Have you tried everything you can think of to get more Direct Access patients? Not sure where to go next?
In this video and case study, John tells us about:
- The changes private practice physical therapy has seen over the last 17 years
- How implementing workshops has completely changed the game for his practice
- How HOPTS and POPTS are becoming less and less of a threat with his consistently increasing stream of Direct Access patients
Watch the video below to find out how he’s doing it! 🙂
Real quick… Have you checked out my new Physical Therapy and Direct Access Marketing Resources?
It’s about “How One ‘Brain Dead Simple’ Marketing Strategy Got Me 513 Visits Scheduled Next Week…And A 2 Week Waiting List… ”
This Little-Know Secret Could Be The Difference Between Having Your Practice Thrive Versus Having It Barely Surviving.
Implement It And You Could Attracting 5, 10, or 50+ More Direct Access Patients A Month By The End Of This Summer!
If you’d prefer to read the transcription, rather than watch the video or listen to the audio, check out our conversation below…
Chad: Hey, everyone, welcome to the show.
I am your host Chad Madden.
Today we have a very special guest, John Twomey. He is a private practice owner in Arizona.
John was nominated as one of the six finalists for Private Practice Owner of the Year.
Welcome to the call, John.
John: Thanks, Chad. I appreciate it and I really appreciate you having me on and also everything that you guys are doing.
Chad: Can you fill in the blanks a little bit for us, John? Like how you got started in private practice? How many years you have been in? And exactly where you are at in Arizona?
John: We are in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. We are right on the border of the Colorado River. Small population, about 50,000 full time.
Right now, we have our snow birds, so we are up to about 100,000 people in the community.
I’ve been in private practice here about, actually it will be 17 years in April. What got me to come here was I was practicing in San Diego looking for a better quality of life in a small community.
My parents retired here and I came out and just fell in love with it. That was the start of the whole thing.
Chad: Nice. And during your 17 years, have you seen any changes in private practice?
John: A lot of changes. It used to be…you know, I’m kind of in the dark ages. My staff teases me about that.
At that time, it was you got your referrals from the doctors. You did a good job and that is really kind of all that it took.
It has progressed and actually, fortunately, as people become better consumers of healthcare, and all of the other changes that you are seeing, it enables us to really step out and have to learn how to not just promote yourself but make sure people are aware of what you can provide and what you can do for them.
Chad: Yep, that is awesome.
So, I know before the call, you and I were talking about some of the success that you are having with PT workshops.
But before we get into that, can you talk a little bit about was there a decline of physician referrals in your area due to POPTS or HOPTS?
And what had you tried in the past to go directly to the general public?
John: Well we opened in 2001. We were the only real private practice that was pushing. So, we were growing.
We had done some of the usual marketing and things like that but we were growing.
In 2008, we had one large POPTS open with their own physical therapy department.
They were pretty aggressive and…pretty aggressive is probably the best term to put for that.
Then by the end of the year we had a second POPTS.
So suddenly it was this feeling that your practice is there and everybody else around you is doing something and you are not. And you can’t figure out what it is.
So I took some marketing courses and did some things and got a little bit of a response.
But it was always hit and miss, hit and miss.
So our snowbird season would always be our busiest season but that would start to get shorter and shorter.
So it was getting down to where you would have 3 good months and 9 not-so-good months. We all know the math on that gets tough.
Really struggling trying to provide for your staff, trying to provide for everybody, trying to find new ways.
Things would work for a little bit but not consistent until I came across the Breakthrough PT Marketing videos.
Chad: I know that you are knocking it out with workshops.
What else did you try to go to the general public with before workshops?
For example, I know here we have just advertised that we have Direct Access and we offer Free Screens.
Did you try anything like that or what else did you…what other path did you go down?
John: We did the Free Screens.
We did radio.
We tried these small ads in the coupons.
We tried ads in the newspaper.
I would try to host a talk.
We would try to meet with the doctors and do the lunches.
Everything got you something but not for very long. It seemed to run out.
So, it was that constantly…you kind of get to that point where you know that there is something else to do, you just don’t know what it is.
I knew reaching to the public and marketing directly to the public was the secret. I just couldn’t figure out how to hit it.
We would get a few people here and a few people there but it was like I knew that was where I needed to go, I just couldn’t figure out how to get there.
Chad: Just again, you and I talking personally, I know that you stumbled upon workshops.
So can you retell that story that you told onstage at the last Boot Camp about how you did workshops and ultimately how you stopped stalking us?
John: It is shameful for me but yeah.
I stalked Chad for about a year.
I downloaded anything free on the workshops. I watched the bits and pieces that you could get.
This was actually a year ago, February of last year.
The weakest part of our company I knew was marketing. It had the biggest hole.
So, I watched enough of the stuff and thought, “Alright, that is it.”
I walked in and I told my office manager, “Just book me a spot at the Senior Center. I’m going to do this workshop thing. I’m not quite sure what it is yet. But that is what we are going to do.”
She books me a spot at the Senior Center.
We get ready to go that day and by then I have kind of figured out some of the pieces of the little questionnaire. And I have got some of the…I kind of put together a slide show but it wasn’t quite right.
So, we get there and I find out that we don’t have a room.
We get the lunch area.
I go in there, there is 40 people but none of them are there for me. I think there is like 5 or 6 that are there for me.
Then we are in the corner. We are stuck in the corner next to an entertainment center. So, I have to kind of squeeze in my screen for my overheads.
These people are there to read the paper, play dominos, cards and they are waiting for lunch because lunch is at 12:00 and it is a $2 lunch. Here that is big.
So I start my presentation at 11:30. I go through most of it.
Actually, people are raising their hands and stuff but at 12:00, I don’t even know if this will come out right but there is a guy and he is off to the right of my eye and he is like this (pointing to his watch.)
He is giving me the eye and he is telling me it is 12:00.
Where I am, the food is over to my left. I’m here and everybody is to the right.
I’m the dividing line between the lunch and them eating.
So needless to say, I had a half an hour to do this workshop. I probably did more wrong than right and I still picked up 3 or 4 screenings out of it.
I thought if I can do it wrong and get somebody, imagine what would happen if I actually did this right. So, that is what got me started.
Chad: Great, that is awesome. That is pretty cool.
So, that was your breaking point. You knew you had to do something.
You tried and put some pieces together which was by the way, implementation.
Actually doing something is a good first step. Don’t get in the way of the chocolate pudding.
So right now, obviously, you are doing workshops and you are doing really well with those.
I believe that you have the highest numbers ever for anybody that has worked with us in regards to workshop registrants. So can you share what is happening for you there?
I think that you just gave me numbers for the last workshop what that looks like as well?
John: With our Facebook, we have been doing the workshops the last 4 months consecutively.
The last workshop we just did January 19th.
We had 82 registered for the workshop.
Out of that, Stevie was able to confirm 41 of those.
This is a little embarrassing about Arizona, but the day of the workshop, we got some rain which for the rest of the country you would consider it sprinkles on and off through the day but in Arizona, it was rain.
So out of the 41, twenty-six people showed.
A couple of those were spouses but at the end of the workshop, we had 20 screenings scheduled.
We have already seen about 6 or 8 of those.
More importantly, Stevie who handles the Facebook and internal marketing, was able to move at least 12 people straight from Facebook into screenings.
They didn’t even want to wait for the workshop.
They just wanted to come straight in for a screening just based on what they saw on Facebook.
For us, for this last month, we had 36% was what we consider Direct Access.
A patient comes in through a workshop, a patient comes in for screening, anything that is driven in where they are initiating it, I consider that Direct Access.
So we are up to 36%.
My goal is to hit 40% by the end of this year.
I would like to be at least 40 to 45% Direct Access. I still like doctor referrals but I would like to be 45% by the end of this year.
Us bringing in our own stuff basically singing for our own supper, getting our own things.
Chad: Great, so I have a similar goal. Why do you want to be there?
John: Why do I want to be there?
There is a lot of reasons but for me it is stability.
It is the fact that…every practice does a good job but it is making sure that you can actually provide for your staff, provide for your family and you provide for your patients.
And you want that stability to know, I do a good job and I can consistently make this go all the time. And not be let’s say having other things effect you.
Like Dr. Jones was my best referral and now he left town.
Or I was on this insurance contract and now we can’t get to them.
I would rather be the director of what we are going to do.
With the workshops, we can basically market to the general public and, for us, it is working.
I think it is the secret, the future.
I have been a therapist for 30 years and people are significantly better consumers of their own healthcare now than they were before.
They come in and are like I know I need this.
They see the video or they see the ad and they come in already ready, they need it.
Chad: I agree. I remember when we had Direct Access in the mid-2000s here in Pennsylvania, people were very reluctant.
We still get that even at my last workshop here.
People were asking, “Do I need to go to my physicians first?“
There is an education process but they are consuming, they are reaching.
They are their own best advocate. Awesome stuff there.
Right now, you are part of the BPTM community.
Obviously, you were in the hot seat and you got to be up there with Carl and he was drilling you about your thought process and how you are growing your practice and how you are crushing it right now with automated online advertising driving directly to workshops, getting general public in and Direct Access people.
What is your favorite part about being part of the BPTM community?
John: I have always been in practice by myself and so there is a lot of days where you don’t know what else to do or am I crazy for thinking this?
Or you got that one employee that you can quite sort out.
The nice thing is the feedback and the support.
So when you go on and you have got those closed groups and you look at it and Lee Sowerbutts is a machine when it comes to videos.
He is always posting stuff.
But you are getting new ideas or you are like here is what I am struggling with and somebody says we dealt with that a year ago, I am going to download this form.
You are going to use this and that is how you are going to make that work.
It is almost like you are in a partnership with a couple of hundred other practice owners who are doing the same thing that you are doing.
Maybe I figured out something on a screening different.
Maybe Chuck Schulz figured out something different on hiring or whatever.
But everybody has got a piece and we all throw it in and all end up better.
And your staff ends up better and actually, patients.
So it is pretty cool.
I’m having a good time with it.
Chad: Awesome. Yeah, we don’t have to be alone.
There are a lot of other people out there that are going through the same problems that we are.
Even at the Boot Camps where I feel like I am doing a lot of teaching, the flip side of that is I am also doing a lot of learning.
Every once in a while, and Lee gave the classic example at the last one…Here is how I’m going to change how I’m doing my sponsorship advertising.
You know how we all do $100 or $200 to the Choral Society?
He is now going to have the Choral Society mail in exchange for the sponsorship.
I have used that already.
I have never thought of that before.
Really, really smart stuff. Cool stuff there.
John: Now I’m going to have to steal that from you.
Chad: That is a winner.
I even brought it up again.
I did a health fair on Saturday morning. I was there for 4 ½ hours. The flow was pretty slow coming through.
We have done health fairs already where we have had over 150 people through which is awesome. But this was like maybe 12 to 15 people. I was like, “How can I salvage this?”
Then I actually went to that and I talked with the director and I shared Lee’s idea.
She said, “How did the event go for you?”
I was like, “It was a little slow.”
She said, “Is there anything else that we can do?”
I said, “Yeah, you can send out an email on my behalf giving away the book.”
She was like, “Great, we will set that up.”
I love that aspect as well, John.
What are the changes that you have now?
I know that you mentioned control and stability and your ability to diversify amongst where you are getting your patients from.
What does that mean for you on a deeper level not only providing for your staff but on a personal level? Has it affected your family? Has it affected you personally, etc?
John: I think it has affected my family because it has freed me up, one.
Now I have Stevie. She is our marketer. She is running that part independently.
So that takes that whole hat or that position off so it frees you up and gives me the time to be with my kids.
Quite honestly, planning.
I know there has got to be other guys out there like me. You do the numbers and I need 275 visits this week.
You do your budget and all of that and I would always come back to the same problem.
That was before Breakthrough Physical Therapy Marketing.
Ok, I know I need 12 more patients every month. Where the heck am I going to get them? Or where am I going to get them?
Now it is actually the opposite problem. Just with the workshops, it is like another referral source.
We average probably 20 to 22 new patients just out of the PT workshops.
And we are only doing it once a month.
Actually, we have another therapist that will start with us on the 13th of February.
So we are gearing up to go ahead and start adding to it.
On a personal note, now it is fun. It is nice to be in practice. You get to still…it is like a game again.
Fun, it is not like oh my god. It is like cool, what can we do? How can we do things differently? How do we grow?
It kind of self-validates you. It makes you feel like ok, I wasn’t crazy for going into practice.
Some days you wonder was I facing this way when everybody else was facing that way? And ended up in private practice and felt like I was at a dead end. And it is not that anymore.
It is fun. I like doing what I am doing again. It is pretty cool.
Chad: That is great. So rewarding, John. It makes it all worthwhile.
Thanks for being on the call, here and thanks for sharing.
If people want to look you up or find more about you, do you have a website that they can go to and see what you are up to?
John: Yes, it is 1protherapy.com.
Chad: Ok, perfect.
John: I get my emails mixed up.
Chad: No worries, we will get that straightened out. 1protherapy.com to learn more about it.
John: Yeah, you can tell that I’m not the IT guy.
Chad: Me neither, I mess it up all of the time, John. No worries. Thanks again for being here and for all of you, I will post john’s URL so that you can check him out. Thanks again for sharing. John.
John: Alright, Chad, thank you very much for everything. I appreciate it.
Now follow John’s lead and stop stalking us!
If you have any questions or concerns, always feel free to reach out to me directly.
I am always more than happy to help. 🙂
P.S. Have you checked out my brand new PT Marketing Resources?
It’s about “How One ‘Brain Dead Simple’ Marketing Strategy Got Me 513 Visits Scheduled Next Week…And A 2 Week Waiting List… ”
This Little-Know Secret Could Be The Difference Between Having Your Practice Thrive Versus Having It Barely Surviving.
Implement It And You Could Attracting 5, 10, or 50+ More Direct Access Patients A Month By The End Of This Summer!
Also please feel free to check out more of our PT Marketing Testimonials!
