Marketing Plans - Out With the Old and In With New Methods
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[00:00:00] I'm going to share. Oops, hold on. I'm going to share with you my before marketing plan and my after marketing plan after being in business for over 10 years to businesses later. My name is Huang. I'm an occupational therapist, certified hand therapist, and I help therapists develop their clinical and business skills.
skills. And so if you're watching this video, this is going to help you with your business skills. You cannot run a business, start a business, all that good stuff without doing some marketing. It just can't happen because marketing is all about people finding you, seeing you, and then because they see you, they know, Hey, there you are.
That's the person. therapy. You know, therapy isn't the kind of purchase like a vacation, like you're actively looking for a vacation. You're like, I can't wait to get out of here. No, it's really necessarily looking for therapy with that kind of excitement because they're coming to us because they have a very big So, people want us [00:01:00] because they're in a particular type of pain.
It's so different from other types of purchases. Um, and having that kind of awareness can let you create that marketing plan and actually do the thing that you need to do to make sure that you make money as a business owner. So, what I want to do is I want to share with you my before and my after because it's a world of difference.
And this is 10 years, two businesses later. So, That I'm able to share this because when I first started, I knew nothing about marketing, except for what I was told by other therapists in the industry. Now, I'm like 20 plus years as an occupational therapist, certified hand therapist. And when I first started my business, I had this So, uh, to be honest, I have had therapists that were older than me telling me, Hey, if you want to market your therapy clinic, you have to go to those doctors.
And you have to bring them cookies. You know what? I did just that. I didn't just bring them cookies. I baked my own cookies. and brought it to them. And that's how I got started and that's how I got them to remember [00:02:00] me, but it couldn't sustained it, I just couldn't sustain it. I had to bake, I had to clean up.
I had to work. To, you know, do my own laundry. I had to see my own patients. I, I mean, like, it's a ton of stuff. And so at some point, you know, baking the cookies and knocking on the doors and begging, and I just never felt really good when I was like there knocking on their doors, waiting for them to come and talk to me.
You know, like I just, I, I hated that. So if you, you know, and I'm, I'm an outgoing person. I am an extrovert. I can talk to just about anybody. You hit me up at a bar. We best friends, you know, so talking to people isn't my problem. I just didn't like that feeling of like having to wait, having to be on hold, having to beg, you know, and that's what it felt like for me.
So I prefer. The kind of marketing that I do now, which is, you know, I just go on a camera and I say, Hey, you know, my name is wall. This is my perspective. So, so let me share with you [00:03:00] a little bit more about what I did before. So before I started. No, sorry, not before I started. You know, before I really learned about marketing, and even as I was learning about it, I would just write.
So everyone back then told me to write. They told me, Hwang, just write blogs and put it on your website. And then put some social media posts up, kind of share pictures of what you're doing. Now, I don't know if you know, but growing up, I sold silk flowers from our parents. And so when you sell items, things, you know, I remember opening of the package, you know, opening up the flowers, making arrangements, you know, Making flower arrangements.
Well, you make flower arrangements so that someone who passes by says, Oh my God, that's a beautiful flower arrangement. I was looking for a pink, rose, blah, blah, blah flower arrangement. I need that in my house. Because they see it. [00:04:00] In therapy, nobody really sees you. Right? Nobody really sees what you're doing.
People don't understand. To this day, I talk to people, they don't understand what therapy does. Um, even if they've been to other therapy places, um, because it's, it's kind of an abstract concept unless they get an injury and you actually do something to fix them. And then they're like, Oh, but then they can only talk about it from that one perspective.
So I would try to write these blogs and I would put them up on my website. But I'd be like, how come nobody's reading them? How come no one's calling? You know me? Well, one, they were. Terrible. But that's okay because you, you have to be terrible before to, in order to be good, right? So don't mind it not being like so good.
I can only say that I'm sure they were good to whoever found them useful because there were a few people. It's my perspective looking back and reading that and being like, Oh my God, that's terrible because I've gotten much better. I don't [00:05:00] know. Look at myself. I think I've gotten a little bit better. But I would write blogs, I would go up on their website, and then that was pretty much it.
That was pretty much it. And I would post every once in a while on social media. So I would take a picture of what I was doing in the therapy clinic. And I would post every once in a while, like, Hey, I'm making this splint and I love working with wound care. All right. That helps no one fast forward to today, my marketing plan.
I'm sharing this with you because I'm hoping I'm hoping that, um, I can make marketing a little bit easier for you, a little bit less scary and just help you understand as a therapist, why you need to do marketing and why you need to go out and share your perspective. Um, and if you need more help like this from a therapist perspective, um, the links below for my OT business corner program, where I do dive into even further detail than what I'm sharing with you.
Right. So one of the things that I do for [00:06:00] my clinic is I map out my topic. So I pick a topic for the month, right? So we have like several months left in the year. And so each month I have a topic picked out from that one topic. I'm going to break that down into three or four different segments that I can talk about.
So one example I'll share with you, um, Um, that has done really well on my YouTube channel is, and there's, there's a lot of ways in which you can do marketing. You can pick your platform. I had just picked YouTube because I'm a visual learner and I find that a lot of my patients or in my students too, they've always said, Oh, like you have a way of describing things or showing things.
And so, um, since it fit with my personality and my style, This is why I went towards the route of YouTube videos. Um, and some other ones too, but, um, if you look, I took the topic of like nerve compression, right? I took the topic of nerve compression and that I could [00:07:00] break it down into carpal tunnel, cubital tunnel, and radial tunnel.
And then I made three different videos on that just talking about what that is. Um, another month I could take carpal tunnel alone and that one carpal tunnel topic is a really big topic because I can talk about what kind of splints, uh, someone should wear, what are the symptoms they should feel, and that makes it truly carpal tunnel and not something else.
And so if you have these symptoms, this is real carpal tunnel. If you have other symptoms with it, you might not just have carpal tunnel. It might be something else, right? And then I talk about effective therapy. So I talk about like, well, you might be doing X whatever therapy. How do you know if therapy really works and whether you should keep continue therapy or go for surgery?
This is me trying to educate my potential customers, right? These are [00:08:00] potentially my, my patients who are going to see it. Now, you know, YouTube is worldwide. Social media is worldwide, but it doesn't matter. I am making it for the people in my town, in my city who are going to, if you don't live in my town, You get the benefit of it.
I actually just got a I'm going off topic right now But I just got someone from New York who read an article of mine and was like, I you know It was really helpful. I have this this in this problem. How can you help me? Well, there's different ways for me to help you right even if you're in New York But that is such a huge drastic change of what I did You know, 10 years ago to what I do now, I am a lot more organized instead of doing it just like half ass like, Oh, whenever I feel like it or whenever I have time, you never feel like it and you never have time.
You never feel like it and you never have time. Put that shit on a piece of paper and know that to be a fact. You have to schedule your time out. You have [00:09:00] to schedule. This is the time that I'm going to sit down and write my article. If I'm a writer, I'm going to sit down on this chunk. If I'm a talker, then I can just do a podcast, right?
Or if I am a, um, If I'm a YouTuber, right? If I'm more visual, then you're going to go on YouTube and actuality. You can do both. I do video and I also do podcasts. So every time I make a video just like this, it sits on my YouTube channel and also sits on my podcast channel. Um, you don't have to do both.
You can do one or the other, but pick one lane first, pick one lane first. And what you want to dial down into is the consistency of it. So number one, you need to schedule that out in your day, right? Number two, you just have to do it consistently. So week on week on week on week, because it's scheduled, you're going to do it consistently.
And every month you're taking that topic. And every week you're talking about that topic, whichever topic you plan Plan. Right. [00:10:00] Um, and then number three really is so much about getting help, right? So therapists think that they can do all this shit by themselves. That you know, you, you learn your clinical skills and because you learned it that one time, you're like, I got it.
I, you know, but you joke. Got it. You have to practice over and over and over, and it's okay. to reach out and get help. It's okay to, you know, whether it be a program to learn or whether it's to actually get a physical person to help you. If you're not really sure how to do it, you're not really sure how to edit, you don't want to learn how to edit, get someone else to do it, right?
Get someone else to do it. There are programs that help you, um, make editing easier so it's not so cumbersome. Um, and there's a little bit more to it, um, than just like recording and uploading. There's a lot more to, to it. And so that's where I mean, it's like, there's so much available to you to cut your time in, in, in like a fraction to learn from someone else who can help you to do it so that you don't waste time because money, you can always [00:11:00] earn back time once it's gone, it's gone.
Um, but yeah, I, I create a topic, I talk about the topic, um, actually do a little bit of writing. So. So I can organize my thinking, and then I'll talk about it. And one thing that you can do too, which I've done as well. So I take my video and I send it into speechpad. com. Now there's so much AI out there that you can just, you know, it's so much cheaper now.
Um, but you can put your, your video in there and it can transcribe everything. So then all you're left to do is edit. I will tell you as someone who experienced this before and still do, how you speak doesn't always translate in how it's written. And so. You can you know, it takes a little time to edit so you have to find your form Whichever one works best for you and then use that route first.
So I tend to be a little bit more visual. Um, It [00:12:00] wasn't that getting on camera was so easy for me It was that I got on camera And I wrote and I did some other stuff and I was like well out of those things that I did Which one is just easier faster because I I like to You So, I was like, Oh, video is just easier for me.
It's faster for me. And I just got more and more comfortable on camera. And from getting more and more comfortable on camera, I was, I'm actually able to get better at speaking. I mean, you might not be able to tell now, but on this one, but I speak pretty well, I think. Uh, or as better than I did before. Um, and so now my transcripts are just a little bit, um, a little bit better and takes less editing, but you know, all this stuff takes practice and so much about it is just getting out of your head.
Get out of your head. Stop overthinking it. Um, stop. [00:13:00] What is it? You know? Yeah, just stop letting that flow. fear or letting the need to be perfect or, Oh, I got to get better before I do X. All these are just excuses that are holding you back and are not allowing people to find you. Every person in your town, in your neck of the woods needs a therapist like you who thinks that they are really good at their skill and wants to get better.
You know, showcase it to the world. I live in a really big city. I am in Miami, Florida. And I tell you, like, there is so much room. for so many therapists and I see more and more therapists just opening up their business. Um, I would love to see more OT's opening up their business because I see a lot of PT's opening their business.
Um, and so, but so much about it is about putting yourself out there and sharing your perspective, sharing what you do, telling people how, you know, how you would do it. Like literally, like I think about when my mom [00:14:00] used to yell at me about like, Open those flowers and be like, why, why do I need to open them?
And it's because people need to see, right? People need to see. So we would open those flowers, make these arrangements and hang it up and show people, you know, oh my God, this could be, you know, on your cabinet. This could be in your bathroom or in your kitchen. And therapy isn't like that. You know, therapy isn't like, you know, you can't really always see that because it looks like other things.
It looks like a massage. Uh, it looks like. Exercise and they're like I could just go to the gym and do this shit by myself, you know I just watch YouTube videos and do it myself and that's okay, but there's going to be a Pocket of people there's going to be a pocket of people who see you and Hear what you say and be like, that's my girl.
That girl knows what she's talking about. I'm going to go to her and she's going to help fix my, you know, whatever problem it is that you help them with, you know, but they wouldn't be able to find, they would not [00:15:00] know that you're the, you're, you're that girl that can help them if you're not sharing your perspective and you're not doing the marketing.
So don't fall for my marketing plan of 10 years past. Follow my marketing plan now things in the world change really fast because technology and we have to keep up with the times Um, and if you see people who are 20 plus years in business and they say oh They don't have to do any marketing. I would totally challenge you.
I was talking to Um a business owner who has a multi million dollar business And he's like, well, I just don't believe in it. I was like you might not believe in it, but You have a big team. Somebody's doing your marketing. Otherwise your business would be dead. Um, and he's in the restaurant business and he's like, yeah, I've got three people.
I'm like, yeah, they're making sure that your business stays relevant. There's no way, uh, in this day and age that, that someone isn't doing something to make you relevant. There's another multi million dollar business, um, [00:16:00] owner that I was talking to and if you look at her social media channels and all that stuff, there is nothing there.
Um, but she probably started 20 plus years ago and as using networks and relationships and stuff like that because she's built it. But let me tell you, um, in this day and age, if you're starting something or You know, you want to grow something, you need marketing and you need a certain amount of it to make sure that people see who you are, what you're about and what you can do to help them.
And it starts with you showing up. It starts with you scheduling it out, being consistent and getting help, right? That's all I have to say about it. If you want more of my help, my program links are below. Otherwise, I'll see you next time.
