Marketing Doesn’t Work (Until Ops Works)

0:10 Well, the graphic stays on the screen too long. That's pretty much it right there. Healthcare marketing doesn't work. Hello and welcome to the show that proves healthcare marketing doesn't work or does it if you pretty much do it right. Today's episode is for every clinic owner who has ever said marketing just isn't working. Before you fire your marketing person, wait, wait, wait. Before you cancel your ads, wait, wait, wait. Before you redesign your website for the sixtieth time, wait, wait, wait. What if the real problem actually is your operations? Because technology doesn't fix broken processes. It scales them. Turns out squaring a bad number is a bad number squared.

0:51 And Andrea had a perfect real world example just last week. I want you to start by telling the story about the blizzard and the email. This sounds like an emo band, the blizzard and the email. The blizzard of twenty six. So we had this historic blizzard here in the northeast, you know, three and a half feet of snow. So I somehow had two doctor's appointments scheduled for the same day. And one doctor was very proactive and called and was like, of course, we're closed. Like, let's get you rescheduled. Great, great experience. And another doctor, I reached out the day before I left a message. I didn't hear back. Totally understandable. People are trying to figure out like what to do with this crazy blizzard.

1:35 And so didn't end up hearing back for four days. But before that, I received a triggered email for a survey to let us know how your office visit was, which is not a huge it's not a huge deal. But but but I did not have an office visit. And if your email trigger for a for a survey is broken, what else is broken? Yeah. So the obviously the email trigger is the date like at one at two hours post or twenty four or twenty six hours post the visit trigger this sequence. Love the fact that using automation, whoever set that up was not paying attention to the processes.

2:19 Exactly. And this is super common. And these are the types of things I think that marketers get into, like the less glamorous. So you need to get in there and make sure the trigger so it should be appointment completed is the trigger and then add like twenty four hours or two hours or whatever you decide to do. Like we used to I know there were times where we would the trigger would be an hour later, whatever it is like you need to make sure that the appointment actually happened. Yeah. How do you make sure that if this was an organization you were working with, how do you like specifically you? Do you want me to go first? Because I have a thing that I do. OK, I mean, I can go first and then you can you can fill in what I've missed or just give me a completely different idea.

3:01 So how do I make sure this doesn't happen? So this is where marketing and ops need to be really closely aligned. And this is a process issue. And then there's the technology piece that layers on top of the process. So we start with like, what are we trying to solve? What is the experience we are going for? Hey, we need to understand if people had a good experience. So we're going to send them a survey. When should we send them the survey? Let's lay that out. Here's what the survey sounds like. Beautiful. Now there's the technology piece on top. And you and I, Jimmy, we both know Technology within healthcare settings is a little wonky and we can't always integrate. But what needs to happen is, of course, this lives in the EMR.

3:42 The EMR needs to be integrated with something. So it's either a marketing automation or it's a survey tool or maybe your EMR company has this within it, which would be great. And so that needs to be set within whatever technology you have for that. I go lower tech than that. I sign up as a user for every, for if, if someone calls me as like, Hey man, can you do a deep dive on my marketing? I go, no problem. And then I go to their, I immediately go to their website and I'm like, do you have a newsletter? Do you have a podcast? Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you have an Instagram? Do you have, can I, and then I go and I try to book an appointment. Like right away. I want to see what happens.

4:23 Like I want to see, and I have like a burner email for this because otherwise I would be getting just ungodly. I am the guy who signs up for every list, but I want to see like warts and all. Did you know your link is broken? Had no idea. Because no one's going to tell you that. No one is going to tell you that unless they're gigantically pissed, right? But if the link to book the thing is broken, you'll never know. You'll never know because they can't tell you it's broken. So I go and I play like a petulant three-year-old and I just go, I don't know how it works. Oh, there's a book. You can book an appointment on our website. I don't see it.

5:03 I don't see it. Where? Is it obvious? Is it a different color? Is it in the top right? If the answer isn't yes, yes, yes, that's wrong in my opinion. So I go and play with everything and I want to act like a big dumb idiot and then see if I can figure it out and then see if these things happen. You're exactly right. I'm doing that with a client right now, a new client. And that's like the first step to get in there and put yourself in the consumer's shoes. Because what happens is when you're within an organization, you are so far removed. You're like, great, we have a website. You can sign up online. Yeah, of course, you can just book online. But you are not going through this process. And it's been a long time, probably, since you've even paid attention to this process.

5:45 I think somebody had it. This is about recruiting, but recruiting is marketing too. Newsflash, marketing is a horizontal, not a vertical. Or if it's a vertical, it's an L. It's a vertical and a horizontal. I think his name is Joel. He's like this great recruiter on LinkedIn and just calls it like it is. And he says, I think every six months, a CEO should have to go through their own application process. I think that's I don't know if I wrote about this or if I just in my mind dreamed about it, like dreamed about it. It's it's marketing. Recruiting is marketing. So any digital experience or any experience that someone has with your brand is marketing.

6:27 And as someone who has applied for jobs in the past, I think it's crazy. Like besides the fact you need to create a username and a password and then two factor authenticate and then you're answering like twenty five different um questions and you're like why am i spending my after i upload my resume and then it's why am i uploading the resume and then manually putting in when from date year from month year two month year that i worked for these places knowing that no one's reading this it feels like health care paperwork no one's reading it anyway what are we doing yes that's an operations problem So this is also, this brings up something that's like a side quest on this.

7:15 That first doctor said, obviously, we're closed because this is bananas, right? It's a blizzard. It's a blizzard of twenty six. The other place like was closed, like let's or didn't answer. Let's say they were open. Where does Andrea stand on the great debate for cancellation fees like cancellation? What are what are we doing here? I don't know the right. There is no right answer, which makes it for a great topic. So cancellation fees in the instance of this blizzard is what you're saying. Well, yeah, but also a sunny Tuesday in May. Like, where are we living? Is it twenty four hours notice? Is it if you don't show up, it's on you? Like if you bought a ticket for the John Mayer concert and you don't show up, you lose the money for the John Mayer concert.

7:56 I have to say, so I take a very business. I'm usually like put the consumer at the center. I take a very business mindset when it comes to and my husband's in private practice. He's a mental health therapist, not a physical therapist. And I'm constantly like, dude, you need to implement a cancer. And it's hard, right? Because when you are a clinician, you're helping people. And so you don't want to. So my stance across the board is always like, and then you are being charged. That being said, there are exceptions to this. And that's where you sort of like training comes in. And it's like, whoever's answering the phone you need to have a standard operating procedure that goes like twenty four hours you're going to be charged x dollars that being said if there are some circumstance like life happens you know and so you're not going to charge someone who had some serious situation or whatever that prevented them but you sort of have to make that call to go like is someone lying and you know so it's really really tricky Yeah, I mean, I like it.

9:01 I mean, there have to be exceptions, right? If you're in healthcare and the person has issues and the person needed to go to... I mean, how many phone calls I had when my dad had a stroke and it was like, you missed your appointment. I'm like, my dad... Could not get out of bed physically. What do you want me to do? Charge me, bro. Good luck with that. But understand that this is healthcare and that people who are in your system are by default have an issue. Most of the time, there could just be people with regular maintenance. But there have to be exceptions to this. But there have to be lines drawn because no margin, no mission. right if you're just if you're a bleeding heart you have what i call in healthcare the peace corps gene i love that about you but you will not have a roof or a staff or electricity if you don't draw a line somewhere you're exactly right and you know and i will like i know that and when i called to cancel my appointment and no one answered i didn't position it as i was canceling i called and asked um i was just wondering if you guys are going to be open tomorrow because i was not going to be you know being hit with a cancellation fee because there were three feet of snow outside that's good that's smart right which is like i'm calling but also you let what what was this that you left a voicemail what is that can you tell me about that technology how does that work Exactly.

10:20 I don't know. I don't think it worked because it took four days for a human to call me back and then we're now at the point. Well, first of all, everything's bananas because we're still using faxes. But at the same time, we're leaving voicemails, which went away real fast, too, because we're like, is this going into the void? Or like a smart ops marketing experience would be, hey, at the beep, leave your message just so you know it's being transcribed and being sent to the person on call. Like, just tell me it's going to a person and that person is going to read it and will react to me or else I'm going to do what ninety nine percent of everybody else does, which is hang up and then look for an email address or something to message in.

11:03 Right. yes yes yeah and that's that's if if your phones aren't being answered by ai yet which is a distinct possibility exactly yeah all right so the blizzard of two uh uh has taught us a few lessons one is pay attention to your automation operations my suggestion is be a user and jump into that and say how does this work does this work how does this work now how does it work when it snows how does it work when there's a power outage As Jessica points out, failing to plan is planning to fail. Going Coach Wooden on us. I did not see a UCLA basketball coach Wooden mention. It's so true. And it all comes back to putting the patient at the center, right?

11:48 That's what it comes down to. And the other doctor who was better, that still wasn't. I had a voice message from them saying, saying hey we opened up wednesday afternoons to take care of our people who need to reschedule and i was like oh this is great i called back and they're like yeah i don't see that no anywhere we're booking into july and i was like oh no that's a whole different i'm not prepared for that topic of what to do now because because i mean that was brought up a lot um hey we're closed on tuesday for a blizzard hey clinicians prepare to work more on friday and like that sucks Not ideal. You know, I came from radio broadcasting. When we didn't do radio on Tuesday, we could only do twenty four hours of radio on Friday.

12:31 We didn't do twenty four hours of radio on Friday. But this is a real thing. And I think this is where the clinician and the owner or the operator or the finances need to understand, like we're set up to pay you from. Now, I will say, if you're in operations, you need to think like an elementary school principal. You got to build in some snow days. You got to build in some cush, right? And act as if the world is going to world. And if you're just like, everything's going to be great. We're never going to have a snow day. You're going to get slapped across the face because, Jessica, failing to plan is planning to fail. That's right. Coach Wooden comes in again.

13:11 So understand what those things are. I would say this is big in hiring. Like, ask what happens if we get a day where we're not open? What happens to me, the clinician? What happens to the organization? What am I responsible for? Yep. All right. Next topic after the blizzard. You tipped us off. You said everything is marketing. And I agree. I just think it's funny that we look at that because that's the lens we look at the world. But I sort of think it's true. And I'm going to treat it as true until someone proves and someone markets me otherwise. And that's in direct-to-consumer healthcare. Everything is marketing. Your front desk is marketing. Your response time is marketing.

13:52 The vibes on the phone are marketing. Are you annoyed? That's marketing. Why are you annoying the phone? Your waiting room is marketing. Your cancellation policy is marketing. Did I tell you about my friend who has a nonprofit called Man Cave Health? No. So Man Cave Health essentially is under the premise. Every organization has to have like a guiding light or should. And it needs to be clear. And this is, it's just plain wrong in twenty twenty six that men, especially men of color, because they're three times more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. And the problem is we have testing for it. And it's not drop your pants anymore. It's roll up your sleeve.

14:32 So it's a blood test that takes ninety seconds instead of something uncomfortable with two digits. Right. It's not that anymore. This is too late. If we got rubber glove and fingers, it's a little too late. Now we have biomarkers and blood and yada, yada, yada. So like this is a thing. So how are we solving this problem? We need to tell people about it. And telling people about things is Andrea. It's marketing. Marketing. So Man Cave Health, the idea came from this guy on Long Island who went through prostate cancer, survived, and was like, this is part of my legacy. I'm going to do this. and they started redesigning the waiting rooms at like urology departments like the proctology doctors and they made them leather couches and football jerseys and espn on loop and made it feel i mean there weren't there wasn't bourbon and cigars i guess although i don't like cigars anyway but it made it feel like a man cave like welcome and then there is an outreach of they go do tailgates at sporting events where men particularly men of color already are and they go and they have and my buddy who runs this chris came from adidas he's an adidas marketing guy so what does his swag look like on point like so everybody's like yo yo yo yo where's that hat like oh they're for free over here just come talk to us for and then the discussion happens The bait is the hat.

15:56 The hook is know your numbers. I love that because I can tell you the batting average of a random player on my favorite team in June, but I don't know what my prostate cancer numbers are. That's the disconnect. You take better care of your car than you do your body. And that's not okay. That's true. Not okay. But now it's not a finger. Now it's roll up your sleeve. Anyway, so everything is marketing. We've discussed this. When you say everything is marketing, Andrea, because you have said this, what do healthcare leaders in organizations misunderstand about that? Because if the leader doesn't believe us marketing yahoos, it doesn't get funded or supported or followed through.

16:38 So what do the leaders misunderstand about marketing? Oh, boy. How much time do we have, Jimmy? It's forty five minutes. Forty five minutes. No. So what do they misunderstand? Like what? So what I mean by that and so what leaders need to understand about everything being marketing is every touch point with a consumer is marketing, like you said, whether it's their waiting room or the way they answer the phone or whatever that may be. And I think. you know the misunderstanding is i think marketing is just misunderstood in general and so marketing is this hard thing to grasp it's like oh well it's ads or it's a website or it's whatever it may be but it's like no marketing is everything you're doing within like interacting with people that you want to be your customers and then keep them your customers.

17:24 And so I think that's sort of the it's the some people think about marketing is like, let's run some ads to get people in the door. But it's the that is marketing. But it's the end to end. Once someone's my customer, how do I then keep or patient? How do I keep them make them happy, want them to tell other people about us, whether it's their friend or someone on Facebook. And so it's really that sort of end to end piece. And so it's not just ads. It goes across its operations. It's clinical. I mean, it's all of it. And I don't remember if I've talked on here about it. You know, I worked many, many years ago with a health care brand that had a lot of locations. And one thing I did was I went and audited the patient experience and I pretended to be a patient.

18:05 Cash pay. So don't get me in insurance trouble here. But and oh, this was the doctor. You know, your Google search is is not worth as much as my degree. And so, you know, the way a doctor or provider interacts with a patient is marketing. Like if I feel like I'm being misunderstood or they're gaslighting me or they're like rushing me through or something like that, like that's marketing. I don't want to come back. So it's all of it. And I think that is that is sometimes misunderstood. Yeah. I would say that where are the ads? Where's the funnies? Where's the YouTube video? My niece, who's nineteen, says our Instagram page sucks.

18:46 Can we make it cooler? And it's like, you know, we've known each other for a year or two, right? If we ever played poker, I would tell you, I probably wouldn't tell you, but like you have a tell. And I've seen it. It's very clear. I don't know if your husband knows this. He must. I'm sorry. He knows. Yeah. Here's your tell. When someone comes to you and is like, problem, potential solution. People always run into a marketer's office with a giant thing that needs to be done now or else the world ends. And then they fling it at you and they leave. your tell is this, like someone's like, Hey, we got to increase inbound leads and we got to change the website to do it.

19:28 We got to run ads and we have no budget. And your, your tell is this like you're a big inhale and hold for like a hot second. And then cause you're like, I can see it. You're like, you're like, um, you're like Zach Galifianakis in, uh, what's the movie where they go to Vegas on the bachelor party? Um, uh, yeah. Oh my God. Hangover. Hangover. Yeah. and he's like got the math and he's doing that yeah that means he goes and he's playing blackjack turns out he's a g i can see you doing that because i do the same thing that's why that's why i can spot it because it's like okay where's the actual problem have we fixed this already? And you just don't know.

20:08 Let's start with that. Like, isn't it a problem we have already addressed? If not, where do we start? Do we have the resources? Which project would you like me to pause to now take? I can only fight one fire at a time. That's how fire trucks work. Right. Only one at a time. So I think the thing that most healthcare leaders are is they don't understand it. Like, where is it? And I see this a lot now. Go just for funsies, go to Indeed and Google like director of marketing and then scroll down and go to responsibilities. Oh, it's... I got into it with someone in the comments. This was an APTA state chapter who was looking to pay someone to be a director of marketing for them.

20:54 And then the list of things they needed to be able to do was... an entire team. And I literally wrote, my response was, if you find this person, I'll work for that person for free just to learn how to do all that shit. Right. Because it wasn't one job. It's SEO, it's web design, it's strategy. Now, can a good director of marketing... handle all those problems absolutely understanding that out of the twelve things you want me to be able to do i can do six of them myself b plus or better that's what you're asking for right and then can i hire or freelancers that can do A, B, and C?

21:42 Do you need a full-time web designer? No, you're going to hire that person for a job and it's going to be done. So I don't need to know web design. Why is that on my list? Do I need to understand what your website needs to do and what it doesn't do? Yes, different. So this is the biggest tale of all in showing of the cards. You don't get it. Because I see your job descriptions and they are bananas. It is bananas. Also, Jimmy, we've known each other for three years. What's my tell? No, I don't know your tell. It's maybe similar. And when I'm taking the deep breath, I'm also regulating my nervous system. Oh, I bet. Yeah, because it's not easy. But I'm doing all of those things that you said. And it's the same thing, right? And it's because you want to solve the real problem.

22:25 And so you're not just reacting. We both do the same thing because you're exactly right. You go, what is it that you're actually trying to solve? What is it that I need to pause to actually get there? Because it's not just like... create an Instagram account because your niece said, it's like, let me pull back and go like, who are we trying to target? What else are we doing? What's the right message? Who's going to do this for us? Who's creating the content? Why is this going to add value? And so on and so on and so on. Yeah, it's it's simple. It's just not easy. I mean, I explained to people like people know me and they're like, oh, you were a radio DJ. I'm like, I was. Yes. And then I got promoted to program director, which means I got to run the radio station. So everybody's like, so you got to pick all the songs.

23:06 And I was like, sort of. Yes. But I actually put someone else in charge of that because that's called delegation. But I did that job for a while. Finally, I started saying, what does your job entail? If someone actually ever bothered to ask. And I was like, do you listen? This is years ago. Do you listen to radio station? They go, yes. I go, I'm responsible for everything you see in here. And they're like, that feels like a lot. I go, yeah. Yeah. That's why I get paid the medium bucks. Because I'm responsible for everything. And by seeing here, when I started in radio, websites for radio stations were like sort of just being taken seriously. They'd been a thing, but now it was like serious.

23:46 Now it was like, oh, we need a digital presence. What's that? So I had to sort of figure that out with my colleagues when a digital presence wasn't a digital presence. When social came around, I had to be like, I think we should embrace this. And everybody's like, this is stupid. It's going to be gone in two weeks. And I'm like, it looks like it's still here. I saw that going. I don't know what this is. I'm not trying to say I'm Nostradamus, but it's going to be a thing. Why? Because everyone's losing it. Exactly. That's why. So I think the disconnect here can really screw up marketing. And you've said this before, marketing in the C-suite, if you're at the C-suite level, has the shortest tenure because expectation and reality, expectation and...

24:27 actually being able to deliver on what you think it is probably isn't a skill issue or you picked the wrong person. You expected something and got something else. Exactly. My lead all the time is, what's good look like when we're done here? And when they're like, it's this. I'm like, I'm not starting this. That's not possible. We're not going to hit that. And then you're going to be mad at me. And it's not because I'm not... Usually, overwhelmingly, we can do that. I am. I've actually started dialing it back because I'm like, in six months, you're going to look at me and look at the scoreboard and go, how come that didn't happen? I'm going to go, well, I sort of knew it wasn't going to happen in the beginning because that's bananas. I thought we were both on the same page that this was aspirational, right?

25:07 Telling your nine-year-old you're going to be a gold medalist. Am I in for the ride? Yes. Do I think it's going to happen? Absolutely. When it doesn't, am I pissed? No. But what are we signing up for and what does good look like needs to be defined before you take the job. setting expectations. I mean, it's that's the disconnect, right? Like that's, and it's hard to in marketing, because sometimes you just don't know what you don't know, like, you don't know what you're going to encounter. And so in my day to day, I may think I'm going to solve like this week, I may think I'm going to solve this big thing. And then someone brings to my attention that our patient experience, you know, involves sending out a survey when someone hasn't had a visit. And then I go, Hey, ops, we need to work on this together. And that's, that's marketing.

25:49 Yep, agreed. And we have to stay. I mean, this is where you should almost like talk yourself out of a job, like get to the know as quickly as possible, maybe because if you hire me, I mean, we both know a situation I was put in where I like eight insane jobs. I was put in charge of like, you're going to revolutionize social. I don't know what that means. What does revolutionize? I made everything Spanish. Congratulations. It's now revolutionized. What? You're also going to work in M&A. I've never done that, but okay. You're going to revolutionize talent acquisition. Okay. No experience in that, but here I am. I got boots. Let's put them on. Let's get to work. So being able to be realistic and push back a little bit and be like, does this feel like one job or seven?

26:32 Right. Yeah. Because you're not doing seven jobs, you're doing one. Why am I tasked with seven? I can do one job well. I can half-ass seven things or I can whole-ass one thing. Which one do you want me to do? I like to whole-ass things. All right, let's zoom out. You've said before that you're not competing with the clinic down the street, or I should say just the clinic down the street. You're competing with Amazon, banking apps, DoorDash, TV, podcasts, everybody else's life, their kids, their problems. And healthcare is complex. Access doesn't have to be, or I said, shouldn't have to be. How many, you know, ask yourself, how many clicks does it take to book an eval at your clinic?

27:17 Can someone book without calling? Can I do it without my hands? Do I need to print forms before I come? You have a printer. Isn't this part of the service? Do you answer the phone live? All these things are friction. If ordering groceries to my hotel... When I go on business trips... power move. If I'm there for more than three days, I do a DoorDash order and I'm like, apples, Starbucks in the bottle. I know it's like, oh, it's a hundred dollars. I go, you know what one meal at the hotel restaurant is? It's four million dollars. So I'm like, juice versus squeeze. But understanding if ordering groceries is easier than booking an appointment, that's not a marketing issue.

27:58 That's friction, except I learned this great quote. You might like this. It might not be my fault, but it is my problem, which is I didn't pick what app we're using that sucks. That's not my fault, but it is my problem. And I can bitch about it or I can do something better than bitching about it, which is, I don't know, bitch, but strategic strategy. So what are the biggest friction points you see in we'll go with direct to consumer health care right now? Where does the friction lie? Where are the bottlenecks? Where are the big ones? So if I still can't book an appointment without calling, that is a huge friction point because I'm not going to do it.

28:38 Like I am just, I'm not, and I will go, I'll scroll right down to the next one and go, can I, and I've done this recently. That's a huge friction point. And it's not because people don't want to pick up the phone or they're lazy or they're not comfortable. Like you are just, I just talked with a prospect about this recently. Like, you know, moms, depending on what, part of healthcare you're in, but we can just zoom back and say not even moms, women, right? Like women are the primary healthcare decision makers, they are scheduling appointments, they're doing the research, they're doing the whole thing. And then if you are targeting a mom, right? So I'll just speak for myself, for example, I am doing things on my phone when I'm making dinner, when I'm literally at a stoplight going, oh shoot, I forgot to do that, I forgot to schedule that appointment, and then I'm online and I'm scheduling the appointment.

29:26 um but even if you're not that busy right like you just want the ease of being able to go oh shoot it's eleven o'clock at night i finally stopped working for the day i'm like relaxing or whatever you're doing like i need to be able to schedule that so that's a huge friction point um and i think what happens is and you know this right like organizations will often create the experience based on their internal process rather than have their internal process fit the patient experience that's not like that is not a good excuse and so like you said like it's not my fault but but it's my problem so if if we have these tools to help our people but it's actually not working because like oh it didn't plug into the emr or it's not plugging into the email to like trigger that like okay sorry but figure it out like figure out what tool is actually going to get us there solve the problem right solve the problem if that's that's that's the problem Um, I did a series on Instagram yesterday.

30:26 This is what I do. Like if I'm like on a lazy Sunday, I had a hockey game. I still play like forty year old man hockey and I'm like, I got to rest. I don't want to pull a hammy. So I'm sitting around watching TV, which is something I don't normally do. And then I don't really watch TV. I have TV on and then I'm playing with other things. I did a video. I did a series of seven videos while I was watching TV yesterday. I played around with Seven ways to flip healthcare recruiting a hundred eighty degrees. Like let's revolutionize it. Even though I've not, I've been in healthcare recruiting, but not primarily. I've been in marketing and part of the marketing motion was healthcare recruiting, right? So I was like, I don't know, let's go bananas and let's have fun.

31:07 And did I play around with AI and push it? And it gave me fifty ideas and I go, great, now give me the top seven, rank it by virality, rank it by things people are going to be pissed at me for saying because it's wrong and you can't do that, right? And then I made quick videos, you know, minute and a half long videos explaining the idea and why I was on the list. And then I did a countdown from seven to one. And one had to do with something that you just said, which is if a clinician wants to work for, if a clinician, if you have someone in front of you, and let's be very clear right now in twenty twenty six, there are more openings than there are clinicians. Twenty five years ago, you had to you had to crawl through broken glass to get a job. And whatever they offered, you said, yes, it is not the case now.

31:51 Sorry, it's flipped. But your processes haven't. So one of my suggestions was really show it like a whole first hold up a mirror like you just did, which is if a clinician says, I want four tenths and you're like, that doesn't fit with our system, you have a shitty system that can't adapt. I need three twelves. I need school season hours because my kid ranks higher on my to-do list than you. Sorry, bro. Like I think even the video, maybe this, I didn't leave it in. When we were in high school, you know, when you're teaching kids about working hard and being on a team, you're like, hey, the name on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back.

32:36 And I'm like, is it though? Because my family name is on the back and this company name is on the front. So sorry, I need you to quite literally turn it around and understand I work for this team, not this team. I hang out. I work for this team because I work. I own that team. So if you can't adapt your processes, if one person coming in and being like, I want to do four tens and you're like, we don't do that. and you're confused why more people aren't dying to work for you, I need you to look at your internal processes and say, the process works for the person, not the other way around. If you're in healthcare too, this is what the Americans with Disabilities Act is.

33:17 Well, there's the door. Yeah, there's no ramp. It doesn't work for me. You make it for the person. The person doesn't just get out of their wheelchair and crawl on their hands up the stairs like they did in DC X number of years ago. But we still operate like that. Make it make sense. I can't make it make sense. It doesn't make sense. That's exactly how we operate. And I think one is it's maybe old school thinking. Two is like they're just not paying attention to the reality. And it's like, if you want to work for us, this is what it looks like. Two options. Those are the options. And people are now, I mean, it's the same thing with like remote, right? So as a physical therapist, you can't work remotely. But as a person who works in, I guess you could.

34:00 Yeah. But as a person who works in corporate typing on a computer a lot of the time, I can. So why do I need to go be in your office and commute one hour each way when I could get probably more done and be home to see my children and get them off the school bus? I boil this down because I have smart friends. This is why I appear smart. It's all it's all an act. It's all a gag. But you boil everything down to an emotion. If I'm not good at delegating, I feel like I'm losing control and that makes me feel anxious. So I say, you have to sit in front of me. Hearing you say you want this, I have to change my processes. That triggers anxiety.

34:41 I don't do it. I say no. And then I justify it with a story. These kids today don't want to work. right? No, they just don't want to work in your dumb system because it's dumb and it doesn't make your thing or my thing better. It makes no one's thing better. Right. It just makes you not be able to breathe over my shoulder and walk into my office twenty five times a day and change my direction of what I'm working on. I'll give you an example. The process of scheduling music for a radio station was pretty manual when I was doing it on purpose. Like we wanted a human to touch it. It's just dumb. It's a radio thing. I don't know. But we took pride in it. It was my job. I was the music director at one point.

35:23 I had to sit at the radio station and I could have just blown through it and done it crappy, but I sort of liked doing good at my job. I wanted people at any point, my boss could just went backwards and be like, why'd you do that? Why'd you do that? And I wanted to be able to be like, I did it. I did a good job. I wanted to do a good job. I got paid. I wanted to do a good job. Right. I had to sit at the radio station after I was done working and do that job. It was sort of tedious. It was a DOS-based program. Kids, go Google that if you want shitty user experience. That's all we had. That's all we had, right? I actually just watched War Games with Matthew Broderick yesterday, and that's all based on DOS-based computers. I digress. Good stuff.

36:04 myself and the other music director for the other radio station in the building were like, can we have this program put on our laptops so we can do this at home? So I could start dinner or go hit the gym because radio stations are a big fan of having their next day's worth of music done before you leave for the day. But I can't leave now, but I got shit to do. And we were told no for like years. And I was like, I'm okay with no, as long as you give me a good reason. Because supposedly, we're both adults. And if you treat me like a child, guess who I'm going to act like? Right. Act like a petulant three-year-old. And then guess what happened after like four or five years of me just questioning this?

36:46 They allowed it. They allowed it. But why did we do it five years ago? Because I don't want to. I'm in charge. I'm in charge. Why? Because they were nervous. Well, it's slippery slope. What are you going to do next? Record your radio show from home? Hey, you know where a large majority of the radio you listen to is recorded? In that guy's home. They're just taping it. It's called voice tracking. It's been around for decades. And now there's one dude in New York doing twenty eight stations across the country. And we're there already. Yeah. So everything boils down to fear. Why will I not allow it? Fear, fear, fear, fear. So my point in the series was take a crazy, take a problem in recruiting.

37:27 I just picked recruiting. focus on that one problem and quite literally be like how this is the formula how do we do it now like this great what would happen if we just did like whoop this and for the podcast listeners i just turned it over i did i think number oh number two was if andrea works for a pt clinic or whatever and jimmy's applying the interview is now structured like this jimmy we've got an hour that you structure the interview. You are interviewing me. Like quite literally be like, I have no questions. I will have questions after you ask me. Here's a simulate. Here's what we're looking for. Like give them some information because this is a one hundred and eighty degree idea. What do you want to know?

38:09 I'm not selling anything. I make suggestions, you make decisions, right? So it was turn the application process completely around. Be like, okay, the power dynamic has shifted, but your interview is still the same. Hey, you know, ruffling some papers. What's your biggest weakness? I swear to God, someone asked me what my biggest weakness is in a job interview. I'm going to go, hey, thanks so much. I appreciate it. You've told me everything I need to know about you. Or why you need to pay me double because your shit is broken. Because if that's your thing, Andrea, everything is marketing. Everything is marketing. Want to hear my number one bananas suggestion? Let's hear it. I should tell the audience, go to Instagram and scroll to the number one video.

38:53 I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to tell it to you because I don't do surprises, right? Number one was... I don't have any food or drink with me, but since whatever year, we have to put ingredients, recommended daily allowances, serving size. There is... a label on every single thing that the Food and Drug Administration says a human is going to put in their body. I know exactly what's in it. I know how much sugar. I know this, all the things. I got to be a master scientist to figure out what a job is like. Patient expectation. Can I do three twelves? Can I do this? I have to ask forty seven people to get this information.

39:36 Imagine you having to make three phone calls to find out what the serving size is on Doritos. That would be batshit bananas. But that is how we treat. A job offer in twenty twenty six still. So I said the company that is just like here it is. It's got some great parts. It's got some shitty parts. Do the math. That's what we're doing anyway. Oh, look, the job is a job. It's got some shitty parts to it. That's why we give you the money. That's what the money is for. Exactly. That's why you're getting paid for it. Right. But all of them do. But we're all used car salesmen going, I don't talk numbers on the phone. Your presence is your power. Your presence is your leverage.

40:17 No, it's not you dumb ass. It's the fact that you have a job open and I have a license. That's my leverage. And you've had that job open for six months post. And I want to look right in the camera when I say this post salary in the damn post. Oh, my goodness, Jimmy. I was just thinking about this. So what is it? Colorado is like it's a law. It has to be. So if you have a remote job. in theory if you're letting people from i think it's colorado apply you need to just post it for all to see so uh if i see a job that's remote and it doesn't have a salary requirement i'll report it because like why would yeah sure this sounds great but let's be honest i'm working because i would like to get paid i'm not working because your job description sounds great like what about wait a minute andrea what about the stock images of happy people next to them how great would that be how great would that be oh god i can't wait till this happens if i ever go on a job interview for marketing what am i do you have any questions andrea we're on that job you're high you're potentially hiring me and you're it's that point go ahead uh jimmy do you have any questions Absolutely.

41:27 I appreciate you asking. I got a few, so I'm going to just run through them here. So did a pretty deep dive on your website. It's pretty user-friendly. The guy, the man, the woman on this page, can I talk to them? Well, I'll have to talk to the marketing team. I'm not sure where they got that image from. Do they work here? Are they real people? Are those stock images? Those are stock images. Oh, so you guys don't value authenticity. Well, you know me too, Jimmy. Are there any other places in your business that you don't value authenticity? No, of course not. So just that. I just happened to find the one place where you fake stuff. Got it. Understood. And I'll tell you why, Jimmy. It's just too expensive to do a photo shoot and I would never give marketing that kind of budget.

42:10 Understood. So what would the budget, what would the resources be for someone like me if I were to be the best candidate for this? Well, we need to figure, we will talk about that. So you have no idea. You have decided to hire someone with KPIs and targets and projects, but have no idea how much gas you're going to give them to drive to that target. You know, it's really complicated, Jimmy. We need to talk to the CFO. So the CFO makes marketing decisions? Well, the CFO manages the budgets. You know, it's tricky. It's really tricky, Jimmy. You know, there's revenue that comes in and then, you know, we need to like... Understood. I understand real world constraints. Can I ask you this? If the CFO decides my budget is half of what I think it is and I miss my KPIs, am I held accountable or is the CFO?

42:56 Oh, no, you're held accountable, Jimmy. Understood. Understood. Okay. That sounds reasonable. It's not the CFO's fault. Awesome. Could I make a suggestion? Could we hold those two people who are in stock images accountable? Because it seems like we put them on our website. But do you see how insane sometimes this conversation is? And now people listening think we're totally, you know, beyond. But we're having this internal monologue. This is it, right? Internal monologue while we're doing this batshit crazy dance. It's a dance. It's a dance. I'll tell you, I was on a job interview like maybe six months ago. And the question was asked, like, what is your salary requirement? And I said, well, what is this job pay?

43:39 I'm not going to share my salary requirement. Right. And they're like, well, could you give us a ballpark? And I'm like, can you give me a ballpark? I mean, I didn't get the job. Should have yelled out. Spoiler alert. Dodger Stadium. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were just naming ballparks. You have the job. You decide. I decide if I want to do all those things for the monies. You're not going to make me dance for my supper. Sorry. Put it on the description. At least a starting point, a range. Right. We understand the dumb dance you have to do to buy a car. MSRP. which is the dumbest acronym ever. Cause it's never what you pay. It's not suggested, not suggested.

44:20 Do not do that. That's a great starting point. There's this guy I follow on Instagram. I don't even like cars. I just love watching him talk to these people. Like we're talking now in circles. It's another story for another day. But when I used to have a Jeep Wrangler before I had kids, well, until my second child. And then I was like, I can't fit you both in here. So I had to buy a big mom car and another story for another day. But I spent seven hours at the dealership Just grinding them down. And finally, I was like, oh, by the way, I have a when I got them down to their number and I was like, I have a car to trade in. And they're like, well, that was our first question. And I was like, oh, sorry, I wasn't going to trade it in at the time. But now I know, you know, it was it was fun.

45:01 It was a lot of fun. How great. All right. So the next, this would be a great video. How about this? I got my buddy Drew, who's a videographer. The next time I have to buy a car, I am going to look up what time the dealership opens. Eight AM, eight thirty. I am going to show up with Drew and a cooler filled with breakfast, lunch, and a possible dinner, drinks, comfortable chairs, a laptop with TV shows on it and be like, I can outlast you. I'll ask you. Because think about how much I can save and divide that by eight hours of time. It's worth it. It's worth it. I'm paying myself more than a few hundred dollars an hour by getting a better deal.

45:44 So if your game, if your biggest strategy is just grind him down. He's got an appointment. I want to walk in and be like, I got nothing to do today and tomorrow's clear too. I am in the market of buying a car. I'm not screwing with you. But Drew's going to document the whole thing. So I'm making, I'm actually working right now. Right. So I'm mic'd up. That's what I'll do. I'll just go in there. I would watch that as a series. And I'll take out my phone and be like, do you mind? I have a bad memory. I'm going to record all this. And then I'll just have AI listening and be like, he just said that. What do I say back? And then just be like, we can do this dance or we can not do this dance. But I'm not good at dancing. I'm better at resisting dancing.

46:24 that would be uh that'd be some good content viral video at the end pull andrea's card did i mention i had trade in and just watch the guys like him he was so upset and i was like i'm sorry sir but sorry man i know i know how this goes bummer man all right uh last topic for today uh do do do You had mentioned an ops audit. Did I misread? Is that you? Was that five point ops audit? um five five like all right because i always like to make it tactical so i'll list the things i thought i got it from you i put it i copied and pasted i copy and paste things into my notes app it's my most used app the five point operations audit because if you're listening you're like okay cool what do i actually do here's the audit five points number one i already mentioned mystery shop your own clinic we already talked about that call the number who picks up is it annoying Does someone pick up and immediately put you on hold?

47:25 Does it go to voicemail? Or what's the thing? Call after hours. Test your system. You were calling during hours, during a snowstorm. That was their after hours playbook. See what that feels like. Good taste in your mouth, bad taste in your mouth. Was it smooth? Was it quick? If it's not, ninety seconds or less where I feel like I got the thing I wanted, I didn't adapt to your system, you adapted to me. If not, your system is shitty, because DoorDash can do that. Like DoorDash, I'll be like, I want these sparkling seltzers. And then in the middle of my shopper shopping, it's like, bloop.

48:05 They don't have that, they have this. Is that cool? And you're like, bloop. That's a great user experience. That's why you're not competing against the place that you are competing against all of it. Right? Like you're exactly right. I can cash. Remember, remember back in the day you had to go to a bank while it was open, talk to a person after you waited in a line to cash a check. To move fake money from somebody else's bank in your bank account. You weren't doing your money. You take a picture of the fake money. You take a picture. I remember my dad being like, they're going to steal from you. I'm like, I don't know. The money keeps showing up. Whatever. So call after hours and see what happens. Cancel appointment.

48:47 Like you, mystery shop, your own clinic, cancel an appointment, see what happens. Like at a medium-sized practice, and it's hard to say to medium-sized practice, but like cancellations are part of life. That might warrant an entire full-time employee. Because that's leaking revenue. But if you're like, what is your job? I am captain cancellation. What does that mean? I look at cancellations from every fucking angle. I get them back on the books. It's my only job. If that's that person's only job, it's going to get paid attention to. And cancellation shouldn't just be a phone call. I just had this conversation with a family member this weekend who works in a doctor's office and they call and I'm like, but are you texting?

49:31 Is there a link? Is there like, I can book this right now? Or are you leaving a message and then people aren't getting it for five days? I have to change my oil tomorrow. I got two text messages yesterday and a phone call during this live stream. Hey, just making sure. Why? Because them holding that slot means they're not holding it for someone else. Exactly. That's money. They understand the game is played. So I've gotten two text messages and they left a voicemail. And I don't even listen to the voicemail. I read the voicemail. Got it. Got it. Tomorrow, one o'clock. Yeah, I'm still good. Yep. Yep. Yep. My haircut dude does that. My haircut dude is like, if you don't show up, you pay for it. He's never charged me because I did not.

50:11 I did not show up once in five years. He was like, no problem, dude. I did get charged. I did not show up once in like ten years and I was charged. It was only because women's hair is unfair. Thirty five dollars or something. Exactly. I'm like, that's fair. Cost for you. Eighty dollars. And I don't even do like color. This is my color. It's it's that's before tip. It's so I just trim. Mine's expensive. It's thirty five dollars. As a guy. And this is it. I mean, for my kids, I paid twenty two dollars for my son to get his hair. He's four. I got an idea. You know how everything old is new again. We're bringing back Thundercats. We brought back Scrub.

50:51 We should talk about that next episode. The fact that like nostalgia is back, baby. I say we bring back the Flowbee. Let's buy the IP rights for Flowbee. Kids, Google Flowbee. It's a brilliant idea. Do you have a vacuum? Yes. Do you need a haircut? Yes. Do you not want to pay thirty five dollars for a haircut? Let me introduce you to Flowbee. It's not going to give you it's going to give you a C minus every but it's going to give you the same C minus every time. Number four on the ops audit, I would say measure your response time in minutes. Measure your response time in eye rolls. That's more than one minute. That's a lot of minutes, right?

51:32 Like a minute. I can order a week's worth of groceries in a minute. Like I'm dumbfounded that here, I'm actually dumbfounded now in March of twenty twenty six that I don't just talk into DoorDash. Like, hey, I need some Honeycrisp apples. I need those Spindrift seltzers. I need the blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah, a gallon of milk. Like, why am I hunting and pecking? Right. I bet you by June, we're doing that. And I feel like it'll be faster. But that seems insane to me. Or, and it might be, and maybe I'm using it wrong, but I am pretty consistent on the crap that I buy from the store.

52:12 I just buy the same stuff. When I go, why isn't just like, Hey, these are your seven. You've ordered these things five. The last, do you want these in your car? Oh, like, so whole foods does that, but it's part of Amazon. That's why. Got it. See, that's what I mean. Like, why doesn't door dash be like, Hey, every time you open this app, you order milk, eggs, cheese, and tortillas. Why don't we just like whole foods? Does it? Yeah. It's smart. That's like, um, on wheel of fortune. Back in the day, you'd have to guess. Like, oh, when you're in the final puzzle, whatever you call it, everybody would be like, they'd give you a bunch of consonants in one vowel. And everybody was like, R, S, T, L, N, and E. Now they just give you those. And they're like, great, pick three more and another vowel. Because they're like, we got it.

52:53 You're going to say that. R, S, T, L, N, E. Got it. Pick another three, right? So I would say measure your response time in minutes, not days. Why isn't it shorter? And then, this isn't on the list, but who's in charge of fixing it? I've told this story before. Somebody was in charge of customer experience at LAX, and the problem they got one day, like, oh, we got seven hundred complaints. Great, sort through them, data monkey, and tell me what is the biggest complaint. wait time's a baggage, bro. And he was like, all right. So the guy grabbed his clipboard, probably a woman, woman grabbed her clipboard and was like, watched a bag go from the flight to the thing.

53:34 And was like, can we make the conveyor belt faster? Can we do this? Can we do that? Can we put more handlers? And they were like, this is going as fast as it can. And they're like, what do we do? Do you know what she did? Do you, do you hear me tell the story before? No, no. they made the walk time longer for the person from the plane to the baggage. So the wait time was shorter. And do you know what happened to complaints? No. They went down. Same thing on New York City subways. Complaints were like, trains never come. They put Two hundred dollar digital LEDs.

54:14 And they were like, that train will be here in five minutes. The trains were on time. Just felt like forever felt long. But now I know it's seven minutes. I'm like, all right, I'm just dick around for seven minutes. But when I don't know, it's infinity and infinity is long. Been in a car with a six year old. I saw a brilliant move by a parent. They were going, they're like, we're going to grandma's and it's three hours and like three hours to a child in a car. Oh God, thirty minutes to it. Yes. You know, take their tips of their fingers and run a cheese grater over it. This is painful. The mom did a thing where she took the sun visor and she took a post-it note and was like, every one of these is a half hour.

54:58 Every one of these is an episode of your show. And she was like, one, two, three, four, five, six. And every thirty minutes she just pulled one away. So you could see there's three post-it notes. That's three TV shows. So watch another show. And then finally, by the end, the kid was like, I'm done with the show. Pull a post-it note. Got it. Two more post-it notes. Got it. I'm going to go watch YouTube again. Give me easy to understand feedback. Where am I in the queue? Last one. Ask your front desk. Why should someone choose us? Listen to their response. Because if they don't understand it, as Andrea would say, your front desk is marketing. Everything's marketing. So that's like a five-point audit that I came up with that really summarized like a couple of the points that we had from today.

55:43 Good stuff. All right. Do you want to say thank you? Did you know we got a new sponsor for the show? We're funded. Oh, really? Yeah. I forgot to mention this earlier. We're giving them what we call the post roll in podcast talk. Episode is brought to you by AutoSend. The only automation platform that sends emails based entirely on vibes. It reads your vibes. Patient didn't show up. Perfect time for a post-visit survey. Left a voicemail. Great. We'll follow up in three business days after we've already confused you. AutoSend three thousand scaling your mistakes at the speed of Wi-Fi. All right. Time for your parting shot. What do you got? Parting shot. Last idea. what we've been talking about. Everything is marketing. Treat it that way, which also means respect your marketers.

56:26 Yeah. Test drive this. Be the patient. Sit in your waiting room. When are we going to, when is it going to come up? Where's the LED saying where you are? How cool would that be if you walked in and like the flight board, you know, telling you what flights leaving when there you are. We did that. We had to de-identify. Okay, good. Then you give them. Hey, who's your favorite movie character? Brad Pitt. Ah, Mr. Pitt. Oh, that's funny. Like a little haha. Or I got to be funny on that, right? We do it. It's okay at Starbucks to yell. Yes, I understand. Healthcare and Starbucks are different. But let's have some fun with it. Let's have some fun with this. Or at least make it smooth. Like make the damn thing smooth again. All right, we're back next week.

57:06 Unless there's a blizzard, then we have to cancel. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn and I'm on there too.