In this episode, VP of the APTA Connecticut Chapter, Dr Stephanie Weyrauch, CEO of Inclusive Care, Dr Krystyna Holland, and Obstetrics and Gynecology faculty member at Denver Health, Dr Jennifer Hyer, talk about bottom surgery and gender-affirming care.
Today, we talk about vaginoplasty complications, pelvic floor goals post-vaginoplasty surgeries, and setting post-operative expectations. What are the barriers that trans people face when trying to access gender-affirming healthcare?
Hear about pre-operative education, hysterectomy versus vaginoplasty outcomes, trauma-informed care, and hear their advice to healthcare providers, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.
Key Takeaways
- “You only have one time in your life to be post-op.”
- “The only way out of this is through.”
- “Give yourself grace, because you need to heal.”
- “Trauma-informed care is a commitment to continuing to try to reduce our own propensity for perpetuating harm.”
- “Once you start, you’re going to see a lot of folks that need this care.”
- “Be honest about who you can help and what feels good for you.”
- “Not everyone currently is a safe person for trans and non-binary people, and that’s okay. We are not all for everybody.”
- “We are seeing patients who are gender-diverse, and we need to be able to provide good care to people.”
- “If you don’t change your environment, it’ll change you.”
- “The hard work is always worth it.”
More about Dr Stephanie Weyrauch
Dr. Stephanie Weyrauch is employed as a physical therapist at Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Centers in Orange, Connecticut. She received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy and Master of Science in Clinical Investigation from Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Weyrauch has served as a consultant for a multi-billion dollar company to develop a workplace injury prevention program, which resulted in improved health outcomes, OSHA recordables, and decreased healthcare costs for the company’s workforce. She has served on multiple national task forces for the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA)—most recently, she was elected to the APTA Nominating Committee—and actively lobbies for healthcare policy issues at the local, state, and national levels of government.
She currently serves as Vice President of the American Physical Therapy Association Connecticut Chapter and is a member of the American Congress for Rehabilitation Medicine. Dr. Weyrauch has performed scientific research through grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation at institutions including Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis.
Her research examining movement patterns and outcomes in people with and without low back pain has led to numerous local, regional, and national presentations and a peer-reviewed publication in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, a top journal in rehabilitation.
More about Dr Krystyna Holland
Krystyna Holland, DPT (she/her) is the founder and CEO of Inclusive Care, a physical therapy office in Denver, Colorado specializing in the provision of trauma informed pelvic floor care to individuals across the gender identity spectrum. Krystyna’s journey as a provider started as a patient. Traumatic experiences in her own medical treatment inspired her to open Inclusive Care.
In addition to helping folks feel confident in their ability to live without leaking and have intimacy without fear, Krystyna aims to change the fundamental patient-provider relationship from one that centers the provider as a problem solver to one that focuses on collaboration between the patient and the provider.
She is a well-known Instagram educator (@Krystyna.Holland), an instructor of trauma-informed care trainings, and a healthcare consultant.
More about Dr Jennifer Hyer
Jennifer Hyer, MD joined the Obstetrics and Gynecology faculty at Denver Health in 2007. She is an Associate Professor of Clinical Practice in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She completed medical school at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center and completed her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at the University of Colorado. She is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a Diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is a member of the 2017 class of the Association of Professors in Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) Academic Scholars and Leaders Program. In 2022, she joined the Denver Health Medical Staff Executive Committee.
In 2021, she was honored by her peers with the Denver Health Outstanding Clinician Award. Her clinical activities include full scope practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Denver Health Medical Center as an attending physician. She has been providing surgical management for transmasculine patients since 2016. In 2018, she expanded her surgical skill set under the direction of Dr. Marci Bowers and Dr. Chris Carey to include vaginoplasty for transfeminine patients. She continues to provide these surgical services and is the only transfem bottom surgeon at Denver Health. She has presented Denver Health gender affirming surgical data at both national and international conferences. She hopes to expand the Denver Health Gender Affirming Surgical Program and participate in research opportunities to improve care of all LGBTQ+ patients.
She also has a research interest focused on maternal mental health, and she has presented on this topic at both the national and international level. She has received grant funding from the Denver Health Foundation and Zoma Foundation to support integration of behavioral health into obstetrics clinics. Additionally, she has partnered with colleagues at academic institutions within Denver to collaborate on projects to improve maternal mental health and access to support services.
Suggested Keywords
Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Gender, Transgender, Surgery, Gender-affirming care, Education, Advocacy,
To learn more, follow Drs. Weyrauch, Holland, and Hyer at:
Website: www.inclusivecarellc.com.
LinkedIn: Krystyna Holland PT, DPT.
Twitter: @TheSteph21.
Instagram: @thesteph21.
Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart:
Website: https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264
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In this episode, Founder of Andro Brands, Corey Hiben, talks about marketing and websites.
Today, Corey talks about the website do’s and don’t’s, optimal website design, and creating an offer. What should you look for when having a website built?
Hear about the value ladder, building relationships, and get Corey’s advice to his younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.
Key Takeaways
- “Be 90% clear and 10% clever.”
- “What do you do, what problem do you solve, and what action do you want them to take next?”
- “Confused customers don’t buy.”
- “As long as your intentions are pure of trying to help people, you should never have resistance around marketing yourself, building a site, or any of the things you’re trying to do.”
- “You have the option to choose yourself and to do what you want to do, regardless of what other people tell you.”
More about Corey Hiben
Corey Hiben is the host of The Health Hustle Podcast. He is also the founder of Andro Brands, which is a marketing agency for health & fitness professionals.
Corey used to work as both a personal trainer and a healthcare professional and so he understands the challenges of providing incredible service to your current customers while also trying to attract new customers.
Through many years of trial and error he realised that he is best suited to put all of his time and attention in helping other health & fitness professionals grow and market their businesses.
His mission is to help as many of his fellow health & fitness entrepreneurs to build a business that fits their lifestyle.
Suggested Keywords
Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Marketing, Website, Offers, Value, Niche, Entrepreneurship, Business,
Resources:
FREE GIFT: From Followers To Clients in 7 Easy Steps.
To learn more, follow Corey at:
Website: www.coreyhi.com.
LinkedIn: Corey Hiben.
Instagram: @coreyhiben.
Facebook: Corey Hiben.
Podcast: The Health Hustle.
Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart:
Website: https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927
Read the Full Transcript Here:
00:03
Hey, Cory, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on today to talk all things marketing and website, which is something that is not intuitive for a lot of healthcare and fitness professionals because we didn't really go to school for that. So thanks for coming on and talking us through it. Yeah, that's exactly how I got into it is I solved a problem I had myself and now I help other people with it. So yeah, yep, that's always the way. So we're going to talk about website design, and we'll kind of see where it goes. But can you give the listeners, maybe some must haves and maybe must have nots? I don't even think that's a word on when it comes to website design. So let's talk about things that one should have, or maybe what a site what a good site should have, that will want people to come to see you. Because that's the point of the website. Well, for starters, something very funny and quirky to begin with. No, I'm just kidding. But uh, but just to give people some context, like, Yeah, I'm an occupational therapist, by trade, I really got into this marketing, website design and development thing purely through just a place of pain is somebody who understands the challenges and the struggles of really trying to get new clients and leads and customers and how challenging that can be to both see patients, do your documentation, keep up with emails, do everything you have to do from a practitioners standpoint, or even a fitness practitioner standpoint, and then also trying to figure out how do I also Garner leads and get get attention. And I think so many of us have felt the pain and struggle of like, I don't feel like I have time to do this. And so that's really where I fell back on to okay, how do I create the systems and the marketing and all those pieces in place have to get leads and to get new customers and to keep people coming in the door and in the clinic, and still have time to treat patients at a really high level. And that's really where I landed on this, this pocket of website design development and why it became something that was so interesting, and become so passionate for me is because like, I always tell people that your website is really, it's your mothership, it's your home base, it's your backbone, it's the thing that like, if you can get a lot of traffic and a lot of attention to that place, specifically, assuming it's designed correctly, which we'll talk about in a second, then you can essentially take all these people that are paying attention to you into somewhere down the road, hopefully clients and customers or even referral sources, because like all the other platforms out there, whether you use tick tock or Facebook or Instagram, or whatever your thing is, is you don't own any of them. The only ones that you own, or the ones that are on your email list are the ones that you have phone numbers to, or even maybe an address to if you want to write them a letter if people still do that today. But to answer your question of like, what are the must haves and shouldn't do is have a website? I would say first and foremost is
02:43
you have to have a compelling reason for somebody to want to reach out to you is the biggest mistake that I see is that so often people think if they just build a website and throw a contact form on there, that there's somehow going to get somebody to reach out to them. And I can tell you very unlikely, if not, will they ever reach out to you or ever fill out your contact form if you don't give them a compelling reason to do so. And that's why like the topics of like freebies and offers are something that you can offer a value to somebody is so so important, because the the pushback that I always get from people is that will I'm just asking for their email address, it doesn't cost them anything to give me their email address wrong, it costs them a lot to give somebody an email address. And what I mean by that it costs them their trust, it costs them their attention, it cost them the risk of maybe you spamming them. So if you're not giving them something of value in return for that email address, there's no way they're gonna give it to you unless it's your mom or your sister, or somebody that already knows and trust you. But if it's some random person perusing the internet, it's very unlikely. Or if you built up a lot of trust on your social media platform, and have some sort of ask them there that drives them back to it, that might be a way to get it. But I'd say that'd be the number one biggest thing is having a compelling reason for somebody to reach out to you. And unfortunately, I can't just tell you what that is that comes down to really tapping into a really deep layer of empathy of understanding the people that you're working with and how you're ultimately trying to help them. Because like, if you can really speak their language and understand who you're talking to you and have something that's very specific to their needs, then that offer becomes very obvious to you. And that's really what I tell people is like you want it to be a no brainer. It should be they're gonna look at it, they're gonna see this as an offer, and they're gonna go, Oh, my God, that's free. How is that free? Why would I not do this? Right? It's a no brainer offer. That's the biggest one. The one I would say the thing that people get wrong the most is that are the don'ts of a website is they try to do too much. They try to put all their photos and all the copy and they have the world's longest backstory about themselves, not even the person going to the website. And they have all these pages that are redundant and irrelevant and they have way too many colors and way too many buttons and it just becomes ugly and sloppy. And whether you like it or not, people have a judgment on you based on your website, no matter what. And if see
05:00
If you've a see a sloppy website or website that has really just way too much wording or something that just doesn't resonate with them, they're gonna assume that you're also sloppy or wordy or don't have a lot of structure into this. And so they will judge you on your website no matter what. And so like if you can have something that shows your authentic self, and I'm not saying it should be professional, I'm just saying, it should show up authentically as you and the people that you want to work with. And on top of that, it shouldn't even really be about you, it should be about them. That's the other mistake that I say, I see as well is that we, when we build sites, we really use what's called the story brand model, which I'm sure you're familiar with. So essentially, it's understanding that the client is the hero of the journey. That's the whole point of a website, right? It's for them to come to that to that site and go, Oh, they get me they understand me. Now there's a compelling offer that I can reach on connect with them. Kind of a long winded answer to your question, but those are some of the biggest things. Yeah, no, that wasn't long winded at all. That was great. When someone is looking to design a website, right? What advice do you have for people? If they're looking, let's say they're looking to hire someone to do their website for them? Are there questions I shouldn't? Let's say I'm the therapist, and I'm looking to have someone design my website. Are there things that I should be looking out for? From the designer before I hire them? Great question. I would say like most things in life, you get what you pay for. And so I think you if you wanted to go, the more simple or an easy route, obviously, there's always the Upwork or the the fibers where you can go on there and hire somebody. But I think what's really important for people to get from your question is that it's one thing to have a website, it is something completely different to have a website that actually attracts and converts customers, right. And that's where we get into the whole game of like SEO ranking on Google, having a compelling offer. Walking a person through a story, like these are all very intricate things that people don't fully recognize and understand. And so like, I would say, the first thing I would do is I'd be asking for referrals and references is like, there's obviously going to be people in your network that you know, that have had good experiences with it. Like, for example, I have a really good friend of mine here in town, I live in Austin, Texas. And she her whole thing, she's a PT, but she does purely pelvic floor in Austin, Texas. And basically, we're able to get her to rank very high specifically in Austin, Texas for the practice on that keyword search term, because we understand who her target market is, and how we're going to actually help her Garner and get leads from that specific population versus if you go to Fiverr and Upwork, which are totally fine, it's very unlikely that they're going to take that level of understanding of like how to actually build a site that actually gives you value to your business. Because like, just so people know, like a really, really good converting website, which people don't realize, is actually roughly maybe 5%. At most, right. And so like most people who have websites, I would argue if they either did it themselves, or they just kind of went the cheap route, which is fine, just so they have a presence on the Internet, are probably converting less than 1%. And if you understand just like basic statistics of how big of a difference that can make, do, how much more leads, you can get into your business from 1% to 5%. If you're getting, on average 1000 views a month, or whatever it is. That's a massive difference, right? And so like when you're researching people I, I've always told people to is like, if you if you don't have a reference to somebody that has shown proven results through data, which is very easy to prove the data, like you can look up Google Analytics, you can look up how well the website is converting, like if they can't show you that they're actually getting people results. That's probably a red flag.
08:48
Yeah, that's, that's great. So because I think it's important that the listeners know like, What do I look for? Do I just pick someone and ran at random? Or what questions you have. So that was really great. Okay, let's get back to the website design itself. So everybody wants to have a good user experience, right? Like you said, you don't want to have a million buttons where you don't know what's going on. Let's talk about when people first get onto your website, right? They're going to see live there. Let's say you're on a computer, and they're going to see kind of what's above the fold. Right? So above the fold is what you see before you start scrolling down. So what needs to be above the fold? Because some people might go on and what be on your website? For what three seconds? Yep. And be like, Nope, it's that quick. Right? So what do we need? When people first get onto that website? It should answer three questions, and it should answer them very clear. I always tell people be 90% clear and 10% Clever. And so like people always try to do like the quirky thing like me, as a web designer in the world. People are always like, I'm a website wizard. And it's like, cool, that's clever. But what the hell does that mean? That doesn't really give any context what you actually do.
10:00
So to answer your question is three things specifically, it's what do you do? What problem do you solve? And what action do you want them to take next? Those are by far the most important things you could do. And so for you, for example, it could be
10:13
physical therapy in Where do you live, New York City, New York City. So physical therapy in New York City, we help females with pelvic floor issues, click here to schedule a consultation, right? Very straight to the point, you could get a little bit more clever, quirky with it. And you can sit down a little bit, but it's pretty straight to the point. Like if you don't answer those questions right away, people are already going to leave. And I see that my own searching behaviors, if I land into a website of somebody that like refers me to their site. And if I can't figure out what it is they even do, there's no way I'm sticking around to continue to check out their content. I will say the other thing, too, that isn't often talked about is how important the, the image slash or maybe video at the top of the website is, is like this goes back to my original point is that people are going to judge you based on your website, whether you like it or not. And so like, if you have, let's say, some background video of people working out at what looks like a CrossFit gym, what does that tell people about? It's gonna it and that may turn off a lot of people 100% Right, just fine, right? If you only want CrossFit people, that's great. But that's a slim amount of people, even in a city as big as New York City. Exactly. It's not a lot of people. Exactly. Which could be a good thing, right? Because like, you equally want to turn people on as you do want to turn them off. Right? Is because like, not only are you trying to attract leads and get customers, you're also filtering the people that aren't a good fit for you. Right? Like if you right, you don't want to work with, for example, the 60 year old grandma, which I'm sure is a wonderful human, then probably having a CrossFit type workout in the background is a good thing, you're gonna filter out that human because she's gonna go there, and she's gonna go, oh, no, this isn't for me, right? So it always comes back to back to just like, really deeply garnering empathy, which PTS OTS trainers are all really great at in that realm. And so like, the more you can understand them, and the more you can build this, this home shipper, this backbone to talk to them and to understand them as a human, the more likely you'll be to convert somebody into a lead or a customer. Right? Yeah. And can you I want you one more time to repeat those three things that everybody must have above the fold. I really want to drill this in. What do you do? What problem do you solve? And what action do you want them to take? Next? Right, exactly. And that action is normally in the form of a button. Right? So it's either schedule here, call here, something like that. But it should be really clear. And it shouldn't be a teeny, tiny little thing off to the side. You want you want people to notice it.
12:57
Yeah, you definitely want people to notice it. So if you can answer those three questions, when you look on your website, kudos to you, if you cannot figure it out,
13:07
Figure Figure out how you can answer those three questions. Because I know when I redid my website a couple of years ago, it was like a total, like I had a website that I kind of did myself on Squarespace, which is fine. You know, in the beginning, I understand like, everyone's got a budget, and certain things need to be budgeted in a certain way.
13:30
But then when I hired people to do it, it what it also did for me is it forced me to look at my business and do a deep dive into that, and dive even deeper into the people that I want to work with. So that things became a lot clearer for me as well. So I think it's important for whether you're a therapist or healthcare or a fitness professional, when you're doing your website, it's your turn, it's your chance to really do a deep dive into who you are as a business owner, who you want to be the people you want to attract and how you want to present yourself to the world. Yeah, I think it's important to just be as authentic as possible to is like, that's the very first thing we do with every project with every client that we work with is that we really get to your point, we understand exactly who we're talking to. We go through all the exercises to dive really deep into who they are as a business who we're trying to attract. And how can we differentiate so ourselves in the market because there's of course, there's millions, if not, I don't even know billions of websites, maybe at this point. And if you're not finding your uniqueness, whether it's funny or quirky or weird or you like doing workouts with cats, in cat sweaters, whatever whatever your thing is, is like as long as you can be authentic to who you are and who you want to attract. That's the most important thing and so like really understanding like, who you jive with and how you help them is so important. Right right and and a website doing a deep dive into website is a great way to figure all that out. And and then what will happen is like
15:00
You said, You'll filter out people. And all of a sudden the people that you really like to work with will be coming to you. And it'll just make your life so much better.
15:11
Yeah, it's always fun when you get a contact message or somebody signs up in a newsletter, and you recognize that they're like, they're your people. And they're like somebody that you get, and they get you. And it's like, oh, okay, this is fun. Like, that's where things honestly get. So fun is like, when you start building that community via through your website, and contact forms, or however else you want to build it. It's like, that's where things get really fun. It's like when you realize you're connecting with the right people, because again, even to that original point of like, you could garner a lot of tension from people that you're not a great fit for. And that's not fun, right? Is that like, then you got to refer them to other people, which is great for other people. But at the end of the day, like, if you're a PT, or training or whatever, like you're really trying to build a community, honestly, right, and the throw everything at the wall and steel, see what sticks marketing technique is not a good one is that what I'm hearing you say? I literally just today actually finished a whole article about that entire topic, I had somebody have a podcast show as well. And I had somebody on that show recently, that just reminded me of, I think that there's a stage in most people's journeys, where that's kind of the initial part of where you have to throw some stuff at the wall. But really, the whole spray and pray approach is not a useful method to getting people. Like I always, I always compare it between, like, the difference between being a hunter and a farmer, is that as a hunter, you're just like, you're going out and you're shooting everything and you're attacking everything, and you're trying to get them and you're going over here and you're throwing spears this direction, versus a farmer just waters their seeds in their area of the people that they're trying to nurture and connect with and have relationships with. And I feel like the farmer approach is way more fun and way more fruitful. And way more. Just no pun intended. Yeah.
17:00
Exactly. Just way more helpful for everybody involved in that entire situation of like, so I always give people grace of like, yeah, there's a stage of prayer, spray and pray. But like, if you came to me, and you talked to me, and I was consulting you, I'd probably be like, not probably not right approach to this. But Right, right. Not, not the best. Not that not the best, not the best way to go. So is there anything else about websites? Let's talk about like maybe what you see, that drives you insane, that you're like, oh, my gosh, I want to jump through the computer or my phone. And I need to change this. And actually, for me, it's non responsive websites. So websites that are that when you look on your phone, you're like, Come on, man, like make this this this should be better. Right? So when I say like non responsive, it means they didn't like optimize it for a phone or an iPad. It's only on the computer. That is like one of my biggest pet peeves. What are yours? Yeah, considering the fact that I think it's now 70% of people that browse the internet, use it on a mobile phone. And so like we we design every website now with mobile first knowing that the majority of traffic is going to come from there. So for anybody listening, keep that in mind and to your earlier point of like, if you are somebody listening, and you're in that situation, where doing it yourself is kind of the avenue you want to go. I think to your point about Squarespace is a good option, because they have a lot of great templates that make that very simple for people to just write on their own. So anybody in that situation, that's usually where I refer them if they're not ready to invest in something like that.
18:32
But other than exactly what we're talking about, of not knowing who you're talking to. That is my number one pet peeve. But other than that one, because obviously I feel like we beat that one. Yeah, I would say that the other one is, is
18:47
they tried, like I was saying before is they try to do too much is that they have multiple buttons, multiple offers multiple links to things is like, just understanding just to help people from context of basic human psychology is confused, customers don't buy. And so if you go to your website, and if it's confusing at all, if it's confusing to a seven year old, if a seven year old goes to your website, and they don't know what to do, that's a problem. They should then we need to talk about what is the one no brainer offer that you can present to this audience that will get them to actually make a connection and to make a decision. They've done so many studies on it, we don't have to beat it down. But basically less choices is better. It's the same reason why we get like, what is it called? Analysis paralysis. It's like, you go to the shopping aisle in the grocery store, and there's 8000 cereals. And so you choose the one that you've always chosen because you don't want to have to make a decision on a new one. Right? This is true for the websites and the internet as well. Right? It's like if there's too many options, you don't make a decision. And that's not what you want on your website. And so don't make the mistake of having too many offers have one very straight and simple offer.
20:00
And then even just repeat it is like I think people feel like this, I see this in marketing all the time is people feel like they're saying the same things over and over again, and they're being redundant. And it's like, you gotta understand the first 10 times you said it, they probably didn't even notice it, it's very unlikely that they even noticed it. And so like, if you feel like you're being redundant, you probably need to say more, honestly. And so like, if you can repeat that offer, again, multiple times throughout the course of the website, that'll one increase the odds that they'll even see it in the first place. And two, it'll make it very clear to them. This is what I want you to do. This is how we can continue to move forward. This is the next step in the process of how we can even start a conversation, whether it is signing up for a contact, whether it is a newsletter, a freebie or whatever it is, but like, make it very clear on what your one offer is. And be a little redundant about it, honestly. And yeah. Thanks for elaborating a little bit more on what the offer is. Because that's because when people hear offer, they're like, What do you mean? Would I have to like, does it? Is it a video? Is it can it just be like book with me? Can it be? So when you say an offer? Can you be a little more specific on maybe some different options that people can use as that offer on their website? Yeah, great. I'm glad you brought that up. Because like that is a whole discussion and of itself is like understanding even how to create an offer. I think so often, that's the thing. The problem that I see in marketing just in general as well is that
21:29
people often think that they have a marketing attention problem when really they have an offer problem. And so really an offer at its core level is it's whatever is going to compel them to click to say Yes, right. And so that could be that could be a freebie, like we talked about, it could be an ebook, it could be a free course, it could be an email chain, it could be an email chain, it could be, it could be actually buying the product, depending upon what it is, if you're some sort of product based service, it could be you see it in SAS companies all the time, it could be like, try this free trial for 14 days, I actually have a trainer, a good friend of mine here in town who's doing two weeks for free. And then at the end of the two weeks, you can decide if you want to work them with him or not. And it's actually for any other trainers out there. It's worked out great for him. Because then they get to experience what it's like to work with them for a few weeks, and they often choose to buy but that's his offer right now. Right? says two weeks free, no charge to you. To me, that's a no brainer if you're somebody that concerning our trainer, right? And so like the best piece of advice I can give to anybody who's considering what sort of offer I should do, and I'm stealing this quote from the guy that everyone seems to know about these days is Alex from Mozi. But basically,
22:45
it should be so good. People would say dumb to say no to it.
22:49
Right? Like, yeah, two weeks for you with a trainer. If I'm looking for a trainer? Hell yeah. Why would I not do that? Right? Like something that something?
22:58
Yeah, that's definitely a no brainer. Now when it comes to, let's say, healthcare professionals, where maybe we can't kind of, we can't really give away our services, because as you know, we're a little more regulated than the personal training business.
23:15
So what have you found that works best to convert? People, let's say convert emails for wanting to get people on our email list? What have you seen in your experience that works really well is like a lead magnet or an offer? Yeah. And so I want to frame this so that this can be helpful for everybody listening to the show. And I think what's important to first understand is the basics of what a value ladder is. And so a value ladder is essentially like the lowest possible hanging fruit is the thing that you want to offer first, and then you work your way up the ladder. So for example, it could be something of free. And then your next offer is like a $20. Offer, your next dollar is like your $200 offer. And then your next offer is like I buy three months for $2,000. Right, is that you work them up the ladder, you never it's very rare that it works to start at the top and go the other direction. That is That is a thing. It's called an ascending model. But we don't talk about that. But like it's really about understanding, okay, what is my premium offer, and everybody should have a premium offer. If you are listening to the show, and you don't at this point in your business have a premium offer you need to start thinking about that right now today, you need to know is like what is the ultimate crazy priced thing that you could offer somebody that if somebody was willing to buy it, you'd be like, hell yeah, that would be an awesome thing for me to sell to this person, whether it's like a six month package, if you're a trainer or whatever it is like some sort of very high premium style offer. And now what you do is you basically take that and you work backwards from there to get to what is that smallest piece within that giant premium offer that if if your ideal client came to you, and they were like, Oh, I just want this one little tiny problem solved. That's what you love.
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Looking for like, for me, for example, I'll just use myself as an example, is that somebody who does marketing, website design development, that's essentially what I do for business, is that my premium offer is like the whole package, right? It's the funnel. It's the website. It's the newsletters. It's the marketing campaign. It's the content. It's everything, right? That's a very big premium package. Right? Well, within that, when I distill it all the way down to its very base level is one little tiny thing in there that people often get wrong, is how to define your niche.
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Right. And so my little tiny, very just stepping stone offer for people, which we can talk about at the end of this episode, is like, it's how do you define your niche, right. And so I created this tiny little thing, it's totally free, I can give it to your audience for free. It's called the niche test, there's three pieces that go into it that really talks into, it's not as simple as just picking your niche because everyone in their mom just says, just like pick a niche, and then they'll throw money at you. And unfortunately, it's not that easy. There's actually a lot that goes into it. And but I basically broke down how to do that. But that's my tiny little offer just to get people into my community and very transparent. That's purely the reason that I built it was that just to get them onto my newsletter so that I can obviously continue to offer and garner value to their inbox and continue to talk about marketing things specifically for the health and fitness professional. And through that, we work up the funnel, right. And so for anybody listening to the show, is understand just to break it down really quickly, when we're last time is like understand your premium offer, break that all the way down to the micro thing within that that you can offer your ideal clients. And then that's your freebie. That's your offer. That's you're getting them into the door just to start a conversation, essentially. I love it. Thank you for that. And now, as we kind of start to wrap things up here, what would you what are the main points you want the listeners to take away from this discussion around websites and marketing and how to make them work for you.
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I think it's really easy to complicate a lot of it. And I think that the biggest thing I really want people to take away from it, though is that like, if,
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in the years that I've been doing marketing, what I've realized time and time again, is that all it is, is another way of saying building relationships. That's really literally all it is, at the end of the day, if you look at all good marketing, for that matter, not your spammy, annoying, slamming at your door, I literally just had to deal with this the other day, it was like some auto deal. It's always auto dealers. But like that type of marketing does not build or Garner relationships. And that's not fun for me. And that's not fun for them. And it's very unlikely that I would buy from them. Right? He's world, it's all built on the back of like, how can we build relationships, and that's really all marketing is, is it's how can I put things out into the world, that's a value to my audience, or that your audience or whoever's listening to the show, that's helpful for them, that will help us build a relationship to support and help each other. That's all it is. And we can complexify it all we want. But like, as long as your intentions are pure, of trying to help people, you should never have resistance around marketing yourself or building a site or any of the things that you're trying to do as long as your intentions are pure of like, I'm just trying to help people and build relationships. That's really all it is. Yeah, it takes out the creepy marketing the slight, you know, because people are like, Oh, I don't want to feel like just slime ball being like marketing to people. But like, if you're not a slime ball in real life, you're probably not going to be slimy with your marketing either. You know, like, if your intentions are pure, you're okay. I always tell that to people. So thanks. I love that now. Last question. It's when I ask everyone and that's knowing where you are now in your life. And in your career? What advice would you give to that young guy ran out of OT school, I would have chose myself sooner. And what I mean by that, just to give people context is I like I said, I used to be an occupational therapist. And there was a point in my career in my journey, where I was very burnt out on patient care, I was struggling with this whole marketing thing, the website thing, all this stuff, I had no idea what I was doing. It didn't know where I wanted to go. And there was a really a point in my career where I was actually trying to get into the tech industry and into the marketing industry and actually get out of being an OT, because I was just so burnt out on insurance model health care, which anyone listening to show can obviously understand. And it's it took the I was in a spot where the pain outweighed the fear of the unknown. And I read a book at that time was called choose yourself by James all teacher. And the title basically says it all is that I was like I was looking for permission. I was asking tech companies would you hire me or I was like reaching out to other facilities or other entrepreneurs or whatever it was that people have like hire me or take me out or metro me or whatever. And I realized after reading that book is like, I can just choose myself and decide to start putting myself out there and start doing what I ultimately want to be doing, regardless of what anybody tells me and it's the greatest thing about modern day society in the world that we live in today is that anybody now can step up and grab the microphone, no pun
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intended and choose themselves right and start putting value out in the world, the very first person I ever started building website for I did it for completely free. I helped her for $0 because I just wanted the relationship and I just wanted to show her that I could help her. And so talking to my younger self, or anyone fresh out of school, or whatever it is early stages is like you have the option to choose yourself and to do what you want to do regardless of what other people tell you. Right. Great advice things first time I heard that one. And I've been I've been doing this for a long time. So I thank you so much. That was great. Now where can people find you? And where can they get the free offer you alluded to earlier? Sure. So it's on my website. It's Cory high.com/niche is where the offer would be. You can find me and Cory had calm I'm most active on LinkedIn and Instagram. I also have a podcast show called The Health hustle. I talked to a similar audience that you do is other health and fitness entrepreneurs, specifically little people in Austin, Texas. So if anybody's listening to show in Austin, Texas and you want to grab a coffee, by all means, let me know I love connecting with people in your in town. It's my favorite place in the world. But yeah, that's my plug. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Cory, for coming on and giving us your time and your information. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.