Ep. 140: Avoiding Distractions and Shiny Objects

Patient Care Marketing Pros (00:00)
Hey, what's going on everybody? Nick and Michael here for another episode of Walk -Ins Welcome. And before we get cranking, I want to actually promote our Facebook group real quick. Hannah, who puts together our podcast for us to make sure that this is a good experience for you, has also created a Facebook group called Walk -Ins Welcome, a healthcare marketing resource group. Good job. Got the whole thing. I did. I Q, did I read it right? Yes. Okay. And look for our logo. That's right. So our logo minus the subtext on it says healthcare marketing resource group on

But yeah, so we're in there. The whole point of that group is simply to give opportunities to help people out. Yeah. And it's also a place to collaborate with other urgent care. We have some other urgent care. Well, I mean, hopefully mostly, right? Like there's some other patient care marketing type companies in there. I'm sorry. Patient care clinics in there. And it is a resource group. So it's not for any other reason other than for people to be able to go in, ask questions about digital marketing, ask questions about what's working in other clinics.

We try and moderate it, of course, but it's really a resource for you to be able to bounce questions off other people. So we're trying to build that community and we would love to invite you to be a part of that. The other ask that I have today before we get into the episode is just simply like share this episode. You guys are well connected in the urgent care community and the more we're able to help the community, the better in our eyes. And one of the ways to do that is for you to just share this episode with somebody that might find it as a benefit or a resource to them. And subscribe.

yeah, hit that, smash that subscribe button. Yeah, right. And start on YouTube and hit subscribe before we start the episode. That's right. But no, really do subscribe because we have about, there are twice as many of you listening versus subscribed. So come on in and hit subscribe if you like listening to it. It helps us, helps our numbers for sure. But the best part is it alerts you every time a new episode comes out. So it's super convenient for you. And it just helps us

And as always, we're here to help you get more patients, get repeat visits, scale your clinic, deliver better care. We want to make sure that this is the best resource for you as possible, but let's get into today's episode. It's been an adventure. I think last week, or at least here in the recent past, you had the opportunity to meet Grace on our team. Who's our client success manager. It's great. So yeah, I back and listened. I'm not all the way through it, but I did it a little different this time. I went to YouTube and consumed

I haven't done that. just want to know what that experience was like. did you like our new video setup? Yeah, it good. Yeah, yeah, it looked

So I just, haven't consumed the podcast that way. I'm very much in my car. My car is a rolling university to me. listen to tons of podcasts. radio always works. The touchscreen never works. There's a difference. Hey, listen, it's a Volkswagen and I like my Volkswagen, but you get what you pay for. So last week I was in Cancun. I was there for the commitment summit, which is for digital marketing agencies that are looking to grow in their mindset this week.

I've had our whole team in the seven figure agency conference. Which was the way to go. Yeah, exactly. So we've been part of 7FA, seven figure agency. 21. Yeah. Since 21. And it's always been really Nick and I going either live in Miami or watching online. And then we like collect our thoughts and say, what should we try to go after? Like, what should we tell the team? Blah, blah, blah. And that's been fine and dandy. But the hard part is when you got to convince people to do it. Right.

And then two, you're kind of the gatekeeper on what were you told? And so there's always missed opportunities because they don't hear it firsthand. Well, this time, because basically because you went to Cancun and I was traveling the week before, we had so much travel backed up. like, let's just do it remote. Yeah. Just because it'd be easier. I'm pretty sure the whole team and my wife was going to kill me if I went on another trip. Yeah, because I mean, yeah, I mean, it's a lot.

And which isn't a bad thing, but it's just it is what's happened the past months. But anyway, so like whispering whole team on. Right. And so we took it's like a two day. I saw two days pretty close because they would break off to mastermind piece toward the end of each day. And we told our teamers like, you don't really be part of that anyway. And it's great because everybody bought in. you know, at first they weren't sure they were kind of make fun of us for a cold clap and all that stuff. One, two, three. Yeah.

And which by the way, it's a great way to control clapping after somebody's also a good way to edit a video. No, yeah, yeah, that's true. No editing there, but anyway, and yeah, so got them bought in. There was actually really great sessions. There was one awkward moment when something was trying to be pitched to everybody and we're like, what are you doing? But overall really great. They bought and at the end of, at the end of a seven F a intensive, they always say, let's take a moment, 30, 40 minutes plus and focus on

thing. What do you want to do? And that's part of our episode today to kind of discuss what that looks like. you for laying that up. That was actually beautiful. Yeah. Well done. I was trying one, two, three. All right. Now back to naked. Now you know how the one handed or the one one handed.

It's like the one clap thing works. It's just a way to like, got, I got one hand claps. Google tells me to do. don't even want to know what's going to pop up on that. That's going to not go well. If you wind up doing one handed clap. Welcome to the podcast. Lordy. We are talking about focus today. One of the podcasts that I consume is by John Lee Dumas and it is E on entrepreneurs on fire.

Yes, go listen to it if you're an entrepreneur. The whole point though is one of the things he's been talking about for years now is this concept of focus. Now I know you know what focus is. mean, we all know what that means, what it looks like, but sometimes putting it in practice is a little different. Right, right. So here's the acronym for focus F O C U S. So follow one course until successful. Nice. Follow one course until successful. There's a reason I'm bringing this up and it's not, it,

it's for me because I can get squirreled. I have been pretty good for like the past year, but before that I'd be like, Hey man, let's go buy like some, storage units or you know what I mean? remember that conversation. Like let's go look at other opportunities and you were really good being the integrator in our company and basically being like my person saying that's probably not the best use of our time. We should probably grow this company.

Right? And I, and from my own personal experiences, I've, I've worked now with probably 500 businesses, like seeing like the other side, like being a vendor to these businesses. And you always see the problems when there's a very distracted owner that's not in their business and they're starting to fall apart a little bit. Yes. It's kind of the frustrating part too, cause you

don't have that much influence anymore. They should handle all this. But there's always like, left for three months, six months, do some new venture. And I came back and like, where do y 'all do it? that's like that type of thing. And so that happens a lot. And I've seen a lot of businesses where they kick it out and it gets to a certain point. And I'm like, okay, I'm bored with this. I'm going to do something else. And I also have three or four businesses and they're none of them are doing that well. And then all of a what usually happens, one business is killing

and it's having to feed the other businesses so they don't go under. That's right. That's a real, real thing. And I'll talk about some of, you know, the stories that I have internally, but I really want to just come right out of the gate and kind of apply this to what we're seeing in urgent care clinics. So what typically happens is you get into the summer and things just naturally slow down a little bit. People are vacationing. You're changing your clinic hours to try and, you know, adjust to the reduced demand. However you want to look at it. But the entrepreneur,

clinic owner is looking for the next opportunity during the slower time. We've seen it. Hey, you know what? And we've even told you to a degree on some of this stuff. here's some things that you can grow your clinic on. Right. Right. But we always preface with this is assuming you've maxed out your current. Thank you. That's the point I wanted to make is don't forget to peak before you grow into the next area. When you, when you, so like we have

quite a few clinics we work with, but we have a clinic right now, though they said that we peaked and we're happy where we are. And we don't really want to grow beyond this. So our next step is to look at another location if you want. Man, did they do it right? Yeah. So like when we say peak to even tell us Lone Star Urgent Care, those guys are awesome. We love Jace. He's awesome. He's one of our first podcasts and Elias podcast, the clients. Yeah. And anyway, so but in their scenario.

they're tapping on the door of like we physically can't handle more. But and they say this like, but we're holding the quality where we want. And so like they so it's kind of they're at an interesting crossroad because they can either say we're going to stay the course and just do what we're doing best and just run with it. Or they begin to hire out to give themselves personally back time because they're in the business. They're deep in the business or they expand services or expand locations.

So here's the problem, right? They're doing it right. It's not a problem for them. Here's the problem. This is what I'm seeing with some of our urgent cares. Okay. They're having, they've grown from when we got them 10 to maybe now they're at 30 patients a day. Yeah, they're making money, but they're not waiting to get to 60 patients a day. And now they're trying to open up additional locations or they're trying to go all in on telemedicine or they're trying to go all in on this new weight loss, Wigovy,

All of that kind of stuff. And I'm not saying we did a whole podcast telling you, should do those things. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying though is you're not hitting that 60 to 65 patient a day wall before you start squirreling. And here's the thing, that clinic, if you haven't gotten it dialed in to those 30, 40, I'm sorry, really 50, 50, somewhere between 50 and 70 patients a day. That where you were just at capacity. Yeah. Then you're not

to add weight loss. You're not ready to add another doctor. You're not ready to add another location. You're not ready for those things yet because you have forgotten the business that you're really in, which is marketing and advertising. Michael, we're not in the marketing and advertising business. We're in the B2B business. Yeah, relationship business. We are. and I, and this, every time I forget what business I'm actually in, I lose my focus. I lose my focus.

because I'm in the business of reaching you, the clinic owner, you, the doctor. It's my goal as the business owner to make sure that I'm talking to you, not delivering the services that we, that's my product, but I'm in the business of B2B. That's the business I, Patient Care Marketing Pros is in. Well, you know, and looking back to our core values, we're in the business of creating, I would say safe haven, but a place that people want to come work for and all that type of stuff.

But yeah, like it's about the relationship building and everything. But yeah, going back to that simple concept of clinics out there that are listening and you're like, I really want to add in our service to add more revenue. That's the mindset, right? If you're adding a service, you're pricing yourself, need to add more revenue. Not really a want, probably a need. Before you make one more step, you have to say, am I at capacity with my core service?

And if you say like, I'm at 40, but I know I can handle 60. No, you need to get that. Let's get you to 60. Let's get you to 60. Keep listening to this podcast. Keep going to our resource pages. Keep listening. Let's get you to 60. Yeah. Get to that. Get to where it hurts, right? Get that real growing pain there where you now can say we are at capacity. We're still serving well because that's the other problem. Because once you break past your capacity, let's say your capacity 60 and you hit 70.

and then all of sudden bad reviews start showing up. All of sudden wait times start getting longer. So you don't want that, right? So now you can capitalize. So let's say I got my 60, I'm consistent with it, not saying 61 time, but 60 like almost every day. Now you have an audience. Now you can go capitalize on an audience and you're not harming your core piece. Because that core, even for us, we have some core actual services that matter.

Right. And if we go and just ignore them or just say, it's good enough and not improve them and push them to the limit, it just comes back to bite us. Good as the enemy or great. You've heard me say that. Yeah. Well, even that mindset of you already have like urgent care, you already have an urgent care to those urgent care services. Why aren't you maxing that out? That's a whole lot cheaper to max that out than experiment with a hope. Well, I mean, I can answer the question. I know why they're doing it. They have forgotten the reason.

that they have forgotten what their actual business is. Again, we come back to, if you're not maximizing out your patients, you've forgotten what you got into business for in the first place, which is to get that patient through the door, right? Take care of the patient. That's right. Now, there's other things that you can do when you've done that, right? So like, is the, if we're going to say follow one course until successful, Nick, I've already gotten to 60 patients today, and that's where we are at our clinic. Great.

All right. What's the next one thing you should be doing? Let me ask it the way my coach asked me, what's one thing if it improved would make all the difference in the world in your clinic? Yeah. What is it? I can't answer that for you, obviously. Like we can speculate, but I would be willing to wager a bet, Michael, that 95 % of the people listening to this podcast would say if we had more patients coming through the door, that one thing, if it improved would make all the difference in the world in our clinic.

prove me wrong. And so you got to look at all your dials, right? So we have dials that we look at as a company and you can make it pretty like the general across the board for business dials. You have your profit dial, your operations dial, your expenses, your overall revenue coming in. Like these are dials that matter for any business. I don't even care what kind of business you employ turnover. Yeah. Turnover rates, satisfaction reviews. Like these are things, these are just simple indicators

is this business healthy or not? Because the mindset usually needs to go the route of if some and I'm not saying you need to go sell your business, but the mindset is if somebody came and knocked on my door and say, I wanted to buy your business, show me how healthy it is. This is what they're going to be looking for. Is it healthy or not? And if you're not confident in that answer, that's another thing too that I've learned over the years. If I can't spit out some key parameters of our business quickly, I'm not paying attention to them.

It's just that simple. mean, it's funny because we had a discrepancy here recently. Yeah. Where I'm like, this is what we have like in contracts and agreements. This is what we build. There's a gap. What is the deal here? And we were, but if I didn't know that. Yeah. It wouldn't have come up, right? It just been like, okay. You know, you just would breathe. Like mindset too. Every claim that's listening, how many patients, like obvious one, how many patients per day are you averaging right

If you can't set your mind to write the second, you have a problem. that's a fixable one. That's the best part. Like it's a problem that you can fix. That's the best part with business in general. Like there's always a way. You just have to accept that you've made a mistake and then you need to say, I need to get this finished and fixed. Cause I think some people just say, that's just how it is. We can't fix it. That's as far as a fix we'll

It's like, no, I mean, if you said that 10 years ago on XYZ problem, you would have laughed at him because it's been corrected. That's right. Anyway. Yeah. So like, yeah, that focus or is such a huge thing because I think people just forget about it sometimes. They just simply do like they get, call the shiny object syndrome. mean, I, well, so I want, it's funny that you bring that up. So what happens when you lose your focus in a business? Right. So you say you called it shiny object. Here's something that is going to make me money.

Oh, what if we did this and it made me money or, this looks easier than what I'm doing. So one of my favorite movies, probably in my top three, not even my top five is the matrix. The first one, the first one. Yeah. The other two don't They're there. the random fourth one. Yeah, that one's anyway, but the matrix 1999, I remember watching that movie and thinking everything in cinema is going to be different after I see

And it was true. It changed everything. I still just remember as a kid watching him dodge the bullet. yeah, bullet time was insane. And it zoomed the camera zooming around. Yeah, and like, how did they do that? I've never seen anybody do that before. And because you think about it, that only came out five or six years after Jurassic Park. I mean, it's 25 years

Yeah. And like if you watch it today, it's funny. You watch the first metrics today. It holds up pretty well. You watch the other matrix. You're like, what are y 'all thinking? It did not age well in the other two, but the first one, there's a scene. Red pill or blue pill? No, that's not even the one I'm talking about. That's a good one too. That's a whole nother, that's cultural at this point, right? Yeah. But there's a scene where, where Neo and Morpheus, Neo had just been woken up and they, and they plugging back into the matrix into like

into like a, it's for him to learn how to use the matrix, right? the training. The training program. Thank you. And there's one training program that's called the girl in the red dress. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all these people walking by and he knows exactly where he's supposed to be going. He's following Morpheus. He's got a path. He knows what he's doing and the girl in the red dress comes by and he, you can just see him. And the next thing he turns around, there's a gun on his forehead. The distraction killed him.

the distraction killed him, the red dress. The red dress is different for everybody. The red dress is a weight loss program when you haven't hit 60 patients a day. The red dress is a new location that's going to eat up all of your profit because you haven't hit 60 patients a day. That's a red dress. It's not a red dress. If you've got this all dialed in and it's working, it's a red dress when it's going to cause a distraction and get you killed. Now I'm using killed as a

It's going to put a bullet in your spreadsheet. How about we say it that way? It's going to put a bullet in your PNL. It's going to, it's going to cut. It's literally going to cut your profits in half. And you don't, and you can't do anything about it. Cause now that you're like committed into this new venture, you either, cause if you belt, cause then your mindset, I can't belly up on this thing because it's going to cause damage. I need to just keep pushing and then it becomes like, well, I've just spent half a million dollars on this project and it's not moving right now.

Do I cut my losses? And then there's the morale part that kicks in. And then you go back to what was working and they're like, not just not doing what you want it to. It's amazing how quickly that turns to like I've seen businesses in like three months. Like, what were you thinking? Yeah, just destroy themselves. Personal story with this company. You know, several years back, I started my pilot's license

The three years? have now had it for three years. There was a year of training. Well, little over. about three and a half, about three and a half years ago, right? Started my training. And I remember sitting down with the team saying, I know me, this is life or death. If I get in this airplane, I have to focus on this. Right. But Michael shoot me straight. Was it time? I was resistant at the time. Well, but for good reason. Yeah. And, and your resistance was

Right. Right. Because we had essentially the company didn't fall apart, but I wasn't there to see the problems because I was in an airplane training. Right. And during that season we had to restructure the company. Right. Yeah. I mean, all of these different things happened because I falsely thought that it was time for me to shift my focus on a dream, personal dream, personal passion. I don't regret

from the standpoint of, I'm glad that I my pilot's license. I regret it from the standpoint of it had a negative impact on my company because my focus wasn't ready to be shifted yet. I was probably a year away. Yeah. I mean, I'd say arguably this year would be the most yes, I would say to it. Probably. Just because. Good. Cause I'm starting instrument next week. True.

I've already forgotten about that. But I've also adjusted it to where it's not anywhere near our business hours. Right. And one and the commitment on it's a little different to very different. And then we have an actual plane versus when we didn't. All that being said, but like the status of our business, knock on wood status of our business right now. Like I was talking to Philip, which we found the podcast related to Google. He runs paid ads for us and he's good people. He is. And he was a key hire, honestly.

So, but we're, we're finally getting to that. But I was telling Phil today, even he agreed. He's like, I think we're at this point now where he can just start scaling. Listen, I walked in today and I just looking for stuff to go mess, mess around with because y 'all don't need me. This is what you need me for. Podcasts and, and, relationships brand and branding and that like, y 'all don't want me in your ads account. Can I do it? Can I do

Yes. Yeah, I can. Can I build a killer landing page? I'll build a pretty good landing page. I do. Like I know how to make one convert, but you have people that can do it better. got, even if they couldn't, what is my new favorite quote of all time? 80 % done by someone else is a hundred percent freaking awesome. I measure outcomes at this point. I don't have to be the secret. And by the way, neither do you at your clinic.

No one actually has to be the secret. Exactly. I think that's a huge misconception for business because a lot of people say I need to hire the not the what do you call them? Not the superhero, but basically the irreplaceable person. Yeah. What do you what's that phrase for them? Anyway, that's not real because if you hired the guru, we have guru guru guru in our world is like the irreplaceable high skill

this person will change everything. Right. Those don't exist or tried to hire those in the past. It has not gone well. They don't exist. Or if they do exist, there's such a liability for you. And that's why it's a disaster because the reality of it is you the with it. You get the ego with it. You get the, they're still human part, you know, and when you start peeling back the onion, you're like, you just figured out one or two things.

And you can totally, because a real guru, I'll air quote this, but a real guru is someone who's like, I'm pretty good this, but I'm more than happy to train people on what I know. That's right. That's the guru you want because that means they can just elevate the business, their seat. Right. Essentially. So keep that in your mind. Like, I need to hire this rock star doctor. That's going to just change my business. They're not going to, they're just going to be a pain in your rear. Yeah. they may be amazing too. The problem is, is it's flip of a coin. Well, we've had a,

clinic recently that, mean, not just this one clinic, we've had multiple businesses over the years, they had a key person that was part of their branding that people loved, fired. And now all that branding, all the love reviews stuff, it doesn't matter anymore. And so like they're having to rebrand a bunch of stuff because they based it on a hire. That's right. But going back to the focus, right? That follow one course until successful.

You know, I'll ask the question to you hypothetically. What what what's the girl in the red dress for you right

All right, what's one thing that if it improved would make a positive difference in your

What is the one thing that you can do that you can focus on that's going to improve your, your, your clinic? These are the things that I want you to ask yourself instead of what is the next service we can offer when we're only seeing 25 patients a day? What's the next location we need to get when we're only seeing 25 patients. It makes me think about the five whys. Yeah, go. love

So I mean, and this is a very simple, you're very good at it. Like I haven't done it in practice a whole lot, but I know you have. Well, let's practice in real time for our audience. no, not again. But real quick to kind of put the, how does this work? So at the end of the day, when you ask yourself a question, ask why five times. And usually by the fifth why, you really understand why are you doing this or why you're considering this or why is this important to you? So.

But ask away what you got. I was going to get you to ask me. Okay. What do you want me ask you about? Well, you go five wise on something. Show them what it's like. Okay. All right. Why do you want to be a pilot? I have wanted to be a pilot since I was eight years old and saw a top gun for the first time. And I wanted to live that kind of lifestyle. And just to be clear, plane ain't that fast. Why did you want to live that lifestyle? In all fairness, I thought it would be super freaking cool. Like the chicks would dig it and

if there was some status involved with it at the time. It's not there anymore, but at the time, why do I want to be a pilot today? Ooh, that's a good question. First of all, really, really love it. But more importantly, I was 42, 41, 42. I wanted to show my family, my children, my wife, and even myself that I can chase a new dream, even at this age.

Why did you want to show them that you could chase a dream? So that they can do it too. Like even my wife, my, my sons, my dad, anybody that's watching me, you're not too old, too young to anything to pursue something you're passionate about. why do you want to inspire? There's just more to life than making a dollar bill. I want people, I want people to live life and experience life, not exist.

Yes, myself included. Yeah. So I went from why, why did you want to become a pilot to, I want to inspire people to basically live a life and not just exist. Yeah. And I've never thought about that, you five wise, you helped me dig that out in real time. Yeah. So I feel like we should name part of this episode, the five wise, but I didn't get the five. So anyway, but that's the reality of, ask yourself, why, why are you trying to get a new service? Why are your

patient volume, not where you need them to be. Why are you not making the money or why are you trying to make more money? And then see what happens and make sure you do it with somebody. Don't just ask yourself. And it's okay for money to be the answer to that. I want to give you permission to say it's okay to make money and that to be the reason you're doing things. Cause money can also lead to certain types of freedom that you just honestly can't have without money.

And then there's also time back because you've grown enough money that you can bring on more people which didn't give you time back which gives you time back to your family. There's a great book I want to recommend called buy back your time. Yeah, yeah by Dan Martell. Yeah, by that's your goal. That's a good if time is your ultimate goal buy back your time is a perfect example. It is a mindset like you it's not just a decision like it's a full -blown. This is why I'm doing this. Yeah, anyway, yeah,

There you go. I've had a really good time on this podcast. I've been looking forward to cutting it. I've had focus on my mind for a while, but I've just been looking for the best opportunity to go ahead and put this out here. And you're going to need focus now more than ever because we're coming out of summer, going into school, going into holidays. We're not there yet, but we're right on the cusp. We're right on. We're about a month away before people start piling back into rooms together and passing along sickness. And you guys that are squirrely right now that, that are slow, you about to get busy. Yes. Absolutely.

All right. Well, listen, leave us a review. Five stars is awesome. share this episode with somebody, join our Facebook group, the walk -ins welcome community, and we will see you next week. See you, Michael.