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Welcome to Business School for the Rehab Chiropractor where we coach you on how to run the practice and business of your dreams. Your host is Justin Rabinowitz - a multiple Rehab Chiropractic practice business owner and investor. In addition to running his own locations, Justin works with Rehab Chiropractors across the US talking about everything from sales to marketing, and creating the business systems necessary to succeed.
Hannah Matheson:
I think the number one place they get stuck isn't actually very tactical. It's that they don't celebrate their failures in marketing.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
That's Hannah Matheson, our marketing lead here at Rehab Chiro. And on today's episode, she'll be letting you in behind the curtain. We'll talk about how you can start winning with marketing in your practice. Throughout the episode, we'll talk through digital marketing strategy, where you need to be focusing your energy and which kinds of marketing you can safely say goodbye to. If you're new to the podcast, every single episode we share the stories of chiros who are learning how to build their businesses and along the way learning the lessons they won't teach you in chiro school. Because remember, you can't grow your practice, no one knows about it. If you want the kind of help I give out on today's podcast, click the link in the show notes to book a call with our team. It's a simple, no pressure, no obligation conversation to help you figure out the next right steps.
And if anything you hear today is useful to your practice, please like and follow wherever we get your podcasts or leave a review. We'd love to hear from you. I'm Dr. Justin Ranbinowitz and this is Business School for the Rehab Chiropractor.
So Hannah, we are back again for your second or third time on the podcast. Luckily for you, you are very popular because you've been on the podcast multiple times and your episodes get listened to quite often. But the cool thing for the audience to hear now is that like everything in our business and in our lives, the role in what you currently do has evolved. And so I'm going to ask you a couple questions about your own personal evolution because I think it'd be good for the audience to hear. And then we're going to go into some more questions about tactical things for people within marketing. So first, how are you doing?
Hannah Matheson:
I'm good. How are you?
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
I'm wonderful and I'm so glad that we get to do this again. So walk the audience through, catch us up. You came here starting as a marketing assistant, first job out of college, not really sure where you're going to be. The only thing that you knew was that you were moving from Virginia back here and wanted to be closer to your boyfriend. So you took a job at Strive2Move doing that. And now today, you are now what we would say is you're an operations manager, head of ops, have a team that reports to you and a lot of different things. So why don't you just walk people and get people up to speed on where you're at.
Hannah Matheson:
In reflecting on where we started back in 2019 to today, the thing that I've always said is every year has been so different. And I think that that's contributed a lot to where we are today. And starting as a marketing assistant, you joke that you found us off the street, which is kind of true. I didn't really know anything about marketing. I didn't know anything about the business, but I was always willing to learn. And the thing I always was attracted to was being a part of a team coming from the athlete background. So we had that really early on and then every year I could pinpoint something that helped me take the next step. 2020 was when we hired our first marketing consultant. And it was very challenging in a lot of ways, but that was the time where I could have either taken a step back and said, "Yeah, I don't want to be pushed," or I had to figure it out.
And so then going into 2021, it was okay, now you need to lead a marketing department and understand the numbers and know how to create a marketing plan, actually drive leads prospects for the business. And I was like, "Okay, got it." Then going into 2022, I think that's probably around when we started this. And so every year there was something that allowed me to face a challenge. And lucky for me, it worked out pretty well. So here we are today. And the thing that I've always said about my role now, I love the marketing, I love the numbers, I love talking about it and it's super exciting to me, but doing ops, working with our team, this role for the first time feels like I'm doing the thing I was supposed to do. And I think there was always a part of me that with the marketing, I loved it and it was great, but it didn't come super natural to me.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
This is exactly why I wanted to have Hannah here. The fact that marketing doesn't come naturally to her means she's had to figure things out the hard way. She's had to test and innovate and find simple ways of making it work. Now she consults with more than 130 active clients from all over the world, and she knows exactly why people run into marketing problems.
Hannah Matheson:
I think the number one place they get stuck isn't actually very tactical. It's that they don't celebrate their failures in marketing. Something that I think I spoke about last time we talked about marketing on the podcast and I still talk about all the time is that everything's a test. And what I see is that the ones that come through our community, that they go out and they try their first ad campaign or they try their first workshop or they finally start sending marketing emails. If it doesn't immediately work, they declare it as a failure. And it happens in the community too, and we obviously try to coach them out of it, but then also we see it so much with people that are engaging with us for the first time. I mean, I literally think it was a day or two ago, we were doing internal training with our team and we had a prospect that said, "Oh yeah, I tried a workshop, but no one showed up, so that just doesn't work for me."
And I think it's that idea of celebrating our failures in marketing because every time you do something, you actually learn from it and it's a win. The win is that you did it and you can take something away from it every single time. And so I think the real challenge that most of the people that we've worked with face is just not understanding that, no, I'm glad that you tried this. This is really, really good. What did you learn from it and what are we going to iterate on next time? Because if the alternative is doing nothing, well, we know that's going to get you nowhere.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
This episode is brought to you by Jane, a practice management software, an EMR built to support you in the day-to-day work of running your business. If you're a health or wellness practitioner, you already know. The care you provide starts well before your patient arrives and extends far beyond the treatment room. Jane is here to support every part of that experience. With online booking, your clients can book at a time that works for them. And with features like waitlist notifications, they'll even be able to grab last minute openings when they pop up. It's an easy way to keep your schedule full while getting your patients the care they need. During your appointment, Jane's AI powered documentation feature can help you thoughtfully take notes so you can stay present with the person in front of you. And after appointments, you can end your time together on a healing note, not a transactional one, by charging the card on file.
So guys, when Jane reached out to me to become an ambassador for them, it was a no-brainer. In my community Slack channel, we have 140 chiros, PTs, US, Canada, and all over the world. And this is like the one piece of equipment software that consistently gets a 10 out of 10 rating. They talk about it all the time. They absolutely love it. And so when Jane reached out to me to help them and be an ambassador for their brand, it was an absolute no-brainer and I'm so excited to be able to work with them. To learn more about Jane, how they could support you and your patients, head to jane.app/demo. And one last thing. If you're ready to get started with Jane, you can use my code RehabChiro1MO for a one-month grace period on your new account.
When you look at what people are doing in our community or what we're working on where we view it as a test, is there some specific examples that you can think about and has anything surprised you recently in the world of marketing that would be useful for our audience to know about?
Hannah Matheson:
Anytime we're doing anything in marketing, and it can be ads, it could be in-person, non-digital. I like to isolate some sort of variable and figure out what is the one thing that I want to learn in doing this. So I mean, easy examples would be if I send the email, what was my open rate on the subject line? Did that subject line work? With an ad, we've been testing a lot of different hooks, which would be the first three to seven seconds of our ad and we've got tons of variables out there. So that test would be, did I get more of the outcome I'm looking for based off of changing that part of the ad?
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
So let me pause you there because I think this is great. Going back, let's close the loop. So we had someone to reach out to us saying that they did a workshop and they couldn't get people to show up, so workshops don't work for me. Use that as an example because I think ads are almost easy because you see the numbers and it's very like, this worked, this didn't, the click rate is this and we can tweak this and change this landing page. But with workshops, it feels, I don't know the word, amorphous, like how do we do that? So if you were coaching someone who came to you with that and they weren't complaining, they were saying, "Yeah, I haven't gotten workshops to work because no one shows up to mine." How would you utilize what you just spoke about in that same way?
Hannah Matheson:
So if you think about all the steps in a workshop to make it a quote-unquote success, the thing that happened to them is I'd say, "Okay, well, we have to figure out how to do this one thing better, which is we call it butts in seats. How do we get people to show up?" So that would be the outcome, right? Again, there's other steps to it. There's getting people to engage with you and then book calls and do the discovery visit. But I'd be like, "Let's just focus on this one thing right now." And now we can look at all the tactics leading up to it. And what I would do with that person is we'd sit down and say, "Well, what are all the ways in which we can get someone to show up, AKA we can get butts in seats." And so I would look at, well, what did we do on social media?
Did we run ads to it? Did you show up to the gym? Did you have the right conversations? How did those conversations happen? But all of a sudden, now all of these things that you would do in marketing, because again, marketing, it can be harder to track all of the activity, which we do have a system for. It would be very, very clear about why are we doing this. And then also to bring whoever I'm working with and even us back down to earth, they might get five butts in seats and there's a good chance that that second workshop, they don't get anyone in the door off the bat. We wouldn't want to discredit that we had a goal there and we learned something from it and now we're going to go ahead and do it again, but we would then have a different goal. So that would be, I think, taking the same principle and applying it.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
For a long time, I could lead people. I actually could sell pretty well. I would get out and speak to audiences, but the one thing that I couldn't do was have good tried and true marketing that worked when I went to sleep and when I was seeing patients. And this, only this is the thing that changed my life, literally has changed my life. And the reason is because I now sit here today with a practice that runs 100% without me, without me treating patients, without me doing any of the active marketing, because I created the actual marketing systems required that the business can run without me.
At our live event May, we are going to speak a ton about marketing. We always have to because it's the lifeblood of the practice. You could have the best treatment techniques, you could have the best machines, you could have the best team, but if you don't have a consistent flow of new patients, you're going to struggle. Some of the things that we're going to cover are how to run your Instagram ads so that you don't actually have to do them because we know they're a time suck. We're going to show you how to follow up with patients in the right way so that they become patients once, twice, maybe down the line. We're going to always talk about marketing at our live events because again, new patients in your business is the lifeblood of any practice.
Hannah Matheson:
So one of the things that we teach in our communities, we call it the marketing checklist. And it's very clear. It answers the question of, "I know I need to market, but I don't know what to do." And we always say, "Well, we start with this foundation," that I think will stand the test of time because and drama is going to happen, AI is going to happen. Again, even what's changed, Reels were the thing, but recording this on February 20th, 2020... I almost said '25, '26, Carousels are performing very, very well and it wasn't that way.
So with everything changing, what's not going to change is building relationships in your community, is having a really, really, really strong understanding of who your avatar is, like very deep, understanding their fears, their hopes and their dreams and what worries them and all of that type of stuff because I think no matter what the channel is and no matter what's changing, that level of understanding is going to save you for lack of better words, but that also with things being very digital today, having a presence in your community and building relationships with people, those would be the two tactical things I'd say can help when algorithms change and digital takes over.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
Spot on. And the second part of understanding your avatar and just like the really boots on the ground, bedrock of marketing is how I see part two of what you said. But I actually want to talk about the first thing that you said, which the right answer is that if you're practicing as a chiro every single day, not only do you not have the focus to be able to do that, but you don't have the time and resources to be able to do that. And it would be untrue for me not to say that one of the values of what we try to provide our community is that, because you mentioned the truth. The reason why some people are in our community is because they need to be able to have assets and resources at their disposal who are in it every day. And so when we look at, we do this every year at the State of the Union, we try to tell our shareholders, our community of what they're investing in.
And one of the things that they are investing in is access, is the ability to have this information because the answer to the question is they wouldn't get it. How would they know? If you're in Bozeman, Montana and you see eight patients a day and then you have a family to run, how could you also be a Google expert and an AI expert and a Meta expert? And the answer is you're not going to be. And so now the thing that's so beneficial about our business actually having grown is that we have the ability to reinvest in the business to provide more value. And so just within the last three months, we've added a organic content specialist who all he does is understand based Meta and YouTube platforms. We have invested in a paid ads media guy, yes, not only at running ads internally, but he is now helping our community to be able to teach them what are the updates on Google, what is happening with Performance Max ads, what is happening on the paid side?
Because they change very, very quickly. Literally what worked today doesn't work tomorrow. What's going to work tomorrow won't work in three weeks. And so the problem that a lot of business owners have is yes, anything is expensive. Coaching is expensive, but what's more expensive is not having the right information and running ads that don't work, cost per lead going through the roof or we've seen it and we used to joke about it, but it's not funny. I messaged someone the other day actually about this. It was someone that I had been in contact with a few years ago, I think they're in Virginia or North Carolina. I'm not exactly sure where they're located, but I started seeing ads on Meta to book a call for their practice. And I sent them a message. I'm like, "Hey, I don't know if you're running ads for the first time or what your targeting is, but I'm in New Jersey and I should not be getting your ads." And we've seen tons of this in Google Ads of us getting paid ads of people in North Dakota and in Southern New Jersey that we'll never be patients of. And so it always becomes more expensive to not have the information.
And so again, going back to circle it back, one of the things that we're very proud of is the fact that we can provide our audience and our community with access to this information that they would've never learned. And there are only two options at that point. Number one, they're just going to get out. They're going to turn off everything because it doesn't work or it's too overwhelming, or they're going to continue to spend money in the wrong place. And then what happens in the second option is that they turn into the people that we talk to. "Facebook doesn't work," right? "Google doesn't work." Well, not that it doesn't work, you're not doing it correctly. So of course it's not going to work. And so I think it is important to speak about that.
And what you said second is important as well. At the end of the day, we were trying to teach people skills. The fundamental bedrock foundational skills that independent of AI, independent of a pandemic, independent of the internet shutting down is that are always going to be true. And what we always try to teach people is that independent of all of those external factors, we still need to have the skills required to be able to run the business.
You don't have to be an expert in Google or Facebook or Instagram. You just need access to the right tools for your specific audience. And if that's something that you're struggling with, go to the link in the show notes and we'll be able to help you. Otherwise, you risk being like me at the beginning of my journey, only judging your marketing success on the basis of the next patient who walks through your door.
When I started doing marketing, the only thing I would pay attention to in my marketing was, did I get a new patient from it? And so if we looked at it and said, "Hey, is your marketing working?" And they said yes or no, most people, Justin in 2016, '17 and '18, would have only judged it based on if a person showed up in my practice and paid me money to deliver a service. And so I think for you, as we zoom back in on what you're speaking about, what do you think someone that has that same mentality that I had, where should they even start if that isn't correct?
Hannah Matheson:
Yeah, good perspective. So what is the thing that they should track right now that maybe they're not tracking?
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
If someone's listening to this and they say, "Oh, Justin, man, I'm you. How do I know my marketing' working? Because I had 10 new patients last week." And it's like, "Well, what else is there?" Well, what else is there, Hannah?
Hannah Matheson:
I would very tactically say they should track how many people are raising their hand based off of the things they did. So let's say that in a week you sent one email, you posted on Instagram every day, you dropped into a gym and did a couple workouts at a community that has your perfect patient. You did these things. How many leads did you get? And so a lead to me would be their name and their contact information. And again, that would be success. And I think to put it into the perspective that I had as a marketing assistant, we always talk about how can each person in their role be successful and what were my specific KPIs in that role? And then knowing that if I can hit those and everybody in the organization hits their goals that the business is going to do well, that's how that marketing assistant is successful, right?
Marketing did its job. And when you talk about getting a new patient, yes, obviously that's success, but that relies on so many different factors. So I think to look at why are metrics and data important to marketing, well, we just have to be able to measure, did the marketing do its job? And I think that just has to be by tracking leads and tracking, when I did this, did I get names, email, phone number, right? Because again, if we just relied on new patients, the marketing may have actually been working, but maybe the sales sucked, right? There's so many other things that were happening and then it would give you the wrong idea back to did the marketing work, you would have no way of actually measuring if it was successful or not. So that would be the number one thing.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
For a long time, the way I measured my marketing was by seeing if we brought in a new patient, and that's honestly where a lot of practitioners get stuck. We're so focused on the big headline that we forget to look at the small wins. Getting someone to leave their information is a win. Getting a reply to an email is a win. Those small moments are the first sign that your marketing is working for you.
The reason why I struggled in marketing for so long was because what you're saying very matter-of-factly, which is just a testament to how far we've all come, is that the only way I could measure if it was working or not was if I got a new patient from it. And the challenge that most business owners have in general is that they don't understand the small wins. And so when you speak about getting butts in seats, well, that's a win. You speak about getting six people to give you their information, that's a win. You speak about having someone reply to an email, that's a win.
The challenge that most business owners have, and specifically chiropractors, is that the win is so big. It's like if someone comes in and pays me three grand or two grand or five grand for a plan, that's the only win. And then they stop doing the marketing. And this is where actually I think burnout happens because you're working so hard, but your measure of success, your measure of success is only, only, only if you get the end outcome. And the best business owners that I see, the best chiropractors, they're the ones that... It's not that they're the most unrealistically positive, it's that they are the most practically positive. And what I mean by that is we break it down into the smallest of chunks.
Just like the time, Hannah, we tried to get a new patient from Facebook.
Hannah Matheson:
I was thinking about...
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
When we finally got a patient from Facebook, I walked in, I probably shouldn't say this on... We walked in at lunch and I said, "Guys, we got a bottle of champagne. Let's celebrate." Because we literally got a person from Facebook to arrive in our clinic and that was the mindset that we had to have because it was painful and it was brutal and we had to be able to celebrate even the smallest wins that we got someone to arrive and show up. And so I think that that is a major mindset that everyone needs to have. And then for someone listening, they've listened to everything we talked about with marketing and digital, non-digital, Andromeda, Meta, workshops, give the audience something to take away. If they are out there and they're like, "I don't even know where to start." Give them one thing digitally and one thing non-digitally if they're like, "I can go and take this and apply this in my business tomorrow."
Hannah Matheson:
It would definitely be workshops, which we've talked about a little bit already because that, let's say it's an hour long workshop. I mean, there's just too much proof and data to support that that is the highest ROI activity non-digitally that... Probably actually altogether that any chiro business owner could be doing. So being able to deliver a workshop in front of an audience full of their perfect patient at a minimum once a month, at a minimum. I mean, Strive, I don't even know how many they're doing at this point, but that would be the one thing I would say non-digitally. And again, that comes directly from this checklist that's become our foundation and the roadmap for marketing in our community.
Digitally, so we've had so much success with Instagram in the last few years, but I think the biggest mindset shift for us was that Instagram, it isn't just posting and hoping that new patients are going to find us and be like, "Wow, that was a really great post. I'd love to come in." That's not how it is. So that was very passive, whereas now we take a very active approach to it. And so the one thing that I would do would be, yes, posting consistently because consistency is going to help build trust with the people that are watching you online, it would be becoming more active. And so the method that we follow is we post every day. When we do get new followers, we actually then reach out to them and we DM them and we call this then our sell by chat strategy. So that is something that has made not only Strive in our business, but our community members a ton of money very quickly, just being able to think about how can I be more active on a platform that is so big today, which is Instagram.
So it would be that. It'd be post consistently, look at the followers and get into conversation with them.
Dr. Justin Rabinowitz:
If you're someone who has tried all of this, but nothing you're doing is working, I understand because I've been there and I've been in positions where I felt like everything I did did not work and all of the people around me were having success and I wasn't. And the only thing that I can tell you is the advice that I gave myself in those moments is that the only way I was going to fail was if I would quit because the problem with business ownership and the problem with business versus being in school is there is no defined end date of success. You see, so many people go to chiropractic school and they know if they just put their head down for three years, they pass boards, they get their degree and they can go do their thing, but that doesn't occur in business. With business, you have to put your head down and work and you don't know how long it's going to take to be successful. But just remember, the only way you fail is if you quit.
If you're listening to this and you're struggling to market your practice, go to the link in the show notes and talk to our team. Hannah is there and she'll be able to get you the help you need. We also have a massive community of people just like you who have taken their practice to the next level, so send us a message if you're interested in doing that. We have a live show coming up in early May called Rehab Chiro Mastermind Live, and we still have some tickets available for that. The links and the details for all of that are in the show notes. Thanks for listening. I'm Dr. Justin Rabinowitz, and this has been Business School for the Rehab Chiropractor. Like, subscribe and click the follow wherever you get your podcasts.