Chiropractors are now looking newer and more innovative ways to market their practice. Discover how to market your practice by producing your own podcast! Podcasting can bring people into your marketing funnel if you can provide them with valuable information. Doing that will leave them with a favorable opinion of you and your practice. Listen to the audio interview with Dr. Ed Osburn below.
Resources: Subscribe on iTunes
Transcript:
Dr. Smith: Hello, and welcome ladies and gentlemen to Practice Growth Strategies on behalf of Genesis Chiropractic Software. I’m Dr. Tabor Smith and we have a very, very special guest for you today, one whose name has just exploded it seems like recently in the profession of chiropractic. I see him everywhere. He’s doing an amazing job. He is the chiropractic philanthropist and it’s Dr. Ed Osburn. Dr. Ed, thanks for being on the show today.
Dr. Osburn: Hey, I’m thrilled. I love what you’re doing, so I’m here in any way I can support you.
Dr. Smith: Awesome. Well, I appreciate it and I love what you’re doing. I love your podcast and you’re interviewing some amazing people. I mean, I get addicted to your podcast. I really do, which is awesome. Some of the names, Dr. Demartini, Grant Cardone, his was absolutely amazing. What’s the guy’s name . . . the Chicken Soup for the Soul?
Dr. Osburn: Jack Canfield.
Dr. Smith: Jack Canfield. Love that episode, but phenomenal job, man. We’ll start off . . . tell us a little more about yourself and how’d you get involved with chiropractic and how’d you get involved with podcasting?
Dr. Osburn: Well, my story isn’t really like a sexy one. A lot of people say that –
Dr. Smith: Well, you’re such a sexy guy, so I thought it would be.
Dr. Osburn: Everyone has this major triumphant story as to how they got into chiropractic. I guess I was . . . maybe chiropractic did choose me, maybe if I really do think about it. My wife was first. I supported her. She was in chiropractic college for many years. I was getting my undergrad. All my friends were chiropractors. They all went to school to chiropractic college.
Dr. Smith: It was just the thing to do.
Dr. Osburn: Well, it’s almost like it sucked me in, you know?
Dr. Smith: That’s awesome, yep.
Dr. Osburn: I fell into the culture. Drank the Kool-Aid.
Dr. Smith: That’s good.
Dr. Osburn: So, I graduated Life Chiropractic College West back in ’02, started practice up in Alberta, so just outside of Edmonton. A small town, like 70,000 people in St. Albert, Alberta. We crushed it in practice for many years and I’m not currently in the practice more than say an hour, doing consults an hour a week, so it gives me more time to do things like these projects. So, podcasting, consulting, things like that, with doctors.
Dr. Smith: That’s cool and that’s just personally, I tell people, I don’t plan on ever retiring ever, but I plan on doing different things and I always want to be involved with chiropractic. Helping the profession and growing the profession. Really, I always want to practice, I feel like, but being able to do it when I want to do it and have a system set up that still helps my community and we’re still adjusting people, that’s a cool thing too.
Dr. Osburn: Well, don’t tell my wife, Tabor, but I still sometimes think I might come back. Yeah, like Rocky, you know? So, I might. You never know. Maybe I’ll be back in practice. I mean, that would be the dream. There’s nothing like what we do as chiropractors. We can do what we do, like you do, and help doctors build their practices and build the chiropractic message, or get that out to the world, but there’s nothing like that intangible feeling of when you have someone that you are adjusting and you’re helping free their nerve system.
Dr. Smith: Absolutely, no. I will never stop doing that as far as I can physically do it and I do all of our adjusting right now. My wife is at home with the twins, so I’m adjusting 300 people a week, and then in between this, do interviews with you. So, it’s a lot of fun. I get addicted to adjusting, as well.
Dr. Osburn: Well, like I said, hopefully my wife, that’s the one person I hope doesn’t hear this message today.
Dr. Smith: Well, phenomenal. So you got into chiropractic, but what about podcasting? How’d that come about?
Dr. Osburn: Well, it really ties into my story as to why, or how and why I stepped out of practice, and I told the story so many times. I hope people aren’t getting sick of it, but I had a health crisis, you can call it that, or I just plain got sick. And no matter how much I tried. . . I even had major, major surgery. I was determined. I came back to practice just three months after major surgery and I was adjusting 50 people an hour.
It was too much. I got sick again and I think that maybe that lesson, I think a lot of chiropractors could learn from that lesson that I had and that mistake is that when you compromise your health based on . . . because my value for . . . my health was lower than my value for what I did as a Chiropractor and how it defined me as a person and my value. When I did that, I got sick again. So, I stepped away from that, but I still always wanted to be a part of this profession. I love chiropractic. I love what we do.
It angers me, Tabor, that we are so marginalized. Clearly, as a profession I say this often, clearly we’re not doing something correctly because I think we can learn a lot from entrepreneurs, business people, who are very successful at getting their message out there. That’s my mission is to help us grow as a profession.
Dr. Smith: That’s awesome. I think that’s a good message is that you always have to put yourself and your health first, especially if you’re a Chiropractor because we teach that. So, even though you’re sacrificing yourself in a way to help other people, if you don’t put on your own oxygen mask first, you’re going to be in trouble and you’re not going to be able to help anybody.
Dr. Osburn: Yeah, again, my priority shifted, now I have kids. So, it’s really important. I want to be around when my kids get married. I want to play with my grandkids.
Dr. Smith: Right. So, as the story goes, you got in and you started doing podcasting. How long have you been doing that?
Dr. Osburn: You know, probably just about eight months.
Dr. Smith: Oh, really?
Dr. Osburn: Yeah. I put the whole thing together back in August of last year, and so from idea to fruition, to completion and publication within four weeks. When I launched, I had about 30 episodes ready to go. So, I worked my tail off. I almost didn’t launch because I knew that another doc was coming out with a podcast as well that was very similar. But what I’ve learned is, and I want doc’s to realize too, is that we can all have a similar message. Even maybe a similar flow or questions and things like that, that we have on our podcast, but everyone will have their own audience. There’s 700 million people out listening on iTunes. So, I almost didn’t put it out there, but its crazy right?
Dr. Smith: It’s crazy. That’s about as close to an overnight success as I’ve heard, because you’re doing amazingly well. How many people are you reaching now?
Dr. Osburn: Well, we’ve had almost 150,000 downloads. I mean, it’s a niche. I can only think that chiropractors are listening. I don’t know how many chiropractors are out there, maybe 70-80,000 I’ve heard. But I was on a call last night with a doc who I highly respect. He’s a coach consultant and he’s like, okay I want to work with you. How can we, in the future do something together? That’s the thing about podcasting and I want docs to real, too, is that using podcasting, which is really just broadcasting, it’s the best networking tool you will ever have and it’s very strategic. I simply took my face and I put it next to someone like John Demartini and you get that instant authority. There’s nothing special about . . . I keep saying this. There’s nothing really amazingly original or special about what I did, it was more strategic.
Dr. Smith: So you would recommend that chiropractors start a podcast?
Dr. Osburn: Every day. Every day. I think you’re crazy not to and if you don’t, I’m not seeing this as competitive, but the chiropractor across the street is going to. Again, it’s so strategic. How many doors do you think it will open for you? Docs will e-mail me who are in the various stages of production, they’ll go, “I can’t believe, you know, I got this person and this person and this person in my community. I’ve tried to reach out to them before and its crickets, and now all of a sudden they want to be interviewed by me.” So, you can definitely network really well, establish yourself as the authority in your community.
Dr. Smith: Right. I see podcasting as the ultimate way to provide value to your followers. You know what I mean? That’s kind of where marketing is going today is who can provide the most value, because when that person receives that value from you, they’re going to come back to you for your product no matter what you’re selling.
Dr. Osburn: Yeah.
Dr. Smith: Go ahead.
Dr. Osburn: I was going to say, every day, every day. I mean, podcasting is about building relationships and building connection. I don’t know anyone who sells a product on their podcast.
Dr. Smith: Right. No, yeah. So, it’s all about, as a doctor, as a chiropractor, what do I know, what do I understand that many other people out there don’t, and how can I express that to them, and putting all of that into a consistent podcast. I mean, what better way to do it, right? It’s like having your own radio show.
Dr. Osburn: It is. Yeah, it is your own radio show, but it’s even better. I’m not spending $1,200 every month to get on the air for 30 minutes one time, on AM radio.
Dr. Smith: So, how would a chiropractor go about starting his own podcast? Are there steps to do that?
Dr. Osburn: Oh, yeah. There’s so many resources, just go to YouTube. Go to YouTube and Google “How to start a podcast,” and there are so many resources. Everyone is throwing that stuff up there. Now, the challenge is to distill it down to what you need to do, and also how to make it relevant to what your goal is. So, if your goal, and let’s face it as chiropractors we can have amazing content, we can put stuff out there and spread the chiropractic word. But ultimately, let’s face it, at the end of the day, those people need to get in your office, they need to get checked, and they need to get clear. So, that is a little bit unique and I think that’s what we do a little differently, in terms of like, with chiropractors. There’s tons of resources out there that are completely free on YouTube. They’ll take you click-by-click through the process.
Dr. Smith: I think that’s where chiropractors get stuck is that, yes, I want to start a podcast. Yes, I might even know what information I want to share, but when I go to start that process, there’s something that’s going to stop me. You know what I mean? Once that stops me and I get frustrated, then I end up never starting a podcast.
Dr. Osburn: And it takes work, let’s face it. We see this, too, with people who. . . like, I have a training program, TCP podcast training program, but it’s designed specifically for the niche of chiropractors and how to market it to patients. Some people have bigger visions, so to the world. But the main point is that we want to make sure that you do it in a certain way, that you take those specific steps so that nothing gets missed along the way. That’s the biggest thing. I think doctors get paralyzed by not even just the tech, but they just go, “Okay, I can’t do this right now. I’m not ready.” You know what? It’s like, just get it out there. Once you’re set up, that’s the toughest thing. Then you can record and post it. How long does it take you to post an episode now, Tabor? Now that you’re set up?
Dr. Smith: That’s the trick is doing it once. It’s learning the information, that learning curve that it takes to post your first one. Then, it’s a piece of cake and you never have to worry about it. It’s like riding a bike. You just continue riding.
Dr. Osburn: Yeah, it’s easy.
Dr. Smith: So, to get some real structure and value. Let’s start the chiropractors off listening that want to start up their podcast. Let’s give them the first step. What equipment would they need? Is it expensive to start a podcast or getting your equipment and everything? What if they wanted to go out and start that process? What would they need to do?
Dr. Osburn: You know what? Actually, I have a page on my site. It’s kind of like a hidden page, but I’ll forward that to any of your listeners, or you can actually, if you have some show notes, you can add that too. I’ll make sure you get the link, but I take docs through that step-by-step. Honestly, like the mic you and I are using, we had this conversation in our pre-chat, is that it’s maybe 90 bucks. I’ve seen it as low as 40 bucks on Amazon. It gives you a really good tone with your voice. Takes out a lot of the clicks and the pops, and all those things too. So, what, maybe 50, 60, 70 bucks for your mic. The pop filter, about 15 bucks.
Dr. Smith: So, if they’re listening to me and subscribing to Practice Growth Strategies, their going to see a difference. Every once in a while, I’ll post a webinar or an interview I did in the past before I had this mic, and you’re going to notice a difference between why this interview between me and you has great quality audio, and some of the other interviews sound like I’m stuck in a tin can and I can’t get out, right?
Dr. Osburn: That’s a great point, Tabor, is that when people are consuming audio, that’s where everything’s going, is everything’s going on their phone. Even in our pre-chat, I told you, “Hey, I’m so sorry for being late on our call because my wife lost her phone or it was stolen, either one, this morning.” She can’t function without it. Everyone is going onto their mobile and that’s where we’re consuming that audio, but even myself, when I consume audio or podcasts from iTunes, within three minutes if I hear the audio on an interview is not good, I click off. So, yeah, I think you hit it on the head is that good audio quality is extremely important.
Dr. Smith: It is. I teach some business people and entrepreneurs how to create video, great video, quality video, and I tell them I’d rather have poor video and great audio, then the other way around. Because audio’s that important where people will just literally stop watching or turn it off if it’s not easy to listen to.
Dr. Osburn: Absolutely. Absolutely, 100% agree. Other things too, like we can have these swing arms too, so the distance of the mic is only a certain amount of space or it’s just a distance from your mouth. There’s all those little tweaks, too, that you can add in, but essentially production editing software “Garage Band” is on Mac. It’s free, and recording software, if you’re doing interview style. It’s $30 for E-cam. It’s to record off of Skype like we’re doing today. What was the other one? Audacity, if you’re on PC, and I think maybe it’s 20 bucks. It’s not a huge investment. Every time I go and do a screening at a trade show, I probably spend about $18 to $2000 to be there for a weekend.
Dr. Smith: Right. Oh, absolutely. I’ve done that. . . I do that a lot, and I mean, still you get your return on your investment, but when you have less overhead to get started and more return on investment, that’s a no-brainer. So, in summary, everybody out there start working on your podcasts. Don’t be afraid of it. There is somewhat of a learning curve. We’re going to post some of the resources to get you started below this video in our show notes, and so, let’s say some of these doctors, “We want a little more help. We want walked through the process to at least get us started and get us going in the right direction, doing things right from the beginning. Where can we go to find out more about what you do in your podcast training?”
Dr. Osburn: Sure. You can head, actually, over to my podcast site TheChiropracticPhilanthropist.com. You can actually even head over to. . . I’m actually launching a new website, which is DrEdOsburn.com, and that will be up in about a week. From there, you’re able to link to times to set up a consult with myself. You can listen to some of the little clips of podcasts that I have and we’re going to give some really great value there, but you can actually have the opportunity to check out the entire podcast training program through that site, as well.
Dr. Smith: Awesome. Well, just to give you a little bit of a plug. I used your training to start this podcast. So, ladies and gentlemen, it works and it works very well. I probably. . . it would’ve been a lot more of a headache. It would’ve been a lot harder if. . . it would, to me, almost been something I didn’t want to take on unless I had this training. So, thank you for providing that training for Chiropractors, and I want to encourage everyone listening to go check out those websites. Check out the links that we put below and Dr. Ed is great about coaching you through what you need to do to start your own podcast.
Dr. Osburn: Yeah, and I would just recommend docs, if they are entertaining the idea of doing podcasting, which of course I encourage, first get really clear on your vision. Who do you want to talk to? What is your purpose? Is it really just about getting new patients in the door? Is it really a bigger purpose? Get clear on that vision and make sure that this is something that you actually really, really, really want to do, then head down that road. I’m all about cooperation, so if you ever have any challenges, any questions, and I’ll tell you this, fire off an e-mail to me. I usually get back to you within a couple of hours.
Dr. Smith: Awesome. Well, I can contest to that, too. We’ll keep communicating and thanks again for all your help. I really appreciate you being on the show today and just keep doing what you’re doing, man.
Dr. Osburn: My pleasure.
Certified by the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance
