Brand Building In Healthcare With Dr. Ryan Rieder

Ryan:

We all like to believe that being the best at the thing correlates with us being the top earner in the industry. Now, if you look traditionally at the top 1% of earners in any expert space very seldom that the top 1% earners correlate with being the best at the thing. they’re not. They’re the best at the marketing and the branding and positioning of the thing.

Sliman:

Hello, and welcome to the Care Frontiers podcast The show where we interview thought leaders in health care to share with us their expert knowledge in everything business, branding, and marketing. If you’re a practitioner, medical business owner or an executive, this is the place to be. I’m your host Sliman Baghouri, and in today’s season finale, we’ll talk about everything branding and brand building. Today’s guests will peel off the layers of ambiguity around this concept and make it more palpable for you to implement and integrate in your practice. Make sure to tune in all the way through the end for more details.

Sliman:

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to the care frontiers podcast where we bring healthcare professionals to share with us their own experience running a successful medical business. Today’s guest is the founder of DC practice growth Learning Center speaker and the author of the Amazon number one best selling book the new patient Avalon system. Today’s guest is also co founder of Hälsa Care Group run in nine offices that serve 1000s of clients on a weekly basis. If you think it can’t get any more diverse we’ll think twice because he’s also a marketer sharing proven marketing strategy online for free on his YouTube channel. Ryan Rieder if you’re wondering who’s this interdisciplinary person, he is none other than Dr. Ryan Rieder. Welcome to the show. Dr. Ryan.

Ryan:

Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to chat with you today. And hopefully we can help your listeners or anyone in tuning in, serve more people and live a more abundant life. So thank you for what you do to help people do that.

Sliman:

Of course. Thank you, Dr. Rieder, I’m going to be honest with you, I found it a little bit hard to put a proper introduction for you, because there is so much going on a chiropractor, a business owner, a co founder and author and the marketer How can medical business owners managed to execute in other aspects of the business such as marketing, branding, while being on top of their role as a practitioner?

Ryan:

Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think we have to remember, I think that we two ways for me to cover kind of cover this is that if you look at any business, and it’s going to sound quite generalized, what I’m saying now, but business is a panacea, meaning every business needs the same things, we all need a marketing department, or only the sales department, we all need accounts, we all need operations within the business and, and it’s really changing your mindset to to understand that you need that within the business. But understanding this crew this crucial element, if it’s important that it’s done in the business, it’s important that it’s done, whether you do or not, it’s important that it’s done. And I think that often changes a lot of practitioners, if you will, whether it’s self employed, or people are, they’re seeing customers, and they are selling their time for money, which is another conversation again to shortly. But it’s just to change your mindset on that, it’s remember that if it’s important that it’s done, it’s important that it’s done, whether you do it or not. So that’s the first thing that I think will help everyone listen to this to understand. Okay, cool. So the fact that you need a marketing department, the fact that you need a sales department, the fact that you need accounts, operations, that’s a panacea, every business needs it, but doesn’t mean you have to do it, it just needs to be done. And what’s interesting about this, statistically, I don’t know if you know this, but if you are dyslexic, they say that you are have a better chance of being a successful business. Isn’t that interesting. And the reason for that is that people who have been that be able to show gene studies that someone who may have, may have had that tough upbringing, through school has had to learn how to delegate, and has had to learn how to associate with high performing individuals so that they could get by, so they learned the skill of outsourcing the length, the skill of, you know, hanging around successful people, so they can become successful by just virtue of that, etc.

Ryan:

And I always joke and I say I’m most worried about my top performers. My A students. And a lot of people listening to this are going to be A students and I’m gonna say I’m most worried about you. Because the reason I worry about my my top performers is because you’re efficient at doing the thing and that often becomes your crutch in the business. You think that to get it done, you have to do it yourself because nobody can do it as well as you and and some of you, that’s true.

Ryan:

And that’s your biggest barrier. For me, that’s not true. I am not that great at doing much. But I’m very good at getting a team together that can serve bigger people, bigger numbers and more people and make a bigger impact. So a little bit of complicated way of answering that. But it’s the first understanding that it has to be done with it, whether you realize it or not, it’s happening in your business. It’s just running you if you’re not taking control of it. So I hope that answers your question in some way.

Sliman:

It does, it does. But another another question I get from my client is the how they can manage their time, like, they always have this excuse of, I don’t have much time, I’m already busy being a practitioner, and I can’t do much else outside my job.

Ryan:

You know, I think I think we have to remember, we all have the same amount of time in the day. And it comes segways into the conversation that I just recently had with you. How is it that Richard Branson has more but owns more businesses than there are days in the year, think about that for a second, statistically, he can’t spend what if he had to spend, he statistically can’t a day on each business each year. That’s how many businesses he had. So if he can do that, then and you know, we have to find a way to be able to do what needs to be done. So I just I don’t really like that conversation, I had the same thing with the people I consult with. But I really liked the conversation as much because it ensues that it’s not possible. But it absolutely is possible. Because if I can do it, if somebody else can do it, then that means it’s very, very possible. It does have a lot to do with the end goal in mind also.

Ryan:

Some people come into consulting, others might be one to remove themselves from the front end, they might want to not see clients or customers or patients Whenever you call them in your in your industry, then your importance of removing yourself is more important than finding a way to get it done, which we can get into today. I mean, I’ve got lots I could share with you with that. But and one of my greatest mentors and if you’ve listened to my podcasts, you’ve probably heard me speak about Dan Kennedy quite a bit. And Dan Kennedy was is probably be my biggest influence in marketing. And Dan Kennedy’s belief is that every single business owner should be spending a certain level of time on marketing every day, every single day. So it becomes an element of it is the most important thing in the business sales and marketing. So again, let me go back to the first segway to this question is important that it’s done, it’s important that it needs to get done, even if you don’t do it. So you so then you start outsourcing and you start building a team to do it for you. And then you start having structure in the business and you start having an ops person or an integrator that helps run those those elements. It does not mean you have to do it. And so that’s very important to segway into that.

Sliman:

I think that answers the question very nicely. Dr Rieder, I want to transition a little bit to the the branding side of things. And this is a really hard concept for our clients to get around when we start our workshops. And and basically because it’s it’s more of an intangible assets of the business. So how do you go about brand building, let’s say for your practices or for your brand?

Ryan:

Yeah, so it’s a it’s a great question. I would probably say sliman, I would say one element that I didn’t fully appreciate, and now realize it was a mistake was how important branding is. And, branding, To tell you the truth, when I first started building my business that now turns over 5 million pounds a year it just the practices. we’ve banned the word brand. I’m not joking. We banned the word brand we like, “Don’t anybody say the word branding” Like you know, because traditionally the word branding often mean someone would come in a consultant would sit in front of you and tell you which color orange you should have. And I just was like…

Sliman:

That’s a nightmare for our for our agency, like it’s all we do.

Ryan:

Yeah but listen, now what I’ve learned is that branding is is one of the most important things you can do in the business. I actually I wish I had spent more time on the branding aspects prior, more understanding it but my understanding, I’ll tell you my definition of branding in some way shape or form, but all branding, all correct branding needs to do is, to give the marketplace less fear or more trust in the end user.

Ryan:

So that’s really what you’re trying to do from a branding perspective. Does your branding strategy, decrease resistance to the sale?

Ryan:

And medical practitioners are going to be listening to this. So there’s a very famous cancer doctor used to help people heal from cancer naturally. And he said, he said there were three was really three things that determined whether someone could heal from from whatever it was, but in this case, certain cancers. and he said:

Ryan:

First, was the belief in the body’s ability to heal. Okay, so they had to believe that that was actually option. Next 2) was their belief in the treatment of choice, okay. And 3) thirdly, and what most people probably don’t factor into the healing process, not just that. It’s interesting. It’s like, we talked about branding from a business perspective, but from a healing perspective, the belief in the provider chosen was a metal part of the healing process, and then you go, but that’s also best part of decreasing resistance, the sale is also a massive part of getting customers to refer it or some massive part of building a brand or a new business.

Ryan:

And from a branding perspective, it matters, that if someone sits in front of you, and whatever you whatever you do, the chiropractor, dentist, Doctor, matters. if you’re looking after a celebrity that everyone knows, it matters that you’re the Manchester United physiotherapist or chiropractor or dentist or doctor. these things matter more from a perspective of decreasing resistance in the prospect, or more even the results that they get. Because you they get to know like and trust you. And as we’ve shown in the you know, in the work of this particular guy did that even as effects on the healing process, not just the business. So I’ve now learned that branding is very, very important. And something that I had to focus even more on in the beginning of my career. Hope that made sense?

Sliman:

Well, one of the things that also Branding does it builds this brand preference to your practice or to your business, because once you increase the trust level for prospects, you will have less time marketing to them, which is which will help bottom line tremendously.

Sliman:

So it’s not just an intangible aspect of the business. And I really like how you put that into words with the in the analogy you made. So to move on to another aspect of the brand. And that is the vision, how to build a brand vision that suits your practice. And more importantly, how can you make it palpable for the team? if the team doesn’t believe in it, it doesn’t mean anything. So how can you make the good, concrete, grounded brand vision?

Ryan:

Yeah, great question. I think, let’s go right back to business being a panacea, meaning, there are certain aspects that every great business has, and don’t take my word for it, go read a book called Good to Great, and in good to great by Jim Collins, he His goal was to find out the most common things that the greatest businesses in the planet had in common. And if there were those things, and one of the things that he found in all cool businesses is that they have or Top of Mind businesses, is they have a set of core values.

Ryan:

So it’s interesting, because mission statements and core values, and you said, How do you get the team or whatever to live the brand, the brand is just an extension of you. And that is, and that is defined by a set of core values. So definition of core values is anywhere from three to 10 statements that best define you as a core values document. So we are with all the practices that I coach and all the practices and in my businesses, we always have a set of core values. Now if you have a set of core values, that helps you live the brand, because the brand is just the behavior of the ball within it, okay? The brand is the behavior from the people within it. But if you don’t define that, prior to people joining your team, they won’t, they won’t have a good idea.

Ryan:

So most of us hire, and then we try to hire people with the brand is, but that’s the wrong way around, you should tell people up front, hey, this and by the way, one of our core values here is we like to have high energy for that as much high energy as the first patient as last patient as we should have the first patient today. And if that’s not your your thing, then you know you’re not right for our team. But straight you are first of all hiring people who are better suited your brand, but you’re telling them up front what the brand should be. So statements like we have, we have hi enjoy show up on time, we like to celebrate each other, we, show, you know, the whole bunch of things, I guess, integrity and things like that are slightly different. But those are a bit generic. We like to have more directional and core values. And we support each other and all those other things. So we have we always have six to 10 core values. And then not only that, once I joined the Team and set of core values, then you hire and reward according to your core values and exit people according to core values. That’s also a part of it.

Ryan:

So sometimes people they are not a right fit for your brand. Now the first problem is they were in the team and they didn’t know what they’re getting themselves in for. the purpose of core values is so that both parties know prior to the hiring what’s the relationship gonna be. And we never fully know. But you’ve got a better chance of knowing if you define and verbalize those core values to a prospect before they join your team. That’s half the battle one.

Ryan:

And then after that, you just have to live the core values. And there’s many strategies to do that. So I hope that helps a little bit. And and you know, for further reference, there’s some great books you should read, you should absolutely read Delivering Happiness by Tony Shea, you should absolutely read a team code of honor by Blair singer, Rich Dad advisor for Robert Kiyosaki group, you should absolutely read Good to Great by Jim Collins. And those are all great books on core values.

Sliman:

You actually by answering my question, you answer two questions in a row, which is I believe, that’s great. And I love your point on the core values, because they actually act as a decisional filter for the people who are not good fit for your company. So we don’t have to fire them later on or have any problems or misalignment with the values they believe in and with the your employee and with your teams. So that’s a really great, great point to make about the core values.

Ryan:

And it’s good for both parties, you also want you want them to be happy. And if they end up on a team that’s not right for their core values, then they will not perform as well. So it’s really the best thing for both parties. Yeah.

Sliman:

it’s a win win situation. But okay, while we’re at the subjects of core values, like how do you maintain them from getting diluted or from from being forgotten?

Ryan:

Yeah, great question. First of all, it’s not easy. And there’s nothing easy about it, you know, most times core values sit on a piece of paper or some fancy board and, and never be lived, you know, most teams Yeah, if you ask most teams, what their core values are, they won’t know that. So so he has a couple of tips one is less is more, less is more or less is more. So when I first did my Kobe’s one of my visits, I remember that the coach was helping us at the time, they were like, you could be anywhere from three to six. And I wanted 12.

Ryan:

And they just couldn’t stop laughing at me. I’m like, you could not ask me to choose less than 10. but then what I’ve realized is anything over six basically none will know them. So less is more first thing, this is more. And I know it’s a heartbreaking because you’re like, Oh, that’s such a great core value, we should have it but no one knows anything. My experience said been six, eight. If you anything obeyed, forget it. No one’s gonna know it. So then you’re looking at like, what are the six was the six to eight, you know, most important things. And then and then you really have to, you have to repeat them often. So one on ones, we want your quarterly one on ones, we talked about our core values, and they will reward according to core values, people get bonus according to our core values, it’s the encompassing the whole thing.

Ryan:

One little trick we do is a team member has to praise or gift another team member once per week, or once per month, depending on the team size on something they’ve done well, but they can’t just go, they can’t just go Hey, sliman, I’m going to give you it’s just a little rolling prize, like a little gift card. It’s like hey, sliman, I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you a prize, I’m gonna give you the award this week. And now for what has to be a core value.

Ryan:

So they’re not allowed to go, Hey, sliman, I’m gonna give you a I’m gonna give you the award this week just for being a nice guy is lovely to nice guy, but it has to tie back to our core values. So for example, Hey, sliman, I want to present you the award this week. It’s just a fun, silly little award, we take a photo and we put it into our Facebook group, I want to give you the award for our one of our core values says we always played 100%. And you always played 100%, you showed up early this morning to see the patient out of ours. And I appreciate that. So I’m giving you the award. But now the whole team sees the award for playing at 100%. So everyone knows is going to get that cool value to be driven within the team. So if you think that your core values are going to be done once and put on the board never is going to know them, you’ve got another thing coming, they ain’t gonna know that you have to repeat it till you get eyerolles in the team basic in the team. People have to be going Yes, yes, we get it. Only then are they actually beginning to get it is because that’s just human nature.

Sliman:

You know what’s funny, you just answered the next question. And the next question is about staff decreased efficiency and I think you contributed to the answer of how can you make this productivity of the staff skyrocket, and one of the things to do that is the system you integrated in your business.

Sliman:

And i think it’s it’s a great way to keep the staff engaged and have them productive and wanting to be there not like feeling like “a cog in the big machine”. Do you have anything to add?

Ryan:

Yeah, Yeah, I do. I mean, I always joke I always say one. I’m a very boring businessman. And what I mean by that is like, I think innovation is overrated. Everyone thinks I’m going to create like, No, no, don’t create just anything that anyone like anything you want to do that successful is already been done or written about. And if you really look at the business books, and the great mentors and the people out there, you know, again, it’s the boring stuff that grows a business and one of the boring stuff that grows a business is something called scoreboards or scorecard. So your measurements are you doing weekly measurements, if you do weekly measurements, and everyone in the business should have a number. Everyone in the business should be measured in some way, shape, or form. It can be a great example is even your receptionist.

Ryan:

For example, human nature, is that left to our own device we have poor peformers. if we have no accountability. And this is the reason that Weight Watchers for instance, works is because you walk into the studio at Weight Watchers and what’s the first thing they do? They measure you. So what happens! So you know, you’re going to get measured. And hence you know that if you eat that cookie or there’s packet of chips it’s going to show and that’s accountability. So performance requires pressure. So the first thing you can do to help us performance in the team and engage the team is measure.

Ryan:

And one of the analytics examples that every single practice owner should know this stat: what is your telephone answer rate? We spent all this money on marketing and on your branding, but are you picking up the phone?

Ryan:

Now most people listening are going to be “of course we are”. But are you sure? because I’ve never been right with this. Go measure it, I guarantee you, it’s worse than you think it is.

Ryan:

So you spend all this money on marketing. And let’s say a customer’s worth $1,000 to $2,000 $5,000. And you don’t answer the phone, there’s a very good chance to just phone the practice next door. And you spend all this money and you’ve done everything right? But you didn’t pick up the phone. everything is right except for picking up the phone. Now how do you know if you’re not picking up the phone if you don’t measure it? So we measured something called telephone answer rate (TAR). When we first started measuring it, we’ve got the shock of our life, because our rate was only at 68% and we’re like “Oh my word” and then only by the process of measuring it and my team knowing we are measuring it, because the performance of the whole team go up. So the whole team goes a bit on. If you’re if you have that phone ring, you may be just down the hall. Normally, if you’re not measuring it, it’s like I’ll just let it go. I’m sure the answering machine will get it. But if if they know you’re getting measured, you’re gonna run down the hall to answer the phone.

Ryan:

We’re not trying to dictate to the team, as a human being, I also need to be measured. So I also need accountability, if you want to perform at a high level. So number one is you need to measure things. And then the other thing is you need to be doing weekly meetings, and sometimes daily meet. And that frequency creates sparks of productivity. And more, not less, more, not less than. “oh, we hate meeting” well suck it up. Because the successful businesses have meating. That’s just the way it works. So and so those are two little tips I give you. but then you got to know how to run the meetings! like you can’t just run it like that. the reason meetings suck is because no one has to run them. they are boring. What I mean by that the structure is the same every week and we check our scorecards, we go through our to dos, we say done not done, etc.

Ryan:

So there’s loads of books you can read about that. And if I gave any of the listeners some advice, go read Verne Harnish’s work, go read Mastering Rockefeller habits go read scaling up, if you don’t then go check out Gino wickman stuff of traction and rocket fuel and get a grip. Those are all great business books that everybody should have read. To help you with some of the stuff I’m talking about right now.

Sliman:

If you’re listening right all the links are in the show notes in our website (unnus.com). So I’ll leave the books on recommendation from Dr. Rieder. Dr. Rieder, I want to transition a little bit more to the position inside of things in business. And that is about competition and building a differentiator if multiple offices are offering the same care services for the same price to the same patient. How can medical businesses differentiate their practice from the competition

Ryan:

it interesting, you know? Well, I mean we won’t go too in depth now. But there’s an element of branding. So you’re going to differentiate yourself. If you are Lionel Messi, dentist, you know you if you’ve been on Oprah, you know, you’ve been the guest on Oprah, like you’re done. You understand? I want to come to you cuz you’ve been on Oprah, you know, so very few of us had that ability. So that’s why branding is not achievable for most people. and that’s because mainstream branding means if I wanted to be on TV, I had to be able to spend a lot of money to get that branding. Now it’s changed most people you can access most people via social media. They’re easily to get attention. The difference is, is that just being on mainstream media, if you can make it happen, and you can be on new shows, and talk shows, and television shows, and newspapers, don’t underestimate the power of being in a newspaper, and people like “but return investment”. that’s a great branding piece, you should absolutely be the weekly, special expert guest. Think of how many new patients you get from it, it’s a branding piece. Branding only works if you work it. So if you take that and you show people that you’re on it and take photos on your Facebook group, etc, then you get the branding from it.

Ryan:

So how do you differentiate yourself, it always starts with information. So I know. And if you’re listening to me, and you continue to listen to me, what often happens is some of my longest standing customers, the highest net value customers that spend 1000s, and multiple 1000s of pounds, using my services, often will tell you that when they first listen to me online, they couldn’t stand me. That’s human nature. But with the frequency of getting to know me, there’s no lacking and trusting me starting to align with each other.

Ryan:

Sliman it’s the same conversation with us, where did you first see? online?

Sliman:

Yes, I binge watched all of your videos.

Ryan:

Cool. So then, so then with frequent consumption of my information content, we have a different relationship. And it’s the same for your customer is if you’re able to produce frequent and often content and information, by the time they come and see you, you have a completely different relationship, because they’ve got to know like, and trust you, and they have a different feeling about you. So it’s the same when someone says, so if you don’t do that, the potential is that first relationship you have with them, they’re sitting in front of you as a patient, and they may not they think they trust you at that time. But if they’ve really had, they’ve really got that out the way 50 videos ago, on Facebook, then when we sit down together in a consultation environment, it’s just a different relationship altogether.

Ryan:

So how do you position yourself as, as you know, different from the group, it’s a normally got to do with how much content you produce, obviously results. This is going to irritate most people listening to this. And here it is, when it comes to medical, the world when it comes to dentist, doctors, chiropractors, plastic surgeons, whatever it is, we all like to believe that being the best at the thing correlates with us being the top earner in the industry. Now, if you look traditionally, at the top 1% of earners in any expert space, very seldom that the top 1% earners correlate with being the best at the thing. they’re not, they’re the best at the marketing and the branding and the positioning of the thing. And often, that is the lead into them becoming the best of the thing, even technically, so so then it shifts the way you look at your practice or your business to go Actually, that’s very important to do that even to become the best at it. So I would say that the bit the most easiest and affordable way for you to position yourself as an expert, or leader in the field is just to create and produce and put out a lot of content. And then if you can position yourself as an expert, by working with celebrities and being on TV, that’s also fantastic. So those two things,

Sliman:

that’s really insightful, especially the statistics you mentioned, they didn’t know about that. It’s like eye opening. And I want to close this episode on one question. And that is what’s the most important thing you’ve learned in your career as a medical business owner? And how did that change the way you do your business?

Ryan:

Yeah, I think I don’t think I can answer the question was one thing. And but if you forced me, and I think, I think, you know, maybe I’m a bit different from like, maybe a lot of other consultants or experts in the field or “guru” type people is, you know, I’m still very much in the game, I actually own 9 practices and teach people how to do it and everything. And what I have learned is, you know, the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know, and, you know a lot will say they know everything, they’ve figured everything out. well, that just isn’t business just doesn’t work that way. you’re always learning, you’re always trying to solve problem, you never ever solve it.

Ryan:

So I guess one of my greatest mentors really helped me understand that, you know, the blessing of business is the personal growth you get from it. businesses hard, first of all, but the person you have to become, and the end the growth you have to ensue and the investment you have to make in yourself and the challenges you have to solve is the blessing of business. So the person you have to become to be good at the business is probably the biggest lesson that I’ve learned.

Ryan:

And is that it’s more like business achievement, seldom, if ever, comes first. What always comes first is personal growth. You personally growing as a human being you investing in the people to help you grow with your confidence and your ability to do the thing and then the business of the business success happens secondarily. So I continue to learn this and I continue to invest in this. I have many coaches myself.

Sliman:

Dr. Rieder, thank you so much for being here. I honestly cannot thank you enough for being on the show. And for those of you who are listening if you want anything or more from Dr. Rieder, you can check out his YouTube channel, Ryan Rieder also visit his website dcpracticegrowth.com. Also, you can grab a free copy of his book The new patient avalanche system at dcpracticegrowth.com/freebook Dr. Rieder, Do you want anything to add to that?

Ryan:

No, I think thank you so much for having me. And I love talking about this stuff and, you know, hoping it helped you in some way, shape or form. So it’s just a blessed blessing to be able to help people in any way shape or form. So that’s what I’d like to say. Thanks for having me.

Sliman:

You are most welcome. Ladies and gentlemen. That was Dr. Ryan Rieder.