundred dollars or a vitamin C iv, which, you know, okay, they're nice, but you can absorb almost the exact same amount of vitamin C orally and it's way cheaper, you know, and you don't, most people don't need that. You know, there are a lot. It's a growing, rapidly growing trend in, you know, baby boomers wanting to play pickleball. And the more niche and clear you are around longevity, menopause, I would say fertility is still a very strong niche as well. And postpartum.

What's the biggest niches right now you're seeing right now?

Menopause, for sure. Longevity and wellness. So, like, people wanting to live actively until they're 70s, 80s, 90s, 100. There are actually ways to test. And we. I have a course on longevity where we teach people how to use biological age testing. So you could have someone come into your group program six months a year, test their biological age and retest it six months or a year later and literally see themselves becoming physiologically younger, which is very motivating. Super motivating. Really good technology around that.

Menopause, longevity, fertility.

You said fertility. And I would say postpartum is strong and all the pain conditions. So pelvic pain, vulvodynia, you know, vulvar pain, sexual pain, and bladder incontinence issues.

And one thing you said earlier was, like, you tied like, their pain with like, the activity. Right. You know. Right. So you're talking about pickleball and running. Is there, Is that like, is that. Is pickleball like one of those activities that you're seeing that, like, that is also trending with, like, these niches?

Well, it's true. Because anything that someone is going to lose their social network around is so valuable to them. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Because it's not so much the sport, you're right. It's the social network. Right. You know.

Yeah. And that's what people want to get back to. They, you know, sure, they like to play pickleball. Pickleball. But what they really like is to be with their friends. And when they can't do that, it's hugely disruptive. I mean, we know from data that, you know, smokers with friends are healthier than non smokers without friends.

Yeah. Wow. So, so what are those activities? Like? Pickleball. Right. What else?

Pickleball is a big one. Running, I would say any.

Like, most people run by themselves, I guess. Why? I get. Actually, no, I run by myself, but I would run more by. I would probably run more if I had a social network.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people run by themselves, but they often have, like, running clubs or, you know, that kind of thing. What else? I mean, like I said, menopause is a big thing. Just because people have no resources and their symptoms are so bothersome that, that, you know, they'll come for anything related to that. Sleep, lack of sleep. But other sports, I mean, I think you could even start, you know, with collegiate athletes, people transitioning collegiate athletics to life, you know, what does that mean when they're going from having such a strict regimen to high performance back to like normal life?

Right?

Yeah. Uhhuh. And also just high performance, like balancing burnout is another big, you know, sub niche that, that people do well in.

Interesting. So, okay, so I love the program. I love like these niches. Talking about, right. You know, so let's just say I'm a physical therapist like you, three years out of school, right. I'm stuck with a shitload of student loans, you know, like, let's just say 200k, 35 bucks an hour, right? Oh, no. And I like this idea that you talk about. Jessica, I'm gonna pay for your program. Okay. How do I actually, like, how do I actually grow this pro? Like, how do I market and like, how do I like, you know, build like this community? Like, how do I actually get leads to actually do this stuff, you know? Right.

Yeah.

Like the top three, four things that I would do. Right?

Well, it depends on what you like. So networking with. So it depends on like if you're going to build something that's fairly local, being friends with every Yoga Studio, every CrossFit, every F45, you know, every mom and baby group, group, whatever. Like so that kind of doing workshops essentially in your local area is one way. Another way is doing workshops digitally. If you're, you know, willing to reach globally, then you stay focused on your sub niche and you build a strongly converting workshop funnel that works very well, which can be fed by organic traffic.

You just said my favorite word, funnel. I can't believe.

Yeah, I mean, you need some kind of funnel. It can be digital or it can be, you know, in person. Speaking in some way is the fastest path because people then know who you are. They know your energy. There's, there's a connection.

Where would you speak? Where would you.

Well, so you would either speak at local kind of organizations that are aligned with your target market, or you would speak by driving traffic to your own workshop, which you could do through organic social media. You could do through writing a book about your topic. You could do.

It sounds like you have to actually really focus on building a personal brand on social media, right?

A person. Yeah. Honestly. Yes. Because here's the thing, I resisted that for a long time. And then I learned that Tim Cook, who I don't know personally, but the only thing I know about him is he's kind of a boring looking guy who leads Apple. He has like 10x more followers than Apple.

Yeah.

So that taught me that, yes, you have to have some degree of a personal brand, especially with a business like this, because you're. Sir, you are directly you and. Or your team, but your team is kind of an extension of you. In this case, are directly serving, serving and collaborating with your clients. So they have to have some. Some relationship with you at some level.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100. You know, yeah. The personal, like when you're buying. When you're buying something, you're buying like the person, not so much the company. Right. You know, well, especially for my health product. Right. So.

Right. You know, and I mean, obviously you're. You're buying their information and all of that, particularly with coaching what you're buying and, and I think more and more clinicians should be skilled at this too. Is you're buying the ability to sit with someone who has a well practiced, regulated nervous system. It's so rare to be in the presence of someone who is just entirely there to support your own healing.

Yeah, yeah.

Because usually you go to the doctor and you have to wait and you're left like in a cold room and you have no idea what's going to happen and how much it's going to cost. And it's like everything about it is stressful. This is. You're stepping into an environment where you're with someone whose presence is going to help you heal.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would buy something like this.

You're my next client.

All right, so we talked about social media, we talked about speaking. Is a faster way to do it. Like, the more like, you know, local, like, like organizations or businesses, like you do, like, the better. Like, if, if you're, if your focus is on whatever, like, you know, like menopause and pickleball, then, like, go talk to the pickleball. Like, you know.

Yeah, go to every pickleball event you can be on Pickleball podcast, you know, go to all the pickleball clubs, any of those kind of things. Pickleball, you know, you can do Instagram lives with other pickleball experts, whatever.

Yeah, interesting. And then, and then what about these Facebook groups? You know, like, like zoning in on like, you know, like there's like everything that you talked about, these niches, like, there's all these Facebook groups and like, you know, just going in there and participating and like adding value and not like selling stuff, not doing like these like, promotions, but just like going in and just answering questions, driving value. Like, is that something like that you've seen work quite well as well?

Yes, that can work. As long as you're really mindful of just being supportive there so that you're attracting people to get curious about who you are. It's kind of like you said, like, I see you all over everywhere, which is really funny because we don't even have a very big social media presence compared to what the other things that we do. But it's just a place where I answer people's questions all the time without doing anything else, really. And the other thing that you can very easily share inside of a group like that, that's high value and supportive and not salesy at all is if you like. So if you are a pickleball and knee pain expert and you start your own podcast, and let's say somebody asks a question about something and you have a podcast or a Instagram short or a blog or anything like that on that, you can easily share the link and that helps them get to know you a little bit more. So blogs, podcasts are good, you know, YouTube channels. Anything where you can create high value content is shareable. And of course you can create your own Facebook group. And especially if it's very specific like that. One of the best things I ever did. Whenever we think about building a Facebook group, we think about titling it the anything that the people in the group would wear on a T shirt. So it's not about you, it's about them.

Okay. Wow.

Everything about the group is about them.

Yes, 100%. So what?

So like, it would be like, you know, pickleball pros or something.

Like, you know, what would it say on the T shirt? Right? That's what you're saying. And that's what you should name the group. Right?

That's what you would name the group. A T shirt that your client would want to wear.

Okay. Okay. How to. I like that one. It's like how to name your Facebook group if you have one. Right?

Yeah.

This is interesting. So you caught me off guard, Jessica. And I thought this conversation would be all clinically and like now you're talking about funnels. And just like you're, you're blowing my mind right now. And I'm just like a bit of a high right now. So what is the best? Like, what's the best, like, like lead generation funnel, like that you've seen like your 2000, like, students like, like create over the years, you know, that generated. Not necessarily them buying, but like, like a lead, like they got their emails or like, you know, and you can start nurturing them like, so that like, you could add More value. Right.

Actually one of our students, her very most successful. She had a really successful. She was. Her practice is focused on hormone balance and her not necessarily in menopause, usually a little bit younger people with like period issues. And she was in Europe. I forget the name of her practice off the top of my head. But she has a very successful quiz that. That was a really good top of funnel lead magnet. Yeah. So it was like people self identifying if they had hormone imbalances.

Quiz for hormone imbalance. Interesting. Right. And then what was the next step on that? Just grab their emails and then.

Yeah, just get their email and then a nurture sequence. And then she had a group program based on that that was very successful.

Okay, wow. Wow. This is the way to go, right?

Yeah, for sure. If you ask me.

So I'm curious. Like, you know, I work with a lot of like general orthopedic clinics.

Right.

You know, see these are clinic owners that run a half a million dollar clinic or a million or 2 million or they have like 10 or 20 locations. Do you see a world where you could. These owners could actually run these niche programs within like these like call it, you know, traditional establishment digital clinics.

I think so. I'm thinking about one of our student, one of our graduates is up in, I think she's in Maine. It's somewhere in the northeast, I'm pretty sure it's Maine. And she has a pretty traditional kind of ortho and pelvic PT practice. And then she started a group coaching program simply marketed to her own email list. Like one thing you can do is if you already have a clinic just in, you know, invite people in your own practice to essentially join, whether it's a longevity kind of, you know, coaching program. I believe hers was around perimenopause and menopause based on, you know, her, her client population. But it definitely, you know, you could create a sort of, you know, like I said, how curious would most people be to be like, what's my real biological age? You know, you can talk about some case studies around that and that's pretty interesting where they could lower their actual age from, you know, six or a year in. In a step by step program with you.

Yeah. Okay.

So and then the other thing is that could be. I think hers was actually, I don't know if she did it. Telehealth. You could do it telehealth or you. Which I would probably do it just be simpler. But you also have the option if you want to integrate any physical activity which builds community you could actually do that within your practice.

Okay. Wow. But. But not a lot of traditional like orthopedic clinics are really doing this. Right. Jessica, would you agree?

I haven't seen it. I think there's a vast opportunity, but I'm not really seeing it. I mean, you know, I'd be happy.

So if you had, if you had someone doing this full time, what do you think that person could bill with a bill within in a year for a typical like, you know, orthopedic clinic that had that email list and they already have all these different marketing channels, but they just, you know. But they don't have this program, you know. Right.

Well, I think so. If I'm looking at a traditional outpatient orthopedic practice, first thing I would do is I would assess what are my top diagnoses and then, you know, do some surveying, like figuring out what, what are your client. And your, your pts might know a lot of these answers like what do, who is our population? And kind of back to that niching. What do they like to do? Because it's, you can have just a knee program or something like that. But it's more interesting if it's aligned with the goal of the program, you know, and it could be just weight loss, fitness, like there could be more general goals and weight loss is a good one, sleep is a good one, things like that. But I think it would be even better if they had a bit of a sub niche, like let's say they're in Colorado and they have a lot of people who want to ski or you know, something like that. It would be like, that would be a really easy thing to market, like in August to be like prep for the ski season, you know, six month program or start it in September, three month program to prep for ski season. Then you can do nutrition, lifestyle, sleep.

You know, all for everything, like golf, ski, like every single activity, you know, across the whole entire year. Right.

So yeah, you could do, yeah, you could do those programs like quarterly for different things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then if you had someone full time doing this, like, what do you think? Like this, this full timer could generate in terms of revenue a year, you know.

Well, let's say they had, you know, 25ish people in the program.

Yeah.

And they did a three month program for, you know, basically it's a thousand dollars a month or a little bit more per person. So $25,000 a month, year round.

Yeah. So that's like, that's 300k. That's what you're telling me, right?

Yeah.

And you run four of these a year, right?

Yeah.

And like seems way easier than seeing 20 patients a day, right?

Oh, yes.

Would you agree?

I would agree. I mean, I would never go back to doing that for sure. And the thing is, you could see, in a sense you're seeing 20 people in an hour.

Yeah. And you are, you are. This is a very effective business model actually. Quite.

And the thing is you're probably getting just as good, if not better results. Now here's the other important thing about this. Now some of these people are going to need very specific, one on one hands on physical therapy or even exercise training because they're just not going to have that body awareness, let's say. But then you can just funnel them right back into your practice to get that specialty care. And maybe they only need three sessions now to do it because they're also eating an anti inflammatory diet, they're tracking their stress, they're sleeping better, they're, they're engaged with the community, they're excited.

I just like this because this is more of like holistic. Like this is like how this is like, you know, like, let's be honest, if you think about the physical therapy, the chiropractic, like, like business model, it hasn't changed in the last like century, you know. Right. It's still been the same. And, and if you look at all the other, you know, like, if you look at all the other professions, like they're moving up and like, you know, scope of practice getting bigger and bigger, you know, and then like we're still in our zone doing the own thing, you know, and, and, and, and, and just following whatever instructions that insurance companies tells us.

Right? Yeah. And I mean for me, people pay for fitness all the time. They pay for apps, they pay for equipment. I mean this is so much more effective. You're in a group of 25 people who all want to ski, who are talking about skiing with an instructor who knows so much and you know, you get support from each other, you're being cheered on, you're doing your exercises because you have an accountability process built right in. I mean it was, it, it's so effective. And like I said, I do this, I've done this now for almost 17 years for people with really complex chronic illnesses who are having surgeries, who have, you know, multiple interventions, who are really sick sometimes who get sick in the middle because they get Covid or, you know, an autoimmune disease or something and they do very well. So I think for me the most important thing, yes, it's highly revenue generating for sure, but it's also a lot more effective, which is really the only reason I started doing it.

And you can impact more people, right? You know?

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, because when you think that way, like everything a person does has some impact on their health. So that when they're really empowered in the driver's seat and you're holding really skillful space for them, and that's the skill set of coaching that most PTs need to learn. When you learn the skill set of coaching people, then get them, get their selves healthy. You're not like doing things to get them healthy, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it does. Does. Wow, that's super, super interesting. So I'm, I'm curious now. So we talked about, you know, these niche practices. You know, I'm curious because you, you live in a very different world from a traditional, like, you know, brick and mortar clinic. Right. I want to hear what is, like, what do you see in the future? What's the future of the physical therapy profession, like currently, you know, like what red flags do you see?

Well, I do see the expansion of a lot of kind of. Here's what I see. I see direct to consumer access for everything. You don't need health professionals. So as I said, I've been really sick the last few years and fortunately I know a lot and I have access to a lot of people and I have a lot of education in this area. But at the end of the day, people with long Covid. No, I have doctors at Yale who know way less than me and almost any human who's living with long Covid right now because it's so new. But what we have access to is direct communication with other people with the same issue. We have direct consumer funk, you know, lab testing, functional lab testing, telehealth with experts anywhere in the world. So a colleague of mine, his name is Sachin Patel, he lives up and he's a chiropractor up in Canada. He wrote a book maybe five, six years ago, maybe a little longer ago, that said the patient or the doctor of the future is the patient. And I completely agree with that and have agreed with it since, because people have direct access to more information than their clinicians have the ability to stay up with about their own situation. And then you couple that with things like text coaching by AI or outpatient, whatever, stretching clinics and cryotherapy clinics, labs. Yeah, you can get anything you want direct to a human. Now sometimes people want to use their Insurance. And there are like those subset of people who want to do that. But, and, and I mean, I guess, you know, that's fine and that's going to stay in some. At some level the way it is. But I think what. How physical therapists have to evolve is they have to start thinking, how can I best serve the clients that I most want to serve? Because they have every option in the world. And so we have to create environments that build community, that build, you know, healing relationships. Because that's the thing that's missing almost everywhere.

Yeah, 100 agree with you. Right. So. So are you optimistic about the profession now? It's not like that right now.

Is it more than doom and gloom?

Because we are, we're losing, like, like we're gonna be the back seat compared to everyone else. You know, I'll give you a good example. Like, so there's someone in the community who just like, you know, like they were a stretch. Have you been to a stretch labs before?

I haven't, but I know what it is. I've heard of the concept. Okay.

Stretch labs is an amazing business model. Right. You know, so one of the guy in our community is a franchise owner and like, in six months, like, of opening, like, the business went from zero to a million in six months.

Right? Yeah.

And if you understand their business model, they do assisted stretching.

Yeah, Right.

And with assisted stretching is that they're just hiring people that look good with Lululemon pants, you know, and like, they're paying them 25, 30 bucks an hour, you know, to stretch them one on one or in a group. Right?

Yeah.

People know what that is. They're like, yep, that's all I need. Yep. I just need a stretching. I don't know about. I don't know what physical therapy is, but I know what stretching is, you know, so when I see this ad for like, you know, from stretch labs, I'm like, I get that. I want that. You know, it's like, it's like massage, like, you know, like massage. Everyone is on massagers. Like, I want a massage. I want stretch. I want assisted, like call it like stretching. And so it worries me when like, you know, like the profession is not like, is competing with. There's so much like, choices out there from a consumer to solve all those niches that you talked about. Right?

Yeah. I think that's how physical therapy has to evolve now. I. The people I'm surrounded by every day are physical therapists who think holistically, who are willing to learn marketing, which is.

5% of the population.

Yeah. And maybe that's the thing. Maybe I'm isolated, surrounded by all those people. Because you're in a bubble. Own bubble. Yeah. But I'm surrounded by motivated physical therapists who care about integrative women's health.

Okay.

And so I think. And so they're very successful because there is a very clear need for their service and they, we teach them how to skillfully communicate what it is that they offer. And I, I think that's what you're saying, that, that the profession on a whole is not really doing that. I think none of the traditional healthcare professions are really doing that very well. But I think physical therapy is in a uniquely challenged position. You know, it depends on what you're doing. There are some subsets of physical therapists that the patient doesn't really need to know that. Like if you're an acute brain injury or spinal cord injury or you have.

No options, you have no choice.

Right, right.

And.

And we need people that are highly skilled in inpatient acute cardio pulmonology or whatever, but. And even inpatient orthopedics. But when you're talking about outpatient orthopedics or women's health, you have to think in line with a new model of reaching what, direct to consumer, what your clients need. Because, yeah, you know, for a while people are going to go where their insurance told them or their doctor told them, but the doctors are also really bad at this, this. So they're not gonna help us in any way.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. This is gold, you know. Okay, so let's talk about your, like, let's talk about your program. So what does your program look like? You know, does it take like six months, 12 months, you know, and then do you also teach them like the marketing aspects of the funnels? Like, it's not just like the, obviously like there's the clinical component, but it's also how to market your practice as well.

Yeah. So we have our, our main program, which is where people generally begin, is the women's health Coach certification. So that is a board certified, you know, third party oversight program where you can actually complete our program and get our certification and then you can actually take a second level test to be board certified as a health coach, which is a true like board certification. Just like you, you have to go into a testing center and all of that like pt. It's like taking your boards.

It's like the real deal.

Yeah, it's a real deal. So this one is, we have. So you learn the skill set of Coaching, which is the communication skill set, the second piece. So there are three pieces of it. Coaching, communication, which we teach in online training. And we have a faculty that works with you one on one and in groups. Everything is digital and telehealth, or not telehealth, but virtual. Then we teach functional nutrition. So we teach you how to do functional lab testing, supplementation, nutrition, lifestyle medicine, stress buffering. You learn to use all the wearable gadgets. Like we teach all of the things for to create a lifestyle coaching practice. And then the third piece is business training. So we do help people get super clear on their niche, their how to kind of get their initial program up and running. And then we have, we have several certificate programs which are kind of the advanced programs for. We have one in endometriosis, one in functional nutrition, where you can go even deeper. We have one in perimenopause and menopause, one in longevity. And we also have one for business. So we have like a next level business where we help you, you know, optimize your website and Funnels. Funnels. And your. What's going to be your top of funnel? Is it going to be organic traffic or publishing or whatever? So we do teach that in two levels and then we also have an alumni association.

And how long does it take? Like those first two levels? Yeah.

So to do the WHC certification, we give you 18 months, but most people finish it in about nine to 12 months.

Okay.

And we've had a few go getters, especially during the pandemic, who did it in like four months. So you can power through it if.

You want working, you could do it. You can probably do it in a month. Right?

You know.

Yeah.

So you can power through if you want. Then the other programs are all six months.

Okay. Oh, wow. So within a. So if you're smart, about within a year and a half you should be able to like hit the ground running and actually start becoming like a health coach and start, you know, say generating, you know, 200 to 300k of billables a year are.

Right, Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

Wow, that is super cool. And so how do people find out more about you, Jessica? You know, like, where do they go? Like your website, maybe your IG handle, right?

Yeah, our website is integrative women's health institute.com and on Instagram we're at Integrative Women's Health.

Okay, cool. Awesome to have you in show. That was like some massive like nuggets, you know, and, and you know, like I love your talk so much that like it kind of, you know, is not what I expected. And I'm very, very pleased that we actually got a chance to speak. I'm gonna get you speak at one of my events.

You know, I would love to. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. That would be amazing. So. But thank you for being on the show and we will see everyone next week.

Thank you so much.

How to get smarter in business and in life. This is the question, and I'm on a journey. 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.