S1 EP16 Who Do You Really Help? (And Why It Matters)

In this episode, Katie breaks down the second key foundation for building a clinic business that creates more time, more income, and more freedom: the “who”. She explains why marketing yourself as what you do (physio, osteo, sports massage, Pilates) can cause you to miss the vast majority of people who need your help, and how getting clear on who you serve (and the real problems they’re trying to solve) makes your marketing resonate and convert.

Main Topics Covered:

• Why marketing “what you do” can lose up to 95% of opportunities to help potential patients. 
• The difference between being everything to everybody vs becoming the obvious choice for the right people. 
• Understanding what your ideal patients are actually thinking before they ever search for a practitioner 
• Why people care more about outcomes than treatment modalities at the first touchpoint 
• How to “look through the letterbox” into your patient’s life and speak to their real-world worries and frustrations 
• The fear behind niching down, and why staying broad keeps your marketing invisible 
• Whether you can have multiple ideal clients, and why each one needs a separate marketing campaign 
• Why demographics aren’t enough, and how psychographics create stronger, more impactful messaging 
• How to start identifying who you most want to work with based on the clients that energise you 

A preview of next week’s episode: the “how” and solving problems creatively to create consistent income

Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you’re ready to attract the right patients and stand out in a crowded industry, start by getting clear on who you help best, and make sure your marketing speaks to their problems, not your job title.

Treat Your Business podcast is proudly sponsored by Klatch:
Results-driven marketing built for healthcare companies. Unlock sustainable growth and maximise ROI with data-driven digital marketing tailored to your business, backed by patient tracking software from search to revenue.

Find out more at https://www.klatch.co.uk

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: if we market ourselves as what we do, we're losing 95% of opportunities to help people and solve people's problems.

[00:00:11] Welcome to the Treat Your Business podcast, the show for clinic owners who want real, honest advice and tried and tested ways of doing things. I'm Katie Bell, and this is the new era of bigger insights and bolder conversations to help you grow a clinic and a life you love. Let's dive in

[00:00:29] [00:00:30] Welcome to this episode called The Who. Now, last episode, we talked about the why, and this is one of the key foundations that w- that we need in our business to make sure that we've got a business that's gonna create more time, more income, and more freedom. We talked about the why. We talked about getting clear about why we're running this business in the first place.

[00:00:52] Why not just not go and get a normal job? And I s- I promised that in the second episode we would talk about the second key foundation, [00:01:00] which is the who. If you're everything to everybody, you're nothing to nobody. And I want you to imagine as a patient of your clinic, or your practice, or your classes, that if you had 100 people lined up outside your clinic door all waiting to see you, and let's take, for example, they've all got back pain.

[00:01:20] Okay? And so it-- they've got problems or they've got a problem that you know you can solve, and if you went down that list [00:01:30] of people or that line of people and you said to each person, "What is it you think you need to solve the problem that you've got? To solve that back problem?" Okay? I'm just choosing that a- as a really common example.

[00:01:43] And you go through each person, they would probably say things like I probably just need to Google it," or "Maybe I need to do some videos or watch some videos on YouTube, get some exercises. Maybe I need to go and see the GP. Might take some pain relief." [00:02:00] Some of them might say, "Maybe I need to see a physio," or "Perhaps I need to, I don't know, do some Pilates.

[00:02:09] I've heard Pilates, it can help back problems, but I don't really know." So the point here is of all those 100 people, about 5 of them, 5% of them, will have an idea that you as the health professional are the person that they need to solve the problem that they've got. Okay? [00:02:30] Usually because, A, they've been to you before or they've been to somebody similar, another physio or another osteopath before, or they've been told you're what they need to solve the problem that they've got.

[00:02:44] Okay? 95% of those people in that queue have got no idea you are what they need. Now, this blows our mind as health professionals. Because we are physios and we are osteopaths and we are [00:03:00] massage therapists, we think everybody knows about what we do and the common thing is when you talk to somebody and you say, "Oh, I'm a physio," their instant thought is you run on a pitch with a bucket and a sponge.

[00:03:13] So they aren't clear about us being the health professional is what they need to solve the problem that they've got. Okay? So if we market ourselves as what we do, we're losing [00:03:30] 95% of opportunities to help people and solve people's problems. So this is really important when it comes to trying to work out our marketing strategy, which is what everybody wants to know.

[00:03:42] We've first of all got to figure out who is it that we can really help? What problems do our clients, our customers, our patients have that we can solve? And if we just market ourselves and we stick on our social media that, we're-- our physio opening [00:04:00] times, our clinic hours, our class times, we are assuming that all of those readers, those people that are digesting our information or scrolling through and looking for things, already know we are the solution.

[00:04:15] They don't. Part of our job is to understand who we can help, what problems people have, and therefore how we can solve them, and we've got to market that [00:04:30] rather than what we do. So for those of you who have a website or you use social media, or you've got any marketing out there, I want you to think about how much of that marketing is saying physio, sports massage therapist, osteopath myofascial release, acupuncture, dry needling soft tissue massage, cupping.

[00:04:53] Whatever treatment modality it is, the customer, at that first sort of touch [00:05:00] point, don't care what it is that we do. All they care is about what's in it for them. Can that person solve this problem? Can they get me out of the pain that I'm in and towards the pleasure, the solution, whatever it is that they're looking for?

[00:05:17] So when we're trying to be everything to everybody, and we're trying to say we're a physio or an osteopath or a sports massage therapist, and we just work with anybody, you're losing so many opportunities to help [00:05:30] people because it doesn't resonate with the conversation that's going on in their head.

[00:05:35] The conversation that's going on in, in our patient's head is, "I have got this most agonizing back pain, which is stopping me from getting out of bed easily in the morning. It's taking me at least twenty minutes to get going. I'm struggling to sit all day at work. I'm worried about having to take time off and how that will look in...

[00:05:55] and what my boss will think. I really don't want to take any more pain relief because it makes me feel [00:06:00] rubbish and makes me feel like I can't actually work or focus." They're worried that they can't get up and down off the floor or lift their baby out the cot. All of these are just examples.

[00:06:09] So when we're trying to figure out the who is it that we want to solve problems for, we've actually got to look like through the keyhole of their life, th- through the letterbox on their front door and looking into their life to see how does their pain and problems, and when I say pain and problems, we can talk about physical pain.

[00:06:29] We could talk about [00:06:30] emotional pain. We could talk about anxiety, stress, worries. All of that i- is included. How does that show up in their life? So if you were looking through the keyhole or looking through the letterbox and watching their life go on, f- let's take a footballer who has just injured his knee in a sliding tackle, okay?

[00:06:53] And you're looking through the keyhole or through the letterbox of their life, and this footballer is feeling [00:07:00] really low because they're missing out on training time. Fit- he's worried about his fitness declining. He is actually losing income because he's paid to play football, and that creates an income for his family, which actually means that they can he can provide extra-curricular activities for his daughter.

[00:07:20] So he could pay for ballet classes or whatever. So as a result of the knee problem, we've actually got the fact that he's worried about his income, [00:07:30] he's worried about his fitness, he's worried about getting back onto the football pitch. He's worried that he's gonna be dropped and he's not gonna be looked at again.

[00:07:37] He's worried that he might be dropping down to lower league football because of this injury. He's worried that this injury might be something that stops him from playing in the future. It might be something that he's worried that it's gonna reoccur. So can you see if we were looking through the letterbox into the, into his life, we can now really start to be able to resonate with all of those pains and problems that he's [00:08:00] struggling with Now, we know we can solve and we can help the knee problem.

[00:08:08] Okay? But we also know that as a result of solving the knee problem, we're going to make an impact on all of those other worries and concerns that client or that patient has. So if you're a physio or an osteopath or a chiropractor or a Pilates instructor do you really know who it is that you want to work with?[00:08:30]

[00:08:30] Do you really know what problems you can best solve? Or are you trying to be everything to everybody? Now, a part of why we often are trying to be everything to everybody is because we are running a business from a place of fear. We're fearful that if we actually niche down or get an avatar or get an ideal client, all of those words mean exactly the same thing, but if we actually s- if we actually stand up and say, "I [00:09:00] am an expert at working with women who ha- who are going through the menopause.

[00:09:06] That is my expertise," then what we worry about is all of those other people that we're losing out on, and are there enough people going through the menopause in my town that I could possibly help that's gonna create me the income and the opportunities that I want? So what we end up doing is thinking I could work with postnatal as well, and I probably could work with pregnancy, and I could probably work with antenatal, and I could [00:09:30] probably...

[00:09:30] In fact, I could just work with everybody." So we end up trying to be everything to everybody, and actually we're then nothing to nobody, and our marketing doesn't resonate with people. People want to stop the scroll. People want to look at... land on your website and instantly know, "This is exactly the right person that I need to help solve this problem that I've got."

[00:09:52] Now, I hear you ask, "Can I have multiple ideal clients? Can I have multiple 'whos' that I want to work with?" And the an- the honest [00:10:00] answer is yes, you can. Of course you can. But when it comes to creating marketing campaigns, we have to have completely separate ones for all of those. So we'd have a marketing campaign for ladies who are menopausal.

[00:10:14] We would have a marketing campaign for mums who have just given birth to their babies. We would have a separate marketing campaign for pregnancy because the problems and the worries and the concerns, if we were looking through that letterbox, [00:10:30] all show up differently for those three types of people.

[00:10:33] So if we have one piece of marketing that we try and communicate to all of those three people, we land... We don't resonate with anybody. We don't land with anybody. And therefore, those people reading that don't instantly think, "This is who I need to work f- who I need to work with. This is who I need to go and see."

[00:10:52] So yeah, you absolutely can advertise yourself as a physiotherapist. You can absolutely advertise yourself as a sports massage [00:11:00] therapist, but I want you to think about does your marketing and does what you put out there resonate with the types of problems people have that you know you can solve? Or are we too busy talking about how we help people, which doesn't land with anybody because nobody really knows, except for us as the health professionals, what people really need to solve the problems that they've got.

[00:11:24] They don't know that they need cupping. They don't know that they need three sessions of massage. They don't know that they need to do a 12-week kickstart [00:11:30] Pilates program. They just know they have this problem and they don't want it anymore. So people are driven away from pain towards pleasure.

[00:11:42] They're not often driven by the pleasure bit first. Okay? So they're not looking for 12 sessions of Pilates, they're looking to not have this limiting back problem that is meaning that they can't they can't run, [00:12:00] they can't do the things that they want to do. They can't go to the gym. They can't lift their baby out the pram easily.

[00:12:06] They can't play rugby. Whatever it is. That's what they're trying to move away from. So start thinking about how we create a market of one. How do we create it so that you are the supply to the demand? Because the demand is huge. Most people... I always think [00:12:30] this when I walk round a supermarket, and I absolutely hate supermarket shopping, but when I walk round, so many people, aren't they're hobbling or they're limping or they're...

[00:12:38] you notice that you think, "Oh my God, look how they're walking on those crutches," or what's going on with their shoulder as health professionals, we're constantly analyzing everybody's postures. But most people have got a pain or an injury or a problem that a lot of us can solve. Okay? Most people.

[00:12:57] And when you're [00:13:00] looking at all these people and you've got all of these problems and all of these opportunities to help solve them, the de- the demand for our services are absolutely huge. Okay? Particularly right now, it, with the crisis that the NHS are going through, people need our help. So and then I think why is it that so many businesses can't get the number of clients through the door that they want?

[00:13:22] And that is often because they're too busy promoting who they are and not what problems they can [00:13:30] solve So I want you to start thinking about who do I wanna stand up and say, "I am the expert at working with"? What am I really passionate about? If I could only treat one sort of problem or one sort of client, who is that?

[00:13:47] Think about your client list this week, and think about that standout person or standout people that you genuinely leave the session and you're buzzing because you've really made an impact. You've really made a big difference to [00:14:00] them and their lives and their health. That's where you want to start because when you've got that passion, when you've got that drive, it feels a lot easier than trying to shoehorn yourself into lots of different specialties.

[00:14:15] So the demand for our services are really high, but also we feel that there's a lot of competition out there. We feel like there's lots of physio clinics in our town, in our village. We feel like there's lots of osteopaths doing exactly the same as what we're doing. We feel like [00:14:30] there's loads of Pilates instructors.

[00:14:31] So why would anybody choose you over everybody else? In a later episode, we're gonna be start talking about standing out or standing down, and I'm gonna really dig into what I mean there. But ultimately, you have to stand out as the expert at working with something or somebody or some type of pain or problem.

[00:14:55] Okay? You may want to be the expert in the women's health [00:15:00] field, and you may want to niche down and say, "Actually, I am a specialist at working with ladies who are pregnant." It might be that you are gonna specialize in working with bodybuilders it, m- who are training for huge events. It might be that you want to specialize in working with athletes who have got a a- an injury that is preventing them from playing the sport that they love to do or love to play.

[00:15:27] Okay? So there's no right or wrong. You [00:15:30] can't choose wrong here when you're picking the right people to work with, but what you have got to try and do is start to become the expert at working with a certain type of of issue, pain, problem client. Okay? We can't just choose demographics. We can't just say I just wanna work with men," or, "Just wanna w- work with women," or, "I want to just work with children," or, "I want to work with old people."

[00:15:51] That's more demographics. We want to start thinking more about the psychographics. What anxieties, worries, concerns [00:16:00] are showing up in these people's lives that we know we can help solve? So the back pain, the knee problem, the shoulder pro- problem is just that top layer, and then we want to dig deeper and deeper and really look at how it is affecting their lives because that is when we can create impactful marketing because we can resonate with what's going on in our customers' minds.

[00:16:24] And when we understand that and we can resonate with that, we can create marketing that is going to jump out at [00:16:30] people and for people to realize that you are not just the same as everybody else. You are somebody that specializes or is an expert at working with And in the next episode, we're gonna talk about the how, because we're gonna create ways of working with people.

[00:16:48] We're gonna solve problems creatively so you can create consistent income, but you can facilitate the best possible results for your clients. So we're gonna talk about that in the next episode. [00:17:00] So in summary, we've talked about the why . We've really got to grips with why are we running this business in the first place?

[00:17:07] What has this business got to deliver, and how do we want the business to facilitate our lives? We've now talked about the who, and over the coming episodes, as I've said, we're gonna dig into all of these elements in a lot more detail, and I can give you actionable things to go and be able to figure this out.

[00:17:24] But I want you to think about, as a result of listening to this podcast who do I really want to [00:17:30] work with, and who can I become the expert at w- what can I stand out as in our field so that I'm not lost amongst all the competition, I'm not lost amongst all of the noise in the industry? 'Cause it is a really noisy industry.

[00:17:44] There is lots of people doing what we do, but there's only one of you, and how can you be different to what everybody else is doing? So if you're everything to everybody, you're nothing to nobody, so really go away and have a think [00:18:00] about who it is you want to be able to work with. Thank you so much for listening in.

[00:18:05] I look forward to talking about the how we can solve problems creatively to create more consistent income in our business.

[00:18:15] Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Treat Your Business podcast. Hit Subscribe now and keep joining me for bigger insights, bolder conversations to help you build a clinic and a life you [00:18:30] love.