Your Clinic’s Marketing Is Broken. Here’s Why.

0:00 You're listening to the PT Pinecast, where smart people in healthcare come to make noise. Here's your host, Jimmy McKay. Here's the thing. AI isn't replacing clinicians, but it is quietly changing the room before clinicians ever walk in. Andrea is with me again. Welcome to Marketing Doesn't Work, which is the best marketing for a podcast segment, which is... We either were confirming what people think and they're like, yeah, and they can't wait to come here and listen to all the ways we agree. They agree with us. And then they get here and they're like, oh, it doesn't work when you do it poorly. You wrote some words on the LinkedIn post.

0:44 And you said, you know, you asked Claude, want me to help you draft what to say in your upcoming doctor's appointment to get what you need? I think health care, myself included, needs to pay attention to the fact that, yes, ascribes, if you're not researching it, I'm very sorry. You are behind by a lot. Not too late to catch up. I think our blind spot is we are very focused on ourselves in terms of healthcare and not thinking. Somebody had a statistic, like three percent of all chat GPT searches were related to, is this cancer? What's this thing on my foot? Upload an image.

1:25 And that is not going to shrink. That is going to get better. larger and larger. So you had written on LinkedIn about this. Here's the thing, to get what you need. Not to challenge your provider, not to prove you're smarter, but you want to arrive clearer, more prepared, more confident. We've been in those rooms before. By the time you leave, you're like, I didn't ask the three things I wanted. You didn't write them down. You thought you were going to have... Thirty minutes with your what? That's not happening. So where's the big blind spot here in terms of what are what are we in terms of health care not seeing, you know, patients or, you know, have Googled symptoms forever?

2:07 What's what? What's new is AI is helping them frame the questions, priorities, goals. What comes next? How's that change the dynamic in the room more than just raw information ever, ever did before? Yeah, so I think it's not new, right? So I was an early user of WebMD. It's like, I have these symptoms. What is wrong with me? It's always, you're always dying for sure. And Google. And so people, it's not new. What is new, I think, like you said, is I sort of went to Claude with some ongoing thing that like I have going on and was trying to get some updated information based on like labs and that sort of thing.

2:49 And then Claude said, do you want me to help you come up with these questions? And I think what changed is so a few things. I think like you said, healthcare providers are focused on the operational like me side. How can I use AI to help me be more efficient, that sort of thing. I don't know if it's a blind spot. I think at one point maybe it was a blind spot, but I think part of it is like a lot of providers don't want to accept that this is the patient behavior because patients go to them because they are the expert. That is not changing. And so I think if providers can come at it from a place of, not from a place of ego, but from a place of how can I meet them where they are and answer questions they may still have and like validate them, I feel like it would be a healthier dynamic because what happens is patients are feeling, scared, confused.

3:47 They're going in, they're not feeling heard. We know like you get seven minutes or something with your doctor and you're not getting good answers or they're gaslighting you or like whatever it is coming from the perspective of a female that has tried to get answers from providers. So I think it's just providers need to be ready for this. And maybe it's a blind spot, but maybe it's just, we don't want to accept that a patient's coming in with information from the internet and they are challenging what we are saying. Here's the thing. I had this experience yesterday where I was the second person involved, just like this situation. I play old man beer league hockey. One of my defensemen, has now figured out, I know some stuff.

4:30 I don't tell people I'm a physical therapist because all of a sudden their shoulder or their back or their knee hurts immediately. But he was like, hey man, did this. And I just asked him three questions. Probably the first three questions most physical therapists would ask. I said, does it hurt when you do this? Or how about this? How about this? And he wrote back, yeah, yeah, yeah. AI asked me that already. I was validating the AI. Do you know what I mean? He was like, oh, Jimmy is smart. Because he asked the same things that the computer asked me. That checks out. Not the other way around. So we are past that. He just wanted a human to sort of validate that, which is kind of funny if you think about it.

5:11 Because it's got all the collective... worldwide knowledge of of you know patella for moral pain in hockey players and we ultimately decide he ultimately decided it was probably not a great idea to play last night and he didn't play i think if i hadn't answered the text message fifty fifty shot i don't know you don't know right So something similar but not the same, people ask me to do stuff for them, as you do too, as somebody who's fractional in marketing, whatever. Whatever it is that Andrea does. Andrea's a hired gun. She's like, yeah, you need this? Great. I was like, put in a list.

5:51 Because we discussed, this is an organization, a large organization. We put in a list. I was like, I could do a hundred things. but I can't do a hundred things. I could do a hundred. Let's say I can do three. Well, put in a list of, out of all those things I just threw at you, go back, you meet with your team, which always takes a while. Come back to me with what you want me to do. This is for an in-person event. The lead up, onsite, and then what we do with it after. Put in a giant list. And again, finances have not been discussed. And I said, for shits and gigs, Hey, man, just so we're clear, I can't do this for free. I'm going to have to fly somewhere.

6:32 As soon as I get off my couch, the meter's sort of running, right? Someone was aghast the other day because I'm in the New York City area. And they were like, you put three hundred dollars down for parking. I'm like, you have me coming to your place for six days. It's forty five dollars a day in parking. More than that. Sorry, man. Yeah. Sorry. That's parking. That's for me to get. Anyway. So I said, I'm telling you, this has something to do with what we're talking about. I said, just copy paste what you just asked me to do into whatever you want and then just say, what do you think this would what do you think this would cost? The answer was, huh, a lot more than I thought that would cost. And I go, I won't even charge you that, but I can't charge you zero. Right.

7:12 Somewhere between. I can't lose money on this. So my point is people are using this in different ways. My point and how I used it, I forced it back on them. I didn't say I put it in AI and it said it costs this. I said, you do it. You use it. So when are we going to see, instead of a chat bot trying to schedule someone, which in my opinion is operationally important but should be solved already, I can get a haircut. I can figure out when my boy Rod is ready for a haircut. Lickety split, but not a provider, which still confuses me in twenty twenty six. But when are we going to start to see some front facing? AI either.

7:52 I mean, is it even going to be on a provider's homepage or is it going to be a web? When's WebMD going to be? I'm web doctor. I don't know. It's an opportunity I think people are probably working on. And there's a lot of opportunity there. And I think part of it is, you know, people are nervous about risk. Like I remember way back before this was probably fifteen years or something. And I was working with a health care organization and And someone wanted to put chat, just like literally just a chat on the website. And we had to go through. So I was kind of like, I don't even know if we should be doing this. Right. Like we need so many disclaimers. And if this is a medical emergency and like don't come to it.

8:33 So that being said, I think we've advanced and I think people are working on it. And there's huge opportunity like for providers to be able to do that or someone to do that. And then providers will try to figure out they'll scramble and go like, how do we get in on that? Yeah, we'll be a day late and five million dollars short and then be confused how we got left behind. Right. And here's, in my opinion, why we rely on degrees. Well, I've earned this. Therefore, I am. And that's how it used to work. Thirty years ago. I mean, gosh, I remember my grandmother talking about like if a doctor said, hop on your right foot three times and take the pill, you hopped on your foot, your right foot.

9:14 Now you're left. You're right. Three times you took the pill. It was the word of God. And now it's like, I'm going to question everything, which is fine, which is fine. But the providers are now saying, well, I have to justify everything. Yeah. Have you seen the world? Yes. You have to justify everything. Providers are already in a tough spot for a lot of reasons. So this is like one more thing. But it's not new, but it is like you said, you know, they said jump on your foot and you're jumping on your foot, hopping on your foot. Recently, I wrote on LinkedIn and maybe you saw, I think it was another AI post when maybe chat GPT health was coming up.

9:54 Many years ago, I was auditing patient experience as part of like, larger marketing work for a multi-site organization and I walked in and this is true story one of the providers had like a framed sign that said your Google search my my medical degree is worth more than your Google search and I was like hey don't disagree sir but you need to take that down not what patients want to see um then there's also the statistic of litigation and i'll find the statistic again verify i'll use ai it'll find me for me fast which is you could have two people provide the same error but the physician or the provider who had better rapport with the patient was less likely to be sued so it's like what are what are you actually this is where like andrea and jimmy get people hate us in rooms because we keep asking why We need a chat bot on the website.

11:00 Awesome. Why? We want to do this. Well, the car salesman down the street has one. Okay. We're not doing that, but also why? So why are people coming to see you is changing. I think this is a good thing. We've argued on our PT Breakfast Club. This is a good thing. Get the people who don't need to be there the answer and then don't bring them in. I don't want someone in front of me, if I own a clinic, if they don't need to be there. Unless they need a little reassurance. Hey, listen, man, you're good. Look at me. You're good. And that does something to a human because we have brains, right?

11:44 I don't know. I see this as... As all things, it will be an advantage to the people who use it right. And it will run people over. I had a post the other day, nothing to do with this. And my post was a public service announcement. It was, do not, under any circumstance, try to fix your snowblower with your hand. Why? It's real quick. Guy across the street when I was growing up, my dad walked outside, bunch of red snow. And my dad was like, oh, that's not good. Yeah, he cut his hand off. But this, this, that's what AI is. It's a thousand, it's a hundred million snowblowers. And if you're not using it, you're shoveling and that's okay.

12:27 But you're getting the snow move slowly and it might blow your back out. You could also use it improperly and cut your hand off. And I think they're not looking at it from both sides. Right. I think we need to look at it from both sides. And I think it's exactly like you said, the people who want to the people who need to be there will get the information they need and they'll be there. Some people just need validation. That's fine. But it's like, how do we put guardrails around usage of it? And that's on people who are creating the technology and that's on people who are creating the content that feeds the technology. Yeah. Ben, if I could have ten people in my waiting room who truly want and need me versus a hundred who don't, he would take the ten any day and operationalize around the ten any day.

13:13 Yes. And those ninety that you said, you're good, bro, feel something and we'll go tell five people each. That's the guy. He's going to do you right. Here's the big problem, though, that people are probably screaming at the speaker, and I agree. Our system is not set up to be that guy. Your system is set up to get a hundred people in because we can find something. And I don't want to do – I wouldn't want to be in that. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that guy. Right. The system is set up against you to like, well, I got to get something or else we don't pay lights or salaries or health benefits.

13:55 I wonder, I would love someone to do some research on compliance. So compliance in patients. Someone who can do this. So people who come in, who use AI responsibly and they come in informed and they're like, here's what I found out. Here's what I sort of need from you. They come back and they continue the course of care through their twelve visits or whatever it is. We like those people versus, you know, we have like ten who want to be there, ninety who don't like the ninety who don't. Where do they drop off? And like then we have to get anyway. So like is someone paying attention to this? I think so.

14:35 Yeah. This is the billion dollar question. And we love this is where this would be a great Oxford debate category or prompt, which is like patient not compliant, noncompliance. Like, dude. If you told me I had to bring my car in three times, and in between time two and three, I was having beers on my back deck, and my buddy who's sort of mechanical is like, what are you bringing it back the third time for? I'm like, well, they said it needs three. It needs three. He's like, what? But what didn't the first two do? And you're like, three? It needs... We've done two, but it needs three.

15:16 And he's like, why? And you're like, I don't know. And he's like, I don't know, man, I'd save ninety bucks and not go. And I'm like, oh, yeah, is this because keep in mind, Jimmy has a lens of communication, right? Is it an expectation? But if you were like, no, we can't do one. I'm making words. We're fixing your axle. We can't do it all at once because of flanges. And I'm like, oh, flanges. That makes sense. I'd be more apt to be like, oh, hey, buddy, it's flanges. They don't have the flanges yet. It's a flange issue. even know what flanges are but like i'd be like got it that and my buddy if that was a real thing if i wasn't getting hosed would be like oh no that's a thing sorry i had a friend the other day sold something on facebook marketplace and then she comes to me because i'm the guy i know enough here's the problem i know enough about technology to be the guy people go to i can use technology but when something goes wrong i call someone anyway she sold something on facebook marketplace overseas She shipped the thing.

16:14 And then she's like, it's supposed to pay me three thousand dollars. She said she has to pay me five hundred dollars at a time. And I go, are you using Zelle? And she goes, yeah. And I go, did you just connect with this person on Zelle? And she's like, yeah. I go, no, that's a thing. That's all you're looking for. Oh, no, that's a thing. Because again, why do you go back three times? Because this, oh, no, that's actually a thing. It's missed expectation. It's just misaligned explanation. I don't know. Remembering back all the prerequisites I took to get into PT school. none of them are communications classes, like none. I did a poll on LinkedIn the other day, how many people actively teach and assess and provide feedback to communication? A lot of people were like, all the time, all the time.

16:56 And I'm like, I don't remember that. It was ten years ago, I could be wrong. But not really. I don't remember it. Like I would need show me then. I'd love to take the course. Can I audit your communication course in PT school? Because I don't remember it. It's not right there. I always enjoy Jimmy Rantz. Tony's the kind of guy who's like, I don't want you in my clinic if you're not the right fit. Like, no, no, like not right. It's a waste of everyone's time. Yeah, and it takes a spot for someone who it's better for. But I get it. If you're just starting a clinic, who will you take?

17:37 Do you have a pulse? Yes. Come on in. We can find something. I mean, this goes back to what we talked about with like your ICP and your persona, right? Like you want this person, not all of the people. Correct. You've talked about working in healthcare with CEOs, right? CEOs are not all the same. They just have just a job title, not a persona per se. But you've talked about a frustration that I've felt. It's when you get to a certain level of organization. Again, I didn't really understand this until I saw it firsthand. But the people who are doing a million dollars a year versus ten million dollars a year versus one hundred dollars a year, they are they have different problems.

18:21 They are facing different things. They're just operationally different. You've talked about, and I think my comment was, the CEO that will hire an Andrea and then make Andrea get everything that she's doing approved, which slows everything down, or the CEO's fingerprints are now over everything. And then six months later, marketing doesn't work. And I think my comment was something like, Well, if you're going to have to approve everything that comes out of the kitchen, don't be surprised when the soup tastes like fingers if you keep touching it. That's got to be a huge hindrance and it's tainting everything.

19:03 Imagine your clinic director had to approve everything you did. Everything you did. That would slow everything down and change. I call it a Frankenstein. When you have to appease the boardroom, by the time the idea walks out, it looks like a man, walks like a man, but it ain't a man. It's a Frankenstein. It's exactly, you know, you see like a homepage and you can tell it was a Frankenstein homepage because the CEO wants to, like everyone has their input until it's watered down and it doesn't say anything or it looks like a lot of things. And we've talked about this before. Usually one of the biggest voices in the room when talking about social media is usually the CEO's sixteen-year-old niece.

19:44 My sixteen-year-old niece is big on Instagram. And I'm like, tell me more. In healthcare? Like in this or in something else? No, she says our Instagram sucks. And I'm like, well, it probably does because we use that consulting firm that charged a lot of money and did the same thing, nine other practices that are just like us is doing. But yeah, let's go this way. Is she going to get a job? Is this an internship? Is she in front of behind the camera? Yeah. how do you deal with that like how do you deal with that not well Jimmy um how do you deal with it so so every and there's been many times so every time this has happened my question is is that person our Target audience maybe they are I don't know like but what's their background and what's their reasoning for this and let's walk through like why we've done what we've done what we've done And sure, if you have a very valid reason and we decide, hey, this makes sense to do, let's try to do it.

20:45 But your sixteen year old who who consumes social media but has never developed a social media strategy probably isn't the person to do it for us. Yeah. But how do you have that? I think I also asked a question because your posts on LinkedIn wind up blowing up and I'm like in the comments, even my comments got a lot of traffic. What percentage of your time is spent doing marketing versus defending what you're doing? It's like, if you stop asking me and just let me do the thing, I'd get a lot more done than defending all the decisions you hired me to make. Yes. So this was and I think my response was a mean girl image that said the limit does not exist.

21:29 So you spend a lot of time defending what you are doing in marketing. And I've realized that's whether you're really good at what you do, not really good. Like you just spend a lot of time and this does not happen in other functions. Marketing is this really weird because people consume marketing. They are marketing experts. Say that again. Say that again. Because people consume marketing, they think they are marketing experts. No one brings in the accounting guy because we're not consuming a lot of accounting going, why are you using double ledger? I'm making up terms now. Why are you using double ledger PEMDAS method versus this method?

22:11 And like, well, I think we need to be all more be like, what's the guy, Jerome Powell? Do you ever see him in a press conference? They ask him a question like, yeah, are you worried about this? And he's, no. No. Yes, exactly. Why are you doing this? It's the best idea. It was the best possible route to take in the situation we were in with the resources you gave me with the goal I was assigned to hit. End story. I wind up explaining because it's a marriage of like, here's the problem. This is a telephone game. There are humans. trying to send a message through time and space, but not through time and space, through a medium of pictures, sounds, videos, or words to hit another human.

23:02 Somebody asked in a meeting, I did answer like Jerome Powell in this meeting, if we start doing this, how many views can you guarantee us in a year? And I went, None. I can say that this is best practice right now, but I will guarantee you nothing. And she was like stunned. I think she was waiting for me to bullshit an answer. And I was like, I will give you the truest of answers. None. You might have crappy content. I'm the person trying to polish the turd or the brilliance. I'm very sorry for you, but this does not guarantee that. Right. I mean, that's the hard thing about marketing. And that's so marketers are never like I recently, two years ago, launched this CEO, CMO leadership reset, which is essentially marriage counseling.

23:49 I think we talked about this is a brilliant idea, by the way. And because this relationship, I, you know, you give me ten marketers, nine of them have I don't want to say toxic, but not healthy relationships with their leader. And it's not because the marketers don't know what they're doing. It's not because the CEO is awful. It's just the dynamic because everyone thinks, you know, marketing CEO, like it's the thing you think you can control to grow your business, but you sort of have to let go of control, right. To grow your business. And marketers end up in this position where like, you know, what you were talking about press conference, I'm thinking of like Bill Belichick or something like that's the attitude.

24:31 We all get to the place where we're just like, you know, we just did our best. Yeah. But like, you're never going to win that game. Why'd you do that? Why? We need more leads. And I'm like, well, two weeks ago, your goal was this. Now it's more lead. We can't turn that battleship. This is not a switch. I am not gatekeeping good. And I think because marketing is so, it's not black and white and that's not a good answer. But what happens is like, they'll hone in and they'll go like, oh, we did some Google ads and that seemed to work. Turn off everything else. And as the marketer, you have the responsibility to go like, well, no, no, no, that's not how it works. And then they don't like to hear that. And that's, again, not knocking the CEOs or CFOs who control the budget.

25:15 It's just a really hard position to be in. Yeah. Why do we do it then? Nobody told us this, Jimmy. I didn't learn this in college. This is where in my marketing or broadcasting days, I was actively trying not to get promoted. Because I saw the different problems that the person above me was dealing with. And I was like, those problems suck. And I don't want to solve those problems. I want to solve these problems first. I just we just always get taught. Well, what comes after ninth grade? It's tenth grade. You get promoted. You get promoted. So like your job is get promoted.

25:56 I remember talking to my dad. It was a firefighter was like because he was a lieutenant and he was like, I'd be a captain. And we're like, then chief. He's like, no. And I'm like, do you not want to be in charge? He's like different problems. I don't want I want to be in fires. I don't want to be. in an office. My dad's like, I don't even like to use a typewriter. Never mind a computer. He's like, get me the hell away. He's like, give me an ax. I want to hold an ax. That's the same. This is a similar discussion with a great clinician becomes a clinic director. That makes sense. Two different jobs. And then we also just go, they'll figure it out. They figured out back pain. How hard can a clinic be?

26:36 And I go, totally different thing. You could have a clinic director who's not even a clinician. I ran a country radio station, Andrea. A country radio station. That was the second station. I'm a rock guy. So I ran a rock station. I don't know if I ever told you this story. No. Four radio stations in one building. It was a very large nationwide radio company. Four radio stations in our market. I ran one of them. I was the chief of that station. Well, they came to me one day and they were like, you have to fight. You have to let somebody go because there's budget cuts and you have the largest staff. Nobody on my team did anything wrong. We were doing well in comparison with the other stations. We were probably overperforming, but doesn't matter.

27:19 And I'm twenty five and I got to go home and come back tomorrow and fire someone. And everybody there been longer than they're longer than me. And most of them are older than me. I got to come back and fire somebody. So I went home. Drank. Came back the next day, walked into my boss's office and I'm like, I got a crazy idea. And my boss was used to me because he'd known me since I was nineteen, twenty one, twenty whatever. And he goes to me, this is not the time for crazy ideas like I just need a name like this sucks. He's like, but you just have to give me a name. And I gave him a name. I gave him the name of the guy who had my position at the country station. Here's why. That guy made more money than any of my people. That guy was terribly underperforming.

28:01 That guy also had an Eeyore of an attitude. That guy could find something to complain about in the end zone of the Super Bowl. Just could not get out of his own way. And then I made my case hungover. We will be a better team because I don't know two things about country music, but I don't need to. I'm good at running people. And you know I am, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this thing. And he goes, by five o'clock, someone did have a cardboard box, but it wasn't anybody on my team. Because I read the room. But that was the thing said in front of me. So just because you're a good clinician doesn't mean you're good.

28:42 I mean, that guy was very good on the air. Just a terrible program director. Like just... And it's two different jobs. It's like your dad said about like wanting to have the ax. I mean, in marketing, it's obviously lower stakes or different stakes when we don't have an ax. But I know I'm like, I don't know if that's a good idea. But we the higher you get, like the less marketing you're doing. Correct. That's the weird part. You're managing like sales. just a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like marketing. You're, you're managing problems like in, and in some ways I enjoy it. Like you are, you're in operations, you are in finance, you're managing the people you're man.

29:23 And when I say people, I mean, you're managing your people and you're managing across the executive team. You're managing up to the CEO, the board, you name it. Like you're not necessarily the one, like you don't have the space to, um and i used to have to intentionally carve out time that like wasn't even during work time a lot of times to go like all right let me be creative so i can lead my team to do like cool marketing things um because that's not what your role is when you get to a certain level in my experience and i didn't even get to a vp level i'm pretty good at director i'm like that's as high as i want to go because otherwise i'm having just conversations that i didn't love and uh It was hard to even get a meeting.

30:08 They'd be like, hey, your next quarter goal is this. And I'm like, great. I'd love to learn more about it. And they're like, just go do it. And I'm like, all right, see ya. And then I'd go do it, put a plan together. Like, well, what's this? And I'm like, you asked, you told me your knee hurt. I said, I want to ask you a question about your knee. Take a look at the knee. You said it's knee pain. Get to work. I did. And then I came back with a plan, started doing it. And you're like, what's this? And I'm like, that's the funny part. Like, do you think I'm just sitting on Instagram all day? I am, but you don't know that. But that's the funny part. Like people, like people still this last week, Hey, we need this. Can we bring you in? Sure. How much will it cost?

30:49 Might be a dollar. I might owe you money after this. What? I have no idea what the problem is yet. Do you know what the problem is? No. That's why you're calling me. How much will it cost? It's probably going to be less than a million. I'll save you some money. Definitely less than a million. Do you want it done right? I don't know what the problem is. So yeah, I spent a lot of time doing that when I would rather be in a lab figuring out weird ways to solve the problem, knowing ninety nine ways we're not going to do. I'm OK with that, but we're going to whittle it down to the one that we're going to run with. Did I show you this?

31:29 Here's a market. Let's just play marketing now. So, Andrea, you are the vice president of marketing for a small independent podcast in physical therapy hosted by Jimmy. I'm going to be live streaming from a booth, somebody else's booth, one of our sponsors booth, because I don't have the money for a booth. Like buying a booth would just be stupid. Ten grand or whatever. CSM? CSM. Yeah, sorry. See, it's smart. I didn't say that. You didn't assume. Good. I'm trying to think how to get people to come up to me. Number one, I'm going to do live stream of interviews, all CSM. So I'm having movers and shakers and people with something to say.

32:11 And I'm like, let's talk. And I'm going to bring the lights, the camera, the big oversized microphone. But how do I get people to stop by just to say hi? That's a weak ask. I did a post on this last week. We're at booth four, five, six. Come see us is a bullshit ask. Come say hi. I don't know you, recruiter lady. So anyway. Yeah, give me a reason. So I came up with these. These are merit badges. I think I saw those. And it's like first time presenter. It's ran into my past professor. I want to print a bunch of these as stickers.

32:52 And I want you to earn your merit badge. You will come to me, you'll present your case, and then I will bestow it upon you. And then you stick it to the back of your laptop or your Yeti or your Odwalla, whatever those water bottles are. And I'm thinking of these things because, number one, I don't like scavenger hunts because it's too... too much but i like i earned that give it to me i want this to represent me it's not it's not a scavenger hunt it's scav it's not a scavenger hunt because i don't i don't do them like as corny and cheesy as i am when i go to a conference i'm like go get your stamp and maybe win i'm like i'm good i'm gonna do zero none so thoughts on me pressing the i want pictures with people getting their thing i want stuff after i want people to post i earned this generated content you are all over it so that so thoughts is the juice worth the squeeze on me getting a hundred of ten of these printed out and then be like come if you earned your badge now come to booth four five six get your badge while supplies last Well, yes, for a few reasons.

34:03 But there's a little bit of FOMO. Like, I need to earn my badge. Or I did earn it. I need the credit. Exactly. Yeah. What else would you amp to that? Is there any angle I'm not seeing? And I'm putting you on the spot. But that's okay. We're always put on the spot. No. I'm sure there's an angle. So... I think it's, so it's not a scavenger hunt. I think it's a badge. They're creating content. You're like making a big deal of it when they're there. Um, what else do they get to be there? So they get there, they talk, you're giving them maybe some media.

34:43 This is not, this is not just for people guests. This is for people. This is for listeners. Like, I want them to have earned something. And I started putting these out on social and I wanted to see if I didn't say we might do this if it gets one hundred likes. one hundred retweets and my wife will let me quit my job and be a golf professional. I get those. But this was like, hey, who would have earned this? And then I just started putting them out and people were like, I'm now getting emails on our website. Where can I purchase that? And that's when I'm onto something. That's when I want to give it out for free when you're like, how do I give you six dollars to get five of these? And I'm like, got it.

35:24 You got it. I mean, you've got it. So I see like a little Rubbermaid case, little dividers. And you got the Ten Timers Club. You've been to ten CSMs. Okay, there you go. All right, let's put that on. All right, let's take a little quick picture of that. I'm picturing like the sash for Boy Scout. So my outfit, so I have a thing at CSM. First day of CSM, I wear a redonkulous outfit. When I worked for Fox, their color was orange. I wore a complete orange suit, orange jacket, orange tie, orange pants, orange converse. When I host the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research Gala, I wore a black suit with like chalk...

36:09 physics. I look like Bill Nye the Science Guy. It was a research gala. Boom. So this year, I'm going red tuxedo jacket because we've got Valentine's Day on Saturday. So I'm going all about the heart angle. I legitimately bought a tuxedo jacket. Not like an opposite, corny, sixty-eight dollar. I bought a legit tuxedo jacket. And I'm going to wear that because in my mind, I'm going to be standing amongst amongst a bunch of polo shirts and I'm in a booth and everyone's got squeezy balls and pens. How do you stand out? Either I don't go because you won't notice me if I'm not there because it's the sea of sameness or I need to slap you across the face with why is that guy wearing a bow tie?

36:53 I need to find out with that. And then someone will be like, that's Jimmy. He talks a lot. And like, oh, okay. I don't need you to love me. I just need you to know like what the hell that guy's doing there. Did you ever, do you remember savetoby.com? No. One of the first viral websites. I'll get the whole Wikipedia story. We could do an entire episode on this. This is in nineteen ninety seven. Nineteen ninety eight websites were a thing, kind of. And then someone told me in the hallway about Save Toby dot com. And I'm like, what's this? And like a guy's going to kill a bunny and eat it. Oh, God, yes. And I'm like, what? And they're like, yeah, unless unless he gets enough donations to like like ten thousand ten thousand people giving him one dollar.

37:37 The thing is, When you went there, you saw like a little thermometer, right? The one where you like bought a pixel for like a dollar. No, that was a different one. OK, this was this was legitimate. Some guy was like, here's a picture of a bunny. If I don't get if he if the bunny doesn't get enough donations by this date, bunny dies. The thing is, the more clicks it got early, early Google, the higher it would rank on search. And then this was before social. This was this. This was word of mouth. You had to go look. And then when you're there, you're like, this isn't real. But what if it is?

38:18 Give one dollar and save Toby. Just save Toby. To potentially save Toby. I mean, this also brings about... There's a genre of social media video slash post that I must have watched enough of these. Now I see a ton of them, which is this like... First-person point of view, camera, guy talking to people on the street, homeless people, and being like, can I get you some food? Yes. That gets so much view and traffic. That channel makes money enough for them to fund doing the work and giving the thing. And I hope anyway, at least what I'm seeing, I mean, I know there's, there's always going to be just douchebags out there to take advantage of it, but there's a guy, Victor, Victor, something drives around and it's like, do you want, he's like, I was on the street.

39:08 Do you want to get off the street? If you say yes, I fly you. I think he's in like New England. he's like i fly you to florida i pay for the flight i pay for rehab i get you a job and i hope it's real because i watched the damn video because it's a before during and after story it's compelling here's the problem let's go back to our conversation with ceos and cmos if you pitch that idea in a boardroom would it ever make it out of the boardroom no i'd be fired do you know who big do you know who big dawes is no He's a guy who's just a content creator. And again, I hate that term, but he does.

39:50 And he'll walk in a college campus with a football. And of course, he's got like people behind him shooting from sixteen different angles. And he'll he'll just like see some girl on a college campus, you know, walk in a class, AirPods and books, whatever. And I'll go, I'll give you five hundred dollars if you catch this ball. And he just throws the ball up. And then the whole then the video slows down and you're watching. gonna catch it she's gonna catch it she's gonna catch it and she doesn't and you're like and then you see the same type of video like three days later and she does if you were in a marketing meeting and you were like so i'm gonna walk around and give away money and they're like how does that money relate back directly what is one degree of kevin bacon one degree of getting the more money we need more money because we're also paying for you and the camera crew It doesn't.

40:42 We're going to gain so much attention that this five hundred dollar video we do once will make twenty times that over the lifetime of the video. And then we gain a subscriber and then they watch thirty of those videos. And now we've four hundred X to the budget. But you can't explain that in a boardroom. You can't explain it. And this goes back to attribution where like we can't always just go back to one asset and say this drove a customer because it's over X amount of time. It's like watching multiple, like we all follow those different types of things, right? And it's like, I can't say what video it was that made me want to start following or get like caught up in certain accounts.

41:24 This is why I won't do affiliate marketing. Like organizations have been like, we'll give you a promo code and then we'll pay you from that. And I'm like, okay, but the payment needs to be redonkulous, right? Ten percent of what you made. I don't do it like because I'll feel I will be reading your live read and I'll be feel like I'm getting robbed every time because I'm definitely doing something. You're definitely getting something and it might pay off. I might get people to your website and your product sucks. I did my job, but didn't get paid for it. That isn't fair. You pay me. Now, you want to do a combo deal? We'll pay you X, and then on top of that, if it hits, sure.

42:06 Or we pay you, we give you no cut. Great. Because of attribution. And I'm probably this way because I came from traditional broadcast media where, like, good luck attributing radio. I mean, even the radio rating system was called Arbitron. And every quarterly when the ratings would come out, oh, what are the arbitrary ratings from Arbitron this quarter? They're just making them up. They're just making them up. Here's how I would tell people. I had a hardcore CEO. thinking about sponsoring my podcast. And they're like, well, how do we know? And I go, how many clinicians do you have? And he was like, eighty. And I go email every one of them.

42:47 Two questions. Do you listen to physical therapy podcasts? If yes, they can answer the next one. Name two that you've listened to in the last thirty days. If I'm not one of them, don't call me back. There's your there's your attribution, your own people. It's it's it's I always say you need to look at it directionally. What does that mean? you need to look at attribution directionally. So gone are the days where we can go like someone did this thing and that's what drove them. Like you need to look at it, like look at all of the data, look at behaviors, talk to people and then go, they, you know, these sorts of things drive a customer or a client or views or whatever it is that you're trying to drive.

43:31 What's, what are we solving for? Should be the first question. It's always the first question out of my mouth. I try to hold what's your budget. I play with AI. I hated when people would ask me what your budget in the first three questions. So like, oh, here we go. I'm going to say a number and then you're going to imagine. I understand it now. I usually follow up. What budget are we like ballparking? Is this a ten dollar problem, a thousand dollar problem, a ten thousand dollar problem or a hundred thousand dollar problem? I like asking it that way. Well, we're bleeding money. Okay, so it's not a dollar or a thousand dollars. We're talking ten or a hundred. If this doesn't go away, are you still a business in five years?

44:15 Probably not. Now we know what we're dealing with. Is this like tourniquet, go to the emergency room? Or is this like gauze and stay off it for a few days? I like asking it in healthcare terms. But maybe you're explaining a lot. You're asking, what did you say? Look at it directionally? Just look at it directionally, right? You're asking a healthcare person to look at something directionally. And we're very cause and effect. And I know that. And yet everything depends in physical therapy. We love that go-to. So I'll be like, maybe I should open up a marketing agency called It Depends Marketing. Right. Depends on what? A lot of things. And that's where a lot of the friction and hard relationships come from is it's maybe because you were asking health care people to look at it that way, but also we're asking PE like investors to look at it that way.

45:06 And CFOs who like, are like, well, no, these two numbers, if I add these together, it's going to equal this thing and this is what's going to happen. And so it's not a good answer. And that's not to say we can't attribute things, but I think we can't attribute all of the things. Like we should know, like we should know what our cost is to acquire a customer is we should know what their lifetime value is. Like we absolutely should know what the lifetime value of a customer is because that's when, when we're talking about budget, I go like, what is it worth to you? If I acquire one customer for you, what is it worth? I remember staffing agencies, travel therapy and staffing agencies. I'll get one of them back on as a sponsor, but they were, I'm like, I, you know, I had, I wanted to learn their industry.

45:50 So I took them out to dinner and I, got a bunch of drinks in them. And I go, what's one contract worth? And then they told me, and I was like, oh, my price just changed. And someone was like, that's not, that's not okay. And I go, that is one thousand percent. Okay. Me getting you one thing would lead. And I don't know if it's right, but they were like fifteen grand. We get fifteen grand for every fish we catch. And I'm like, well, then I'm charging you five grand a month for a year. You don't think you're going to get five fish from being heard? and seen several hundred thousand times on this podcast, then you don't understand how math works. How many times do you have to touch someone to make them get on the phone?

46:34 How many phone calls do you need to close one contract? If you don't know those numbers, I don't want to talk to you because then no matter what story I tell you, you can't see the rabbit trail. But if you do know those numbers, I go, well, if I show it to a hundred people, will one get a call? Yeah. Great. How many calls do you need to close? That's two degrees. Hear about it. Think about it. Feel it. Got it. Book a call. Call to close. For fifteen grand? What's that worth? Not free. Not free. What are you seeing out in the world right now that excites you in marketing and healthcare and all the things that you're doing?

47:16 Oh, so many things. I mean, optimistic. So I think like all of this chat around AI stuff, like I was not... an early adopter of AI because I was sort of like, no, I think if you're adopting it now, you're still early. I think most people aren't doing it. It's like, I, but I was very much like I was in house at the time as a leader. And I was just like, we have to honor the craft. Like we're copywriters and we're creatives and like, we can't do this, you know? Um, and I still don't use it to like generate a lot of content. I use it as a partner for a lot of things. And I do use it operationally and I use it for analytics.

47:56 But it's exciting in healthcare for the reasons we sort of talked about is I think it is this interesting turning point for patients and their behaviors. Like people are frustrated. They want to feel empowered. They want to get answers. We have a lot of issues it's not going to solve, but I think it is amazing for healthcare consumers to have this at their fingertips. Agreed. Yeah. How it's going to play out. We will be laughing at how clueless we are now. Yes. Two years from now when someone starts doing it. I've met with some groups, large practices. So consumer facing, business to consumer.

48:40 But their biggest problems when I get down to it, and I know this, but I'm like, where are you in the journey? And they're like, hiring. And I'm like, share screen. I don't come with slide decks anymore. Nope. You are giving, you are telegraphing what is important or you're telling me what's important and you're showing me something else. And I just go incongruity. So I go, let's go look at your last ten LinkedIn posts. Let's look at your YouTube. What are you telling the world? We need to hire. Why are you showing me random, poorly produced rotator cuff exercises that get thirty eight views on YouTube? when you need to hire clinicians? Not.

49:21 So then show me the different ways. I got one group and I asked them for information. I was like, can you show me your last... You tell me email is the best way you gain customers. Somewhere in the world, they sign up for a webinar, they click on a thing, they ask for a PDF, a lead magnet, and you say email. And I go, can I see those emails? And they're like, no. And I'm like, then I can't. That's like being like my knee hurts and I can't, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to bring the knee with me to the appointment. Oh, okay. I don't know. It could be bleeding. Like you're telling me you do email. I did it. I did an interview the other day, a couple of weeks, a week or two ago with somebody. And this was about policy.

50:01 This guy was like, we are going to do emails. We're doing... We are doing this better. We are Coke. They are Pepsi. We are doing it better than Pepsi. And I'm like, awesome. How? And they're like, we're going to send emails. And I was like, okay. The other group is also sending emails. Are you going to send them to better people more often? Are they going to be written better? And they were like, I don't really know. And they didn't have an answer. And Lily was like, I think I get a moment of like, wanted to hold up a mirror i'm like are you just gonna write all of yours in capital letter like how are you gonna be different are you just gonna go caps lock on me that's your differentiating factor good luck but these are the stupid things that andrea and i have in our brains when someone's like we should just we should do an email campaign and i go great to whom for what how And they're like, I said, did you, Jimmy, I said email.

50:55 And I was like, yes. Jimmy, just send the email. Thank you. I'm going to send one right now. Do you care what's in it? There was a billboard campaign and I'm going to screw up the name, but it doesn't matter. I love campaigns like this. Did you ever see like somebody designed an ad and it was clearly done in Microsoft paint? Yes. And it said, our graphic designer quit. Do you know anyone? And I was like, and it was so, it was like written. And I'm like, that's an ad, people. That's an ad. Well, this guy did, it was for the, I mean, something, I love great marketing in boring sectors. When someone really, really is like understands the assignment.

51:36 So this was for, and I might screw it up, like New Mexico or a town in New Mexico's tourism. And instead of saying like, just, all right, spend ten grand on a photographer, go get us some landscapes, get us some amazing photos, because we're going to put them on billboards. They decided billboard was the angle because it wanted to be local. And I like when the world goes digital, go analog. And when the world starts going analog, go digital, right? Just be ahead of the curve. These were analog billboard ads. And they were like sort of hand homemade. And it was this dude who sort of looked dorky. Like he was excited to be in front of the camera.

52:17 And he was like, hey, I'm Jimmy, forty three years old. I just moved to the area. Are you looking for a kayak buddy? And it was like new to Santa Fe dot com. Hey, I'm Jimmy, like him hiking. Like, hey, I'm Jimmy. I'm looking for a hiking buddy. Like, I just want I'm new to the area. new to santafe.com and it was i don't know it was all about promoting all the things that are going on that you might not know about if you're new to the area and it was mind-numbingly brilliant so good it's in its simplicity and i love crap like that i just love it because more ai ads Oh my God.

52:57 I saw one group that I worked with running AI ads. I watched it three times because I was like, I don't know who this is for. Maybe their brilliance is that I had to watch it because I'm dumbfounded, but the average person ain't watching it like me. You gave them three views. Yeah, I gave them three views because I'm like, my man, you need it. But also it's an ad, so you just paid three times. It's not those vanity metrics, right? Jimmy watched the ad three times because it was so awful. Must be great. Actually, it was shit. Well, that's the angle, right? Like from the Howard Stern private parts movie, we have data. The average Howard Stern fan listens for four hours. The guy's like, that's great. It goes, the average Howard Stern hater listens for six hours.

53:40 It's like, what? He understood the assignment. The assignment was being provocative and get people to listen, not say WNBC, not say the call letters right. That wasn't the assignment. When everybody in the world is going for perfection, go for imperfection. When everybody catches up, go the other way. Zig, have you ever heard of IHatesStevenSinger.com? Yes. Brilliant ad campaign in Philly. The first time I saw it, I was like, what's this crap? And then, of course, what did I do? Went to the website. Needed to. It was an itch I needed to scratch. All right. Parting shots. What do you got for today? Mic drop moment. This was pretty much Jimmy coming in hot on a Monday. I already talked about AI.

54:23 What can I say that we just talked about? Don't send an email just to send an email. Oh, say that again. Don't send an email just to send an email. Yeah. So my parting shot will piggyback on that. I annoy people in meetings because I just go, I act like a petulant five-year-old. I just go, why? Why? Why? Why? And if you can't tell me, it's a dumb idea. Or we get to the real reason. And then when we get to the real reason, I go, is the email the best way to do that? And then, oh, listen, marketing is a skill. And you said it right because people consume so much of it.

55:06 Hey, how hard could it be? How hard could it be? Look, you do some things, you put money behind it and then money shows up. How hard could it be? Not hard. I'll do the CFO thing for a month. You do this and we'll see which one of us screws up. me all right uh find andrea on linkedin i'll put you uh put the the link in the show notes and then we'll talk next week i'll be more prepared i just woke up late it's cold here in the northeast i think it's chilly but i think this one's good and remember kids marketing That's it for this one, but we're just getting warmed up. Smash follow, send it to a friend, or crank up the next episode.

55:47 Want to go deeper? Hit us at pgpinecast.com or find us on YouTube and socials at pgpinecast. And legally, none of this was advice. It's for entertainment purposes only. See, Keith? We read the script. Happy now?