Marketing Your Practice with Christine Walker
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[00:00:00] Welcome to my show here at Hand Therapy Secrets. My name is Hoang. I'm gonna introduce you today to a really good friend of mine. Her name is Christine. She is amazing practitioner. She's a physical therapist and she has her own private practice, and she started doing a sign thing that turned into this.
[00:00:17] Big thing, and it's called websites. Everyone who's in business for themselves knows that they need a website, and she's my go-to person when it comes to websites and anything that you need to know about websites and she knows a ton about marketing. So if you've got a little itch about do you go out on your own?
[00:00:35] How do you market? Stuff. How do you market your practice? How do you market yourself? She's got tons of knowledge and she really does know how to put together a website that is like your own employee, just bringing in patients to your practice. So I'm excited to introduce you and talk to and have you meet Christine, my work wife.
[00:00:58] Welcome to my show, the [00:01:00] Huong Show. Welcome Christine Walker. If you guys don't know, Christine Walker is a physical therapist and she runs her company called pt, website Secrets. We all have secrets, Secrets, PT Secrets, . We all come together. We are the best. We all come together. We are here to share some great tidbits for you.
[00:01:25] When I talk to different occupational therapists or even physical therapists that want to. Hand therapy wanna specialize in hand therapy, I get the realm right. I get people who are just starting out and to those who are CHT's already. But a lot of people, I'm gonna say this, a lot of people very dramatic.
[00:01:49] A lot of people are curious. About starting their own business, what to do and where to get [00:02:00] started with websites. So thank you Christine, for coming on. Tell everyone a little bit about you and how you got into websites as a physical therapist. Yeah. That's a little weird, right? Like where's the coding credentials behind my name?
[00:02:16] And maybe that's maybe one of the biggest lessons. We can talk about today in this summer since why having your CHT is so important. What's more important is to know how to market it. What's more important is to make other people realize why it's so important, because by themselves at the end of your name, it's just chop suey.
[00:02:34] Unfortunately, not trying to offend anybody out there. I need you to say that you are on this show specifically to say that cuz there was one mistake I made when I first started out and it's in one of these other shows and I talked about how I thought. That just by having some credentials, just by having some specialties [00:03:00] that somehow people were just gonna line up, , knock down my door and be like, whoa, I need help.
[00:03:10] People need to know, we spend a little bit of time together so I know we spend, this is, did I say that? Did I tell everyone that you're my work wife? That we're not go on business trips? You are who I hang out with. Yes, pretty much. Pretty much. So we spend a little bit of time together. Yes. So if we get a little flay, you'll know why.
[00:03:27] Yes. It's just our true selves coming out a little bit, but you're right. No, you're exactly right. And my story is actually very similar. Forget the fact we're changing O to P right now. It only takes a little line to change that, by the way, guys. And forget the fact that if I went and asked everybody on my cul-de-sac right now, what the difference between OT and PT was, they could not even tell you.
[00:03:47] This applies to anyone in this healthcare realm trying to do private practices. So we're all on the same team. We are, yes. And I love OTs. I do. And I love that you do hands, because I don't, and [00:04:00] when I have her hand problem, I know who to call. But my story was the same way I started as a physical therapist and it was disillusioned by school thinking, yeah.
[00:04:08] Credentials, blah, blah. More education. I actually quickly figured out that working for someone else wasn't quite the thing for me. Looking back on my life, I had inklings of this, but I was always too nervous, scared, and afraid to go out on my own. And yet I went through a couple of life altering moments where I got put on bedrest with my first child.
[00:04:33] Had a complete breakdown mentally had some, struggled with some postpartum O C D. And almost had to like, refine myself and remake myself. And it was rough. But what I really discovered was, I no longer had the fear, so I went through a time of terrible fear of anxiety, and once that was all over, I no longer had the fear.
[00:04:53] The fear wasn't the one thing holding me back from starting my own business. So Wong decided I'm gonna go start my own business. And [00:05:00] because even though I look like I'm 16 and I am pretty much double that people are gonna, people are gonna trust me because of all the training I've got, and I'm gonna flaunt that everywhere, especially.
[00:05:15] Specialty online. So I had the same thoughts of you. Like I went out and I got trained as a professional yoga therapist. I got trained as a sports performance enhancement specialist. I did all that thinking that it would help. Yeah. And your specialty actually is working with gymnasts. Yeah.
[00:05:33] Yeah, that's your thing at the end of the day. It isn't just about skills, but you have to have certain skills, whether you have therapy skills or you have business skills, you need some skills. And I know a lot of you guys are looking for that one up in the sense of what does differentiate me from so many other people in the country and for you guys at CHG is unique like that.
[00:05:59] Yeah. [00:06:00] I would argue almost in pt there's some fellowships and things. But once again, it's not so specific like a, the idea of the handies that it doesn't quite have that same pull, right? You could be an orthopedic specialist. Anybody can claim to be an orthopedic specialist, even if they're not board certified, et cetera.
[00:06:19] But it comes down to. Marketing, , market marketing. And that's, that is the biggest thing I realized. So I f my first website failed and that's how I got into this website and marketing training. My first one was an utter disaster. It was all about me. It was all about flaunting my skills, my abilities, all the things I've achieved.
[00:06:40] I quickly found out people weren't as interested in me as I thought. , I did the same thing. Oh, this is probably the biggest marketing mistake we make at the beginning as either new business owners or new. Even if you are working for someone else, just the way you represent yourself to [00:07:00] patients or maybe to potential patients that you're attracting even to come in, even if you're working for somebody else, the way you present yourself.
[00:07:08] So important, and if it's all about you. Yeah. See, here's the problem. People aren't as interested. They actually are really interested in themselves and their problems shocker. But it's easy to forget, right? It really is easy, and I think one of the biggest reasons why we tend to forget is because we've.
[00:07:30] Putting so much focus on what we wanted to learn and what we wanted to do to help them. At the end of the day, as therapists, I think we all just, we're so desperate to help that person and we're thinking, how do we help them? And we ask that question before we ask, what help do you need? What do you actually want?
[00:07:52] Yeah. Yeah. We assume we know. Wrongly a lot of the time. And that is where I found that problem [00:08:00] in my business because I got zero new weeds off my website in a year, and I went on bedrest again with my son, second bedrest. And I'm thinking how is this practice going to survive? How in the world.
[00:08:14] Am I gonna come back when I can't do any of my normal marketing, like getting out and hustling and going to gyms and meeting with doctors and all this other jobs, how am I gonna do it? And that's where I started working on. My website and I'd tweak a little here and tweak a little there and start seeing different results.
[00:08:33] And over time I was like, oh my gosh, this worked. And I created basically a website that I call My Best Employee cause it's online works 24 7. Doesn't ask for a raise. It's really, doesn't ever complain, doesn't ask for time off. You train it once and it understood. I tell it to do something different and it actually does it.
[00:08:52] Yeah. Versus, versus it misunderstands me and does something different. It only does that if I misunderstood what I wanted it to do, but, [00:09:00] yeah. And so what came from that though was my practice grew. I was able to then have patients lined up for me. When I came back from maternity leave, I was able to, my, I think one of the most fun moments was don't ask me why.
[00:09:13] I was At this point, but I'm at car wins, the local amusement park. I get off the carousel and for some reason I look at my phone and I've got two notifications of new patient leads while on a carousel. I'm like, this is awesome. Yeah. People are telling you they want your services. Yeah.
[00:09:28] All because, and what's the secret behind the transition is the marketing and and the positioning, and then you. To support all that. So really what happened was I cracked this for me and then a lot of other people started asking me for help, and that's how now I've gone from actually almost zero clinic time.
[00:09:43] To fully doing websites for other healthcare practitioners. It's called pt, website Secrets. I'll be honest. We have OTs, we have massage therapists, we have a pediatrician we have several chiros. It's the same concepts all put into knowing how to position [00:10:00] what your specialties are in helping people in the right way.
[00:10:03] And if it works for you, it's pretty awesome. But that big piece that we keep alluding to is you don't sell that you're a hand the. Wong, I think you're a great example, and I don't know if you've shared this, but since you're the ot, I can share mine, but I want you to share yours too, which is basically I learned that I don't just help people, I don't give them integrative therapy.
[00:10:25] It's really popular term in the PT world. Yeah, integrative or holistic, like whatever. I don't just, I'm not just an orthopedic specialist. Yes, I found my niche in gymnastics, but before that, I really marketed to active adults. I marketed to athletes. I marketed to people who wanna get back to workouts in sports, and people who were fiercely devoted to not be in the doctor's office a lot and not get things like injections or surgery.
[00:10:49] Yeah, that's who I marketed to. Yeah, so that's a huge difference from marketing. I'm the best pt, right? Yeah. So at the end of the day, it's a [00:11:00] whole different skillset. The OTs that I talk to, a lot of them are coming outta school and they are, looking to develop their skills and to grow their confidence so they can help more and more people.
[00:11:13] So I think the message they could really take from you. Regardless of whether they want to do their own business or not but maybe they have that little tinkling in their brain for later. But it's how do I, instead of saying marketing, we could use another word, like, how do I communicate?
[00:11:31] Totally because that's the word that I use when I'm talking to my students and stuff like that. How do you communicate to people in a way that they want to come back to you? And that's super important. Yeah. Because even if someone else, you're gonna have standards on how long people stay.
[00:11:47] Yeah. And if they complete their plans of care. , right? So even if you're working for someone else, you can implement exactly where you're talking about, Christine, and talk about like communicating, like what can you do to help them? Because the more patients come to you, and the [00:12:00] more people you have on your schedule, the more security you have on your job, right?
[00:12:04] And the more you can build your career. Now, if you are ready to go out on your own and have your own business, so a lot of people look at me and think, oh I have a clinic too. And they think how does she do it? Yeah, my website is really important and how I communicate to potential people who wanna come in.
[00:12:22] It's really key in terms of who I actually help, because I realized when I first put out my website, That I was, I'm a certified hand therapist and, but nobody actually looks for that. Like the, no, the search volume is very low. Volume is very low. And then If you are looking for an occupational therapist, sometimes you're looking for them in a peds way, in a geriatric way, in adult way. There's so many different realms to occupational therapist. And that's one of the things I love about occupational therapy is that you can work in so [00:13:00] many different settings, but because you can work in so many different settings, kinda hard to pinpoint on a website, like who, so I had to really.
[00:13:09] Revamp, like really look at what I was doing for my business, how were people coming in? And sometimes when people come in under the banner of occupational therapy or under the banner of certified hand therapy, when they come in like that, they're coming in a with a different mindset versus someone who comes in looking for.
[00:13:33] My hands are numb and I cannot get any sleep, right? So what do I do? We function all the time, but unfortunately we lose sight of it cuz we're thinking of someone's body parts. And what you've done is you've taken that messaging. Because we're all function based, we pretty much wanna help someone be more independent, live pain free, just be able to enjoy their life, live their life fully. [00:14:00] And so the really, the only, the thing that you've done is you're taking that message of therapists helping people. And you're pretty much putting it on a website so that people can find your clinic. People can know that you specialize in helping them in a very particular way.
[00:14:19] Yeah, and the funny thing is, I always get from people we work with, they're always like, oh my gosh, I'm able to market, like talk about what I do so much better in person. Just going through the process of getting it on your website because you don't have the opportunity to like self-correct. Or be like, no, that's not what I meant, mean it this way.
[00:14:33] Cuz like when you're talking to someone in person is that exact thing. It's like it's hard to do and essentially what feels like a one-way conversation where you can't read the other people. But I love it because you're totally right. If, even if you are an employee right now, understanding really what you do for people at the heart level.
[00:14:52] Is gonna be crucial. If you can do that, like no one's ever gonna wanna get rid of you . Yeah. Cause your schedule's gonna be full. Everybody's gonna wanna come to [00:15:00] see you. Everybody's gonna wanna ask for you. Yeah. It, it is hard though, Wouldn't you say we are taught in such a specific way in school, or maybe what you learn in school doesn't translate in like real life.
[00:15:15] And so you, you have certain words in school where you're academic and then you fall into the realm of being with other therapists. So you speak a lot of therapy terminology probably hardest. It took me a while to really. I always thought I did it well. Thought until I started my own business. I really did.
[00:15:37] Cuz people used to like Tube my horn. Oh my God. I love the way you explained things. Oh, and then you can't help but take that in. You're like, oh yes, I do. Explain, but then . But then after a while you're like, when you run your own company, Or when I started really at the end of the day when I started looking at my website and I was, why?
[00:15:57] Why is nobody calling me for my website [00:16:00] or why? And that's when I was like, holy crap. Like my website's crap cuz I'm speaking crap and I'm speaking to like maybe another ot. Another OT could read it and be like, please, okay. I was getting more therapist calling me to volunteer than to actually come.
[00:16:20] For a session. Yeah. That's when I was like, my website is not working. And how long would you say it took you, like transition wise, mindset wise, to really get it and like actually do it because you can get it mentally. But to actually execute on those changes are really tough.
[00:16:42] And I think even to this day, I've been learning this stuff for over four years now, and to this day, it's easy to slip back. Really? Oh, I'm so glad that you said that. I still kinda have to get into like my game mode, and that's why I've gotten really [00:17:00] comfortable using the word sales and marketing, because that's what forces me into kind of game face.
[00:17:04] But all it is communication, like you pointed out earlier. Yeah. It's all communication. Yeah. Because even if you. Aren't selling something even that has money value behind it in the sense of you're selling, like even on that first eval, you're selling someone on coming back again. Yeah. Selling yourself like you, and you're selling yourself.
[00:17:24] And that's why, because it's hard, it's super easy to slip back into the rut. It's just, yeah. Especially once again, you go talk to your colleagues for a few minutes and then you have to completely pivot your head. and turn and say the exact same thing, like you're speaking to a four year old, even though the person looking at you may be 65.
[00:17:41] Yeah. So you've already shared like so many huge things when it comes to marketing and comes to communication, comes to like your website for for from anyone who's just starting out in therapy. If someone was looking to start a business, I've shared this with [00:18:00] my people, okay?
[00:18:01] People are watching people wa people wanna know , they wanna know. People wanna know what's one big mistake that people make when it comes to building a website? Before you answer, I wanna tell my story really quickly. I spent a shit ton of money website that looked really pretty. It, that person came recommended to me.
[00:18:29] I looked at the website they built and they built like some really impressive big brand website and I spent a lot of money. Money that was hard earned, didn't have. And I banged out this beautiful website. And no one calls me. I know that when people come to you and they're like, Christine I'm starting a business.
[00:18:54] I wanna get my website up. What is the first thing I should do? Or What is the one thing [00:19:00] I shouldn't do? You can share one or both. One thing you should do should is a little bit of a reflection of what we talk, which is you need to really understand why you're starting this business and who it's.
[00:19:13] Because unless you completely understand that everything else you do is gonna crumble. Now, I'm not saying you have to have it perfect at the beginning, but you've gotta know if you're starting a business, why? Like why is there a need for you in the market? Okay. What sort of people. Can you serve better than everybody else?
[00:19:33] Okay. In that sense of, for me, in my town, it was all of the athletes and active adults are being stuck at one pr, big pops organization. I actually interned there as a student and was disgusted in the sense of, not that the therapists weren't good, they just didn't have time to be good. They didn't have time.
[00:19:56] It's just high volume. , it's it's high volume seeing 18 to 22 [00:20:00] patients a day in an eight hour time slot. So you're, we're talking even triple, sometimes quadruple booked. And I just got frustrated with the fact of I could have had you better, quicker, and in a, like much more better use of your time than doing certain treatments.
[00:20:16] Had I had more time with you, there weren't many other options, even in the city as big as Charlotte at the time, the. Clearly weren't so many options that I couldn't find my, my, my niche and Right. Especially in the certain parts of town. I'm sure Miami's kinda the same. It's like there's certain parts of Miami, they're still underserved in the sense of needing clinics.
[00:20:35] It's huge. Yeah. So that, I really think you have to have some clarity. On who you're going after. Now, will that change? Will that evolve and will you know a lot more four or five years later? You will, but you gotta start with something. But you're picking one person that you're speaking to.
[00:20:52] So you gotta know who you're serving. Great. You gotta know you're serving before you can build a website, cuz otherwise the website shouldn't be about you. Remember? So [00:21:00] here's the biggest mistake when building it is you make it all about you. It's your credentials, it's your res it's nothing more than a resume or a brochure about you.
[00:21:08] Yeah. Maybe you go as far, this is my favorite. You go as far as listing all the conditions you can treat or making a library almost like your Web md. Yeah. Some big companies that'll do that for Yeah, you do that. Yeah. don't bother. If you wanna be called for women's health when you don't do women's health, then great.
[00:21:27] Do it. It's oh, it's good for your seo. I don't want that type of seo. What do you, anyway, I digs point being though, that's what happens when you don't know who you're marketing to. Yeah. The worst thing you can do is go throw up a lot of info about yourself and a lot of info about the conditions you treat.
[00:21:42] Yeah. Okay. Don't do it. Yeah. If I'm allowed to, if you wanna know more about what I mean by that, I have a book, you should go check it [email protected] slash book. Where's your book? What? Oh, where my book? Hold one second. Get your book [00:22:00] I'll, my book out for Christine. Put find to find one now. Oh, dear Lord, have mercy.
[00:22:10] So Christine, now that you've given us so many great tips, how can people, if they're, whether they're an ot, whether they're a pt, anyone who's watching this, how can they find you to have you help them with their, whether it be their website or just the messaging with their website? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:22:30] Absolutely. Two great resources. You can go join our free Facebook group. It's called Healthcare Website Secrets on Facebook, Google App. Ask to join. I'll approve you. We'll get you in. That's an awesome place to start. I'm gonna include the link in the description as well. But great. And then also really, if this stuff interests you, if like the theories and stuff I'm talking about and you really wanna know more about how I came to know this and really what the implications are for you, [00:23:00] even if you're not yet a business owner, even if you're thinking, I just need to learn this so that I know how to speak to my patients better you should go check out my.
[00:23:07] It was Amazon bestseller. It's called the PT website Secret System. I don't care if you get a copy of it and just write Oh, right there and replace all I have it. I have that book. We've had plenty of people from all professions buy it. It's get the secret formula to win more patients, make more profit from your PT website.
[00:23:23] But even if you're not trying to build a website, this will really help you understand what you're trying to. Even if you're thinking about potentially going out in the future, this has the systems, those step by step of what you should think about, how you should put it together essentially, right? Yeah.
[00:23:44] And if you go go to pt website secrets.com/book, you can get it. For just shipping versus on Amazon guys, you gotta pay the full price. So definitely go to p2 website secrets.com/all I'm gonna include all the links below. So anyone who's watching this, cuz I know a couple of people are already [00:24:00] like bong, I see you have your own clinic.
[00:24:03] I. Have business questions for you. What about this? How do you market? How do you have your website? I have so many questions like that, so I'm gonna make sure that I include your links in the description so everyone who's watching the show can find you. Christine, thank you so much for joining me on my show and sharing with my audience how they can with their their patients better and all the way to potentially opening up their own clinic, just like you and I.
[00:24:30] Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Bye. Talk to you later. Bye.
[00:24:42] Hey, thanks for listening to Hoang's world podcast. If you are brand new to the hand therapy world, head over to my website, www . Hand therapy secrets.com, where you can get started with some of our free guides and paid programs for both OTs and PTs diving into the world of hand therapy. Or if [00:25:00] you've been listening for a while watching on our YouTube channel and you think you could benefit from developing and moving your career further along in hand therapy, reach out to me and my team at info @ Hand therapy.secrets.com and tell us exactly what you're looking for, By the way, if you know someone who could benefit from today's show, please share.
[00:25:19] Thanks. See you on the next episode.
