Image of Mandy Gratzer, acupuncturist and business coach, with purple hair, and the text, Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast Episode #73: Marketing as an Ecosystem with Mandy Gratzer.

Today I’m joined by Mandy Gratzer, an acupuncturist and business coach in Australia.

Mandy is the host of the Acupuncturists Biz Hub Podcast as well as the host of the Business of Practice Conference, a marketing and practice management conference just for acupuncturists being held in person in Melbourne Australia this year. 

In this episode we discuss:

  • How to think about marketing if you’re afraid you’ll have to talk too much about yourself
  • What marketing is working for Mandy’s marketing students
  • Where Mandy’s patients primarily come from at her practice
  • Why she advocates a multi-channel approach to marketing
  • Why scaring certain people away with your marketing is a good thing
  • Why you MUST collect data from your marketing efforts
  • And much more

Hope you enjoy this episode with Mandy!

🎙️ Listen to Episode #73: Marketing as an Ecosystem with Mandy Gratzer

Show Notes:

💙 This episode is sponsored by the 2024 Business of Practice Conference.

The Business of Practice is a marketing conference for acupuncturists on September 7 & 8th in Melbourne, Australia. 

This conference speakers are all acupuncturists and marketing or business experts, so you’ll get to learn from people in our industry. Topics include everything from optimizing your website to social media, to email marketing and more. Time to get inspired!

⌛ Super Early bird conference tickets are just $600 Australian, which is a savings of $400, and this price ends on April 30th.  

If you love a destination CEU weekend, then I really hope you’ll join us for this one-of-a-kind event focused on growing your acupuncture practice!

Subscribe to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

 💖 Love the podcast? Help other acupuncturists find the podcast by leaving a review here.

Transcript:

[MICHELLE GRASEK] (00:05):

Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Grasek, and I’m here to help you get visible in your community, take marketing action with confidence and get more patients in your practice and more money in your pocket every week. We both know you’re a talented, passionate acupuncturist and that acupuncture has the power to change lives. So let’s dive right into this episode and talk about how you can reach more patients.

(00:33):

Hello there and welcome back. Today I’m joined by Mandy Gratzer, an acupuncturist and business coach in Australia. Mandy is the host of the Acupuncturists Biz Hub Podcast, as well as the host of the Business of Practice Conference, a marketing and practice management conference just for acupuncturists being held in Melbourne, Australia this year. In this episode, we talk about how to think about marketing. If you are afraid that you’ll have to talk too much about yourself in your marketing, or that it will be uncomfortable to get visible, what marketing is working for Mandy’s marketing students right now, where do Mandy’s patients primarily come from at her own practice? Why she advocates a multi-channel approach to marketing? Why scaring certain people away with your marketing is actually a good thing, and why you must collect data from your marketing efforts plus much more. I hope you enjoy this episode with Mandy.

[BOP] (01:31):

This episode is sponsored by the Business of Practice Conference, which as I just mentioned, is a marketing conference for acupuncturists and is being held on September 7th and eighth in Melbourne, Australia. The conference speakers are all acupuncturists and marketing or business experts, so you’ll get to learn from people in our industry who have been there before and have the experience and know-how to share really good business advice. Topics will include everything from optimizing your website to social media, to email marketing, and much more. Plus, you’ll get all the energy and inspiration that comes from coming together with other acupuncturists in-person for a weekend conference. Super early bird conference tickets are just $600 Australian, which is a savings of $400 off the regular ticket price. And this price ends on April 30th. And as you’ll hear in the upcoming interview, I am very excited and honored to be one of the speakers at the conference. So if you love a destination CEU weekend, then I really hope you’ll join us for this one of a kind event focused on growing your acupuncture practice. The link is in the show notes to learn more and purchase your ticket.

[MICHELLE] (02:46):

Alright, let’s get into this episode with Mandy. Hello, Mandy. How are you today?

[MANDY GRATZER] (02:53):

I’m good, I’m good. Thanks for having me again, aren’t we just the luckiest people in the world? I pinch myself every day that I get to have conversations with people across the other side of the world who do what we do. Given that the Chinese medicine family worldwide is so small and intimate that people I never dreamed I would be able to communicate with and learn from, the fact that that accessibility is now our reality, even in the 20 years since I’ve been practicing where it was not our reality, blessed, absolutely blessed.

[MICHELLE] (03:24):

Yeah, it’s incredible. I have been telling people that you are my Australian twin, because our names are very similar, Michelle Grasek and Mandy Gratzer. It’s a little spooky.

[MANDY] (03:40):

Oh my gosh, I have not made that connection until just you’ve said it. That is wild.

[MICHELLE] (03:47):

I also feel like our style of teaching marketing to other acupuncturists and the fact that we both started a podcast and then ran into each other separately, like we’re just, we’re doing a lot of the same things and I love it. It’s so nice.

[MANDY] (04:03):

It is. It’s really special. And I think there’s just too many reasons why what we do matters and so that passion is what lights us up and why we gravitate towards each other. Yes, it’s pretty special.

[MICHELLE] (04:17):

You have an incredible conference coming up in September for acupuncturists, and it’s all about marketing for acupuncturists. And last year was the first year that you launched it, correct?

[MANDY] (04:31):

Yeah, it was, it was a big deal. In Australia, the majority of learning for acupuncturists, and I’m sure it’s similar in the US but and worldwide, really, but the majority of what we study after graduation is upskilling or lineage-based or skill-based. We’re really trying to hone our craft. But what no one talks about, or very few people, or a handful of people in our industry talk about is the business of practice and what actually goes into running our clinics. And so marketing is just one arm of that. So last year, yeah, I decided, well, the year before, but last year we ran the very first Business of Practice Conference in Australia, and we were spearheaded by a 10 of the most well-known practitioners in Australia doing great things, and who are all educators in our industry who all lecture publicly, internationally as well as have written textbooks, research papers, mentorship program. There’s so many people doing good things. So when all of they, all of these people said, yes, I knew the validity for something like this was supported by people that even that I look up to. So here we are on the other side of that, making a decision to run it again because the feedback was so strong around, I didn’t get to go, I want to go again. Or even some of the presenters were like, I’m not done. I have more to say.

[MICHELLE] (05:50):

I love

[MANDY] (05:51):

And that was just, that was such an endorsement for me.

[MICHELLE] (05:55):

Yes, and it’s in-person, which I think is pretty rare. I can’t really think of any other acupuncture-specific marketing conference that I’ve heard of in the English-speaking world. So I am thrilled that you are hosting something like this and that it also had such positive feedback. And this year in the conference in September, you invited me to just come speak, which I am so grateful for. Thank you very much. And you invited me to teach Acupuncture Marketing School in person, live, which I have —

[MANDY] (06:32):

Yeah, I did.

[MICHELLE] (06:32):

Yeah, I’ve never done that before. So if anyone wants to join me in Australia and get some CEU credits, I’ll be teaching Acupuncture Marketing School live. I just am blown away that you would ask me to do this and also feel like, how have I never taught Acupuncture Marketing School live before?

[MANDY] (06:54):

And do you know something that’s recently come up for me? So actually, it was raised last year, “Oh, Mandy, I can’t attend the conference. Will it be recorded?” And I intentionally did not make it an online or recorded offering because I wanted bodies in the room. I wanted an engaged conversation and that’s exactly what happened, because there was the pool to be there in person. And so I didn’t record last year. I didn’t make it a live offer, sorry, an online or a live stream offering intentionally, because I know just how many people, Australia is very big. Michelle, you’re going to learn that when you come here. But it’s a, we’ve got three time zones, that’s how big our country is, and as a result of that, people don’t travel for just any old course.

(07:42):

And now the blessing of Covid means that everything is so internationally or internet available, online available. We can 100% be doing this from our lounge rooms in our pajamas, or not pajamas, whatever is your bang. But as a result of that, I wanted the, I wanted hungry bodies in the room, active, engaged audience, and that’s exactly what we got. And so yes, we are doing it live. There will be a recorded off option this time around, but that’s because we are going to sell out. I have no doubt about that. Cool. We almost sold-out last time. We have a slightly higher goal this time for our capacity for the venue that we’ve chosen in Melbourne, but the idea for me was we don’t bring any old Michelle Grasek halfway across the world and get her to present one section of my conference. No, no. We get her to bring her signature course to Australia and all the Aussies get to benefit. And New Zealand’s and any people around the world who are listening to this going, “I love a destination.” For me, I’m all about the destination CEE, 100%. If you give me a venue and a destination where I can learn and be on holidays, I am there.

[MICHELLE] (08:48):

Yeah, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to teach it in person. I put Acupuncture Marketing School together originally, let me think, seven years ago. And so it’s always been digital and I have taught parts of it, of course, live on Zoom, but never in-person and never the whole thing. So I feel like it’s sort of coming full circle, and I’m very excited. And I love what you said about getting hungry bodies in the room for a conference in-person, because there’s really nothing that can replace the energy of being in a space with other people who are really looking forward to learning the same thing that you are. I mean, zoom is great. It connects us all over the world, but you aren’t like sitting in the space next to a person that you just met from halfway around the country, and then you can go have lunch with other people. It’s just not the same energy. So I’m so looking forward to it. So we will include links to the conference if you want to take a look wherever you are in the world, if you want to get some CEUs and learn lots of things and go on vacation, please join us. It’s going to be super

[MANDY] (10:05):

A hundred percent. And like, look, it’s never really winter in Australia compared to the rest of the world, so even though we’re coming out of winter, we’ll be in springtime. There is a very famous song in Australia called Four Seasons in One Day and it’s written about Melbourne, because you can never really plan for the weather in Melbourne. But honestly, it’s springtime, it’s going to be gorgeous. It’s also footy season, which is our really, and it’s our final series. Like it’s very, Melbourne’s a very electric location and certainly is in the month of September when footy finals are on. It’s a fever. There’s an energy about it that’s just, if you’re, anyway, for anyone who’s sport mad who may or may not be our audience, that just depends.

[MICHELLE] (10:44):

I can’t wait.

[MANDY] (10:48):

It’ll be great.

[MICHELLE] (10:50):

So you have been traveling around the country teaching practice management and marketing to acupuncture students. And this is something you’ve been doing for a little while. I know you did it last year as well, and I think that’s so amazing because really there’s not enough marketing education for students, and it’s something that you want to feel comfortable with when you graduate and you have to open your own practice. Like the moment that you realize you are on your own and you have no income and you have no idea how to generate income, that’s not the time to think about marketing, “Like, oh, man.” We should have been talking about this for like a year already, just to help people get comfortable with it. So I love that you’re doing that. What inspired you to start that? It’s called The Road Show, correct?

[MANDY] (11:47):

Yeah, A Guide to Setting Up Clinic. So hilariously, we call it a road show because we’re touring around Australia, but obviously we’re flying everywhere because thousands of kilometers between each city. So yeah, it’s affectionately called the Roadshow: A Guide to Setting Up Clinic Roadshow. I started a guide to setting up clinic because I realized we needed a bit of a manual, we needed a guide, and we needed a safe space when we finish our studies, a bit of a checklist of all of the things we, and I used to, like, I used to call it all the we wish we knew when we started out, basically. Because that was the reality of feeling like you’re in a deep dark forest of unknowing, what are, you’re an excellent clinician, you’re confident in your medicine, you’re confident in your diagnostics, you’re confident in your technique, you’re prescribing, you are not at all across or equipped with the backend of running your business.

(12:34):

And no one thinks of it as a business, they’re like, oh, no, I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it for health. I’m in it for helping the community. I’m like, that’s nice, but how do you eat? But also, how do you cover your tax? How do you make sure that it’s enough cover for the rent? How many patients is that? What’s your bottom line? So it just started to come about organically and then I’d had some students observing me doing their clinic obs and I realized that what was actually happening in our conversations was very little about the observation of the treatment per se, and more about the flow of running the clinic, and it was all the little stuff in between. That’s what was the genesis of the course coming to fruition.

(13:14):

So the first couple of years, it was during Covid, so I ran it virtually as a weekly group session via Zoom, thank the world for Zoom. But then I got to this point where I was really itching to get out there and connect with students on the ground in each city in Australia where all the cohorts are studying at the universities and colleges. And so, yeah, I took it on the road last year and did Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne. And this year I did Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. And what I will honestly say is that only 25% of our attendees were fresh out students. The majority were either just finished and working in someone else’s clinic, or had been out for a while and are scared of what they don’t know. So it actually really brought around a group of people who had a vulnerability, a because they wanted to be prepared, especially the people who are still finishing their final year or have just finished final year.

(14:08):

Those guys, they’re championing it. They are ready to go. They’re learning about insurance, they’re learning about what it takes to be legally registered in Australia. Remember we have a reg guidelines that you need to adhere to. So we cover all of those things. But that was good for them. The people who are already had been out, they had literally shown up with their registration papers and have been working in someone else’s clinic. I think you call it an associate?

[MICHELLE] (14:30):

Yes.

[MANDY] (14:30):

But you are the one running the practice. You own the practice, you are doing the backend, you are doing the FPOS machine and all of the Clinico or Jane or booking software, the communication with your patients, the way, the advertising, the marketing, the social media, the follow ups, the automations, the strategy, all of the referrals or the networks for the profession within your community, all of that is the practice owner. So if you are solo, then you are already doing that. But if you’ve been working in someone else’s clinic, you’ve never seen any of that because all you’ve done, gratefully is arrive in someone’s clinic and treat patients. And I don’t mean that in a critical way, I just mean that in the nature of your role or contractor or whatever. So that really brought to a fruition just how many people needed this course, not for their confidence in practice, but for their lack of confidence and wanting to be a bit more armed and equipped with what it actually takes to set up their own clinic. So yeah, it’s been an absolute world. I mean, I’ve loved every moment of it. It’s been a whirlwind.

[MICHELLE] (15:33):

It sounds amazing.

[MANDY] (15:36):

What happened in the room in each of those cohorts was a really healthy banter of conversation. It was interactive. It wasn’t me standing in front of them lecturing for nine hours. It was us sitting around a table with me. I’m sure I had a run sheet of what we were covering, but it was that in-person, heartfelt digression of conversation that was relevant to them. We could go in whatever tangent they needed. We could skim over stuff that wasn’t relevant. But it was the fact that everyone benefited when you asked a question because something you may, it may not have occurred to you to ask that question, and yet by someone else asking it and you being in the room, you heard it too and it just, it didn’t stop it. Every city, it didn’t matter. The mix of people, the age gaps, the differences in their training, everyone was benefiting from this wholehearted conversation around strategies for practice and running clinics. It was just gold.

[MICHELLE] (16:34):

I do think there’s so much to be said for having a bunch of acupuncturists together in almost any context, because we’re so isolated in our practices typically. Even if we have associates or we work in someone else’s clinic, we’re not always working the same shift. In my practice, my associate and I are there on opposite days. And so it’s so nice to be in a space with other acupuncturists, because, someone finally understands your liver chi jokes, and then you have the opportunity to talk about not just case studies, but all of the things that are happening in your practice and marketing ideas. The energy I think is infectious and it’s inspiring to hear from people who have ideas or they tried some marketing and it worked to feel like, oh, now I could maybe be brave enough to go out and try that thing.

[MANDY] (17:38):

Completely agree. And I think there was a lot of vulnerability around putting themselves out there and what I kept saying to them is, you can be the most equipped practitioner in your town, in your suburb, in your state, but you can be the best kept secret if nobody knows you exist. You are literally doing your industry and your community a disservice, if you don’t promote the awareness of your practice, that’s all we’re talking about. We’re not talking about sleazy car salesman. No, that’s not what we’re subscribing to. And you don’t even have to worry that it would feel like that because it won’t. You are more concerned about your perspective of promoting your practice as being disingenuine when it’s the total opposite. That’s what the message I was trying to get across.

[MICHELLE] (18:24):

Yeah, there is a marketing teacher, gosh, I can’t remember his last name, but, oh, I think his name is Ben Angel and I discovered him quite a long time ago. And I remember he really shook me with this video that talked about how if you think marketing feels gross, you’re being selfish and I was like, fascinating. Tell me about it. This was like a, maybe like 12 years ago. He basically said, if you are worried that marketing is going to feel awful, you are really thinking too much about yourself and not considering the perspective that you are just trying to solve someone’s problem. You could act in a consultant role. The exact idea you were talking about, you don’t want to be the best kept secret. You have to put yourself out there on behalf of other people. Think about them and how it would benefit them.

(19:23):

Remember that you’re really just answering their questions, relieving their doubts and their fears. And so your marketing becomes about what they need and not about your own fears, so really focusing on them. Another perspective that I think people find helpful is if they feel like, gosh, I’m talking about myself so much in my marketing, or I am anticipating that is what marketing is like, focus on acupuncture. You don’t have to say that you are great at x, y, Z. You can if you want. But if you specialize in fertility and you don’t want to say I’m an expert, you could talk about how well acupuncture works, talk about the research, focus on acupuncture. And then it takes some of the spotlight off of you as an individual. There’s so many different ways to think about it so that it doesn’t feel gross and prevent you from actually doing it.

[MANDY] (20:15):

I think that’s such an important point as well, that we have 4,000 years of text and theory and philosophy. Oh, my goodness, educate your community. And correct me if I’m wrong, I mean I’m an oddball extroverted acupuncturist, but the majority of my friends are all introverts who hate the idea of anything other than a one-on-one. Like, well mate, writing is your thing, okay. Writing is your superpower. Because if you couldn’t think of anything worse than talking to a group of people, then one-on-ones are your bang, which means establishing one-on-one relationships with people in your community is perfect for you, but also writing is your superpower. And so sharing passion and philosophy and research and theory, oh my gosh, there is so much to educate your community on. It is an easy medicine to share philosophy on. I love it.

[MICHELLE] (21:10):

So what do you feel is working well for your marketing students, for your marketing clients right now? Like the people that you are teaching and interacting with, what marketing is working for them?

[MANDY] (21:25):

I think Instagram’s working really well. People are starting to get more confident and comfortable. I’m seeing a lot more practitioners in my newsfeed who have recently joined in, say, the last 12 months, which I think is really cool. So we’re obviously, it’s starting to work, Michelle, we’re starting to get more visible on socials, but also it’s because people are also looking. People are actively using their social media as a search engine in a way they have never done before. So I think that social media is certainly one thing, but I would equally argue that the strength of people’s relationships in their communities are just as important. And I still share. So every year when I do the road show, I share live screenshots of my reporting software in clinical, like with Jane, how you can cord the wheel of new patients and where they came from, so your marketing measures.

(22:13):

And I like to show them that so they can see just where all of my new patients have come from in a year. And that, it demonstrates to them where all of the efforts need to be. It’s not put all your eggs in one social media basket because that will not get you the win. It’s not just put the sign on the fence, but if you don’t have one, no one is going to find your clinic. It’s not just your Google pin and your Google My Business presence. But if you are not a Google pin, someone else will be found instead of you. So what is your web presence like? So these are easy decisions. This doesn’t take a lot of work, but being visible on multiple surfaces is generally what I actually pitch the whole box and dice.

(22:51):

I’m like, I want you to be on social media. I want your physical presence to be aware in your community. If you’re not a Google pin, someone else will be found instead of you and they will select your, their service instead of yours. And the last one is professional relationships, it’s all about the other health practitioners that you intend to work with or who you are already sharing patients with. It’s very important for you to understand that you, whilst we are an amazing practitioner and an incredible medicine, we are not it. Our patients will invariably be seeing another practitioner or multiple. And I actively encourage it multimodality. Multimodality practice gets the win in nine out of 10 cases in my opinion. It’s never just going to be acupuncture or Chinese herbs. There will be something else and it’s important for you to take note of who those practitioners are and make connection with them. Have a cup of tea or a coffee, or go and visit them in their clinic. Write them an email if they’re a specialist who are not going to spend the time with you. Write them.

(23:50):

You’re being, you are putting yourself in front of them so that they go, oh, it’s that acupuncturist again? We’ve shared two patients now, or three patients now, or whatever the situation might be. So the more visible and those relationships, even integrated GPs, they want acupuncturists on their books so that they can actively, confidently refer their complex cases for acupuncture. They’re not going to do that unless they know that you are okay and vice versa. You are not going to refer your patient outwardly to an exercise physiologist who you know they need unless you know that that exercise physiologist respects what you do. Because if they don’t, you are not going to get a repeat with that patient because they’ll just start having dry kneeling from their physio and then they won’t need you anymore. You know what I mean? Like it needs to be healthy relationships. And so if you can cultivate that, the massive percentage of your new patient referrals are going to come from other practitioners. But that’s relationship building.

[MICHELLE] (24:44):

I love that. And I really think about marketing as an ecosystem. So it’s all of these different areas where you’re showing up in the digital world in real life and I always say that your real-life presence in your community should be backed up by your digital presence and your digital presence needs to be backed up by you actually showing up somewhere in your community. And I’m an introvert, I get it. Sometimes showing up in the community is a little stressful. That’s also why I recommend that people experiment with their marketing and try different things. They might be surprised by what they’re comfortable with or what they enjoy. There are lots of different kinds of networking groups out there. I’ve been to some Chamber of Commerce meetings where I would go for months and months and felt like I just didn’t feel super welcome.

(25:42):

Not that they were doing anything wrong, it just, there was not a flow in speaking to people and feeling like I was establishing relationships. I was like, okay, I gave this one a fair try. I have other chamber of commerce groups where instantly I felt like they made an effort to make me feel very welcome. They introduced me around. You sort of have to expect some trial and error With all of your marketing. And I would also add that when you have this ecosystem of your social media presence, of your Google My Business, of your in-person volunteering, even if you don’t want to do network formal networking, I had a marketing client recently who referred to all of that as stirring the chi. So it’s something that I have seen with marketing clients for years and years is that you sort of never know exactly where your patients are going to come from.

(26:44):

Like you’re making all of these various efforts and one week it’ll be like, yeah, I got two patients from Instagram, it’s working, and then the next week maybe you don’t get any patients from Instagram, which is okay, but you get one from a referral and from your in-person like Chamber of Commerce. And then the next week someone comes because they said they saw all of your Google reviews, et cetera. But the idea is that if you’re making consistent effort to be visible in person and in the digital world, you are stirring the chi and the patients will come. You may not be able to predict like, okay, this week I’m going to get this number from Instagram. Maybe they’ll come from somewhere you didn’t expect, but it’s because you are making this concerted effort in the big picture. So I hope that’s reassuring for people.

[MANDY] (27:33):

Absolutely. It’s not easy if you’re waiting for new patients. And waiting is the wrong phrase. Waiting is the wrong phrase anyway but sometime, but we’ve all been there and it’s not, it’s an uneasy feeling. We’ve all had economic downturns. Our communities are suffering, people are choosing their bottom line over their health, which is a really, really stressful scenario, here in Australia, especially, but there is still wealth everywhere. There is still people who will focus, who will have no pennies at all and use those pennies on their health. So it’s up to you to keep your head out of their wallet and allow them to make those decisions, but it’s important to be present so that they can, and when people have the opportunity to see you across multiple platforms, that also, that whole, we’re all goldfish now, like we’re even less, our attention span is even like, it used to be, I’m going to say four to seven points of contact, now it’s something like 16 contacts that people have to make to make a purchasing decision.

(28:28):

And so in our realm that’s even higher because they have to trust you to stick needles in them. So we haven’t done, it’s not just points of contact, it’s rapport and trust that you are building. So your social media is your interview process. We are never in the history of health, have we been able to interview our doctor before we walk into their clinic and raise a deepest, darkest concerns with them. Never have we ever been able to hear a specialist’s voice before we walk into their clinic and talk to them about gynecological issues.

[MICHELLE] (28:59):

I love that.

[MANDY] (28:59):

A stranger we’ve just met. We now have the opportunity to make those relationships for our patients so that by the time they come in, they know what I sound like. They know how I talk. They know I might be a little bit sweary, they know I’m five foot tall. Do you know what I mean? Like all of that matters. It’s trust, it’s health. So you are not putting yourself out there for you at all. It’s got nothing to do with you and everything to do with making Chinese medicine visible and relatable and trustworthy, or an option, a health option for the general public.

[MICHELLE] (29:32):

Yeah, and I typically find that, for example, the people who find my clinic through Instagram are the most enthusiastic and they already have the most buy-in for acupuncture. Because they have been learning about acupuncture for their particular concern through my Instagram account for however many weeks or months or sometimes years that they’ve been following. But they have the opportunity to get to know you and the medicine so well that they opt in. That’s why they made an appointment. You don’t feel like a stranger. Even your clinic space feels —

[MANDY] (30:13):

Is familiar

[MICHELLE] (30:14):

Yes, is very familiar because they’ve seen it so many times. And I think that’s amazing. It also reduces the number of patients who don’t commit to a treatment plan. It just makes people much more prepared for what acupuncture is all about. And then the flip side of that is that the people who are not a good fit for you consciously or unconsciously, they know that and they’re like, okay, I’m not making an appointment with this person. I’ll make it with someone else. But there’s, I know that sounds scary for people. There’s nothing wrong with that. You want the people in your clinic who agree with the way that you approach health and wellness and who are a great fit for you and your personality and then your clinic is going to flow. Your whole experience of your day is going to flow better.

(31:09):

People worry, oh, if I’m scaring people away, I’ll have fewer patients. Well, I don’t think that’s true either. I think the more specific you are with your marketing and your message talking about how you approach the medicine, the people who are right for you are going to take action at a higher rate. They’re going to feel more excited, they’re going to feel spoken directly to, and they’re going to say, wow, I literally had that thought yesterday about my pain or about my fertility journey. Maybe I need this help. This is what my experience is. And then you say that back to them in your marketing and they’re like, wow, I better click the link in this person’s bio and do some serious research. So it increases the people who want to see you instead of reducing it.

[MANDY] (31:53):

Completely agree. I think the idea of patient retention is not a keeping people on the books philosophy at all. It’s about becoming a patient’s long-term trusted advisor. You are not going to just see them for the thing they’re coming to you for. They’re going to actively choose to seek you out for ongoing health support after you have addressed the original reason that they’ve attended your clinic. And that is what this whole 10% new patient’s, 90% follow-up rate should be about in that slice of pie, if you’re measuring your percentage. So when you talked about the fear of having a smaller pool of patients, you want patients who you don’t have to convince that their health is important. You want them to already be invested in that journey. Because otherwise you will have this massive high turnover rate of people who don’t actually get it and aren’t committed to their health and want this to be a one hit wonder, which it isn’t.

(32:47):

It’s up to you to educate your patients. That Chinese medicine acupuncture isn’t, is, whilst potent and highly effective, is often cumulative, but then is also becomes very regulatory and very sustainable and very hands off. You actually don’t have to do Chinese medicine very often or seek herbs very often once you’ve maintained wellness or got a person to a point where they’re quite sustained by what you’ve achieved. And so because they’ve seen that from your level of care, they then become a longstanding patient. And so you’ve done all of this work in your marketing, which brings in that patient from the get go, which means then maintaining that long-term relationship with them is actually organic. and easy and heartfelt and ooh, —

[MICHELLE] (33:31):

Yes, so good. Just —

[MANDY] (33:34):

So good.

[MICHELLE] (33:35):

Just yesterday I was talking with my associate, because we’ve had a bunch of new patients and they feel better and they are going on maintenance and we were discussing like maybe, I’m sure you asked about their digestion already, but you’re sure there’s like, there’s nothing that they want to continue working on that is more of an acute thing like digestive or do they have period symptoms or sure, they don’t have knee pain or ankle pain or whatever it is. Because yeah, once you have that trust, you’re just like, okay, I’m so glad we resolved the initial thing you came in for. What else you got? Let’s just keep going and improving your health.

[MANDY] (34:12):

I had the reverse conversation with a recent patient where we’ve got them to a really great place in a pretty good amount of time. I’m really pleased with their outcomes. They are too, and they came in not wanting me to send, because I actively say to people, we’re going to work probably in this frequency or capacity depending on how your body responds and we’re going to get to a point. So this is all just patient education. I know we’re digressing, but I think it’s, people who do acupuncture get it, but she said to me, I don’t want you to send me away. Can we work on this list of complaints next, please?

[MICHELLE] (34:42):

Love this. Oh my God.

[MANDY] (34:44):

She wasn’t ready to be done with her periodical frequency of acupuncture.

[MICHELLE] (34:48):

That’s wonderful.

[MANDY] (34:49):

And I was like, mate, you can come for anything or come for nothing. You can have acupuncture as often or as little as you’d like. But see how that trust relationship’s already there because you’ve been doing the work. And she’d already, she’d same thing, stalked me. She was a social media person who’d sussed me out before she came to our clinic. And that’s, again, that’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s about.

[MICHELLE] (35:08):

So you mentioned sharing with the people on your road show the behind-the-scenes of your clinic, EMR Jane and showing them where your patients come from. So I would love to know what percentage of patients are coming from which marketing efforts in your clinic right now.

[MANDY] (35:30):

So it’s really interesting and I think they really like seeing the slices of the pie because all of the pie pieces are important. If you, and I kept, I showed it to them so they could see, if you don’t do one section of this, this is potentially the percentage of people that you are missing out on reaching. Because there’s demographics from all of these. Some people will never see you in this area, but they will 100% see you from here. Now it’s really important to acknowledge that a big portion of my pie, I’m going to say it was between 30 and 40% is patient referral.

[MICHELLE] (36:02):

Oh, of course.

[MANDY] (36:03):

It’s the word of mouth of people who’ve already seen you and that’s the seeds of relationship. You lay the seeds, you grow the tree of clinic. The fruit, the bearing fruit is the trust that you’ve built within those patients and their trust to send their loved ones, bosses, wives, partners, sisters, whatevers to you. Yes, go and see Mandy, go see Michelle. She’s great. That is everything. Word of mouth in your community is everything. So patient referral is a big one, roughly 30 to 40%. 30% was online. And so that’s Google searches, that’s Facebook forums, being tagged in health forums or being tagged in local community forums. So if you are not tagable, even if you’re not on Facebook, having a Facebook business page means that your patients can tag you in their communities.

[MICHELLE] (36:51):

I love that.

[MANDY] (36:51):

So that’s another really important factor because if they can’t tag you, if they’re like, oh, it’s Mandy, she’s down the road, she’s just in Maylands, that person’s not going to click and go looking for that. If someone else says, here’s Michelle, she’s in this suburb, this is her business, I’m tagging her business, then the person who’s asked for the suggestions, it’s going to click the one she can click on. Not I’ll go and look for Mandy and Maylands. Like, that’s too hard. It’s all about reducing clicks. So that, anyway, I’ve digressed, 30% was online

[MICHELLE] (37:20):

It’s all about reducing clicks. That is the truth

[MANDY] (37:23):

20% was practitioner referrals. So I have a, I’m an extrovert, so I have a strong relationships, strong relationships with, so I’m talking naturopaths, Pilates studio, hairdressers, podiatrist, physiotherapy, Cairo, integrative GPs, doulas and midwives and home birth educators, things like that. So I have relationships on all, skin cosmetic gynecologists, obstetricians in our local hospital. So all you have to do is make one of those relationships and you have trusted practitioner professional referral coming back to you over the course of your practice. And as you said, one week the person’s going to find you from a Facebook post, somebody else is going to find you. because they did a Google acupuncture near me. Someone else’s boss told them they need to see Mandy. You know what I mean? Like it’s all of those facets that are getting people to win. But yes, there’s, I think the big four is your patients telling other people that you’re great, which is wonderful. 30% is online presence, including social media and web, 20% is practitioner professional referral. And then the other 10-ish, 10-ish percent is fence or drive-bys or incidental other ways that people might find out about you. But those are the big ones.

[MICHELLE] (38:40):

I love that. I wish it was easier to determine where exactly people come from in the digital world. And I’m sure everyone experiences this. You have your little, how did you find us on your intake? And they just say internet. I’m like, okay. The internet’s a big place. It’s like, I need you to be, let’s more specific.

[MANDY] (39:04):

Let’s expand.

[MICHELLE] (39:06):

Yeah.

[MANDY] (39:07):

But I usually do, I’ve got no shame. I will ask. I’m like, how did you find me? I’ve said, I can see, yep, I have no, and please don’t, and like, if you don’t have it on your intake form, then the thing I want you to do when you stop listening to this podcast is change your intake form right now to have the question. Or prompt yourself to ask the question, because you have no possible way of actually pulling the efforts if you don’t understand when your new patients are coming from, your efforts. So change that in your intake forms now. And if someone is too gray or vague, ask them for more detail. Was it a Google near me, acupuncture near me site? Was it a Facebook ad? Did somebody else tag me? How did you hear me? This is what I, this helps me understand where I’m being reached?

[MICHELLE] (39:51):

Agreed. And I think it’s so true what you said that you can’t do great marketing if you don’t know where people are coming from. You don’t know what’s working. Because marketing is really about the data so that you can lean into what is working, but you have to collect that data. I also ask my receptionist, I use a virtual receptionist service that’s specifically for acupuncturist called ACUHub, which is super

[MANDY] (40:19):

I love that that’s available in the US. We don’t have that here, but it’s awesome

[MICHELLE] (40:22):

I know, oh my gosh, it’s so tough. Because they, it’s really helpful when they’re in your time zone. So this’ll be a little tough for you guys over there. But I have asked them, and I’m sure they are trained to do this regardless for all clinics, but to make sure when someone calls, ask them how they heard about us and then like, report back to me so that it can be recorded. And so they’re really good about that. So yeah, if you have front desk staff, if you’re getting phone calls, sort of have that conversation with them.

[MANDY] (40:57):

Absolutely.

[MICHELLE] (40:57):

I think it’s really, really important.

[MANDY] (40:59):

Yep. And I think ROI is crucial, what is worth your investment, the financial investment? Back in the day, and I know I’m showing my age here, but back in the day it was called the Yellow Pages in Australia. It was, you had one printed opportunity to list the knowledge of your business for the year. You had one printed opportunity for the year, one directory. $750 for a business card sized ad that had your clinic details for the year. And if you missed it, I never missed it, I’m just saying, but if you did, then you weren’t in the Yellow Pages and you had to hope that someone else had last year’s copy. But the point is that you knew at the time, so I used to get 30% where referrals, 30% was community and 30% was the Yellow Pages.

[MICHELLE] (41:45):

That’s wild.

[MANDY] (41:45):

And I knew that. And so my $700 yellow pages ad was worth at the time, 10 patients. Now if I saw a hundred new patients a year, that is an easy decision. easy decision, isn’t it? But you don’t know that unless you are doing the data collection to understand that return on investment. So it’s the same if you start to do, to dabble with Facebook clicks and doing Facebook ads or things like this. You need, I mean, I’m all about organic first. I think paid marketing should be last because I think you can get so many good results with organic. Facebook ads is great, but it’s not the be-all-end-all. And you can easily sink your money really quickly without getting that return. And that’s your hard-earned dollar, so your hard earned dollar and your hard earned time, especially if your time is valuable as well, which everyone’s is. But at certain points when we are quiet, we can spend more energy and time on things that are a bit more DIY, rather than outsourcing. So that return on investment’s crucial, you need to understand whether that was worth or we can learn how to understand how to write a MailChimp. Or whether it would’ve been better to pay someone to set up MailChimp templates for you so that your email marketing was easy to follow up with your patient. You know what I mean? Like return on investment’s really important.

[MICHELLE] (43:00):

Absolutely. Well, I have loved this conversation as always

[MANDY] (43:09):

Same

[MICHELLE] (43:10):

And I will be sure to link your previous episode. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what number it is, but it was one of my first interviews, so I’ll link that in the show notes. But before we sign off, I would love to know what your definition of success is. I know that I asked you this previously, but it can change, so I’d love to check in.

[MANDY] (43:30):

Yeah, yeah, it’s still relevant to me. I still say the same thing, but someone asked me, what’s your biggest fear? And I said, it’s losing grip and because I don’t like lack of control. But I think that the point is that if things are evolving in your clinic and you are, if it’s not your business, then it’s not your business, it’s not working for you, it’s not your business. So you are losing grip on reality, or your lack of control means that you are not benefiting from the decisions that you are making and you need to be able to do that. So my definition of success really ties into that. If you are feeling like you are the one gripping onto the runaway train, then that ain’t your business and it’s not serving you in order for it to be sustainable. That we’re trying to cultivate yang chang here. Vitality and practice and longevity in practice, that’s the key to success. Whatever that looks like for you. How do you sustain practice and sustain in clinic and have the work life balance that, that’s not a rainbow unicorn. Work life balance should absolutely be a thing that ebbs and flows. As you say, it evolves and changes. Sorry, that’s a long answer.

[MICHELLE] (44:33):

No, no, I love that. And I really, I always ask people to lean into the idea that you should try to build a business that supports your life and not the other way around, because that’s how you burn out is when you build something that doesn’t, that accidentally, most of the time people are building things that don’t support them long-term or it’s too much. They may realize like, wow, maybe I can’t energetically sustain 50 patients a week, but that has been my goal. So focusing on building a practice that supports your life. I agree, I think that’s so important. Where can we find you online? How can people get in touch with you?

[MANDY] (45:20):

You can, please, I would love if you enjoyed this podcast to give our episode a big share and let other acupuncturists know that this is information and this conversation is real. And as this dialogue is happening, it’s really important that as many acupuncturists know that this is happening. So I also had this conversation or this dialogue with my own podcast, The Acupuncturist Bizhub. Please go and check it out. And yes, Michelle and I have had an interview as well on my podcast, as well as a number of other amazing acupuncturists in Australia that I would love for you to listen to. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram, The Acupuncturist Bizhub. You can follow my clinic page if you want inspiration on how I talk to my own patients if you want to see what that clinic format looks like. My clinic page is called She Works Perth. But yeah, we can add all of those to the show notes. But I would love it if you wanted to be in my inbox or if you wanted me to be in your inbox. Sign up to the newsletter, get tips and hints and advice around practice management and sustainability and practice. I love this whole conversation and however it’s relevant to you, please, please feel free to come and join the Biz Hub.

[MICHELLE] (46:19):

I love it. Well, thank you so much.

[MANDY] (46:22):

Thanks for having me.

[MICHELLE] (46:28):

Thanks so much for tuning in today. Don’t forget that the early bird ticket price for the Business of Practice Conference expires on April 30th. I’ll put the link in the show notes so you can take a look at the conference and review the speakers and their topics. If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to email me at michelle@michellegrasek.com. Enjoy your day.