Let me do this.
Hunter McWhorter, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks, excited to be here.
Did I say the last name right?
I've only read it on LinkedIn.
You nailed it.
Congrats, first time.
Slightly different spelling,
but one of my roommates
from college was a McWhorter.
I was like,
I think it's spelled like that.
So Kyle, if you're listening,
I'm talking to one of your
family members here.
There you go, shout out Kyle.
I mentioned a little bit in your intro,
But you've taken a
circuitous route to where you are.
And those are always the more interesting,
right?
Nothing was linear for you.
How do you explain if
someone were to talk to you
at a conference or a dinner party,
you know what you do and
then how you got there?
How would you explain that?
Yeah.
Well,
I always wanted to be a physical
therapist and God laughed and said, hey,
man,
you're not going to like physics or
chemistry enough.
And I said, well, OK,
I can still contribute somehow.
And that's how I sort of
landed at PT Solutions.
So got my start there doing
their front office
operations and then got the
chance to help with some of
their patient engagement,
patient retention stuff, realizing, hey,
no one's really doing this.
This seems kind of important
for us to keep the lights on.
March twenty twenty hit.
And if you don't have DPT after your name,
you generally get to get creative.
And so they use WebPT.
And so I was familiar with them.
I said, hey, look, they're hiring.
Let's see what we can do here.
And that's when I joined them as an SDR,
worked as an SDR account
executive and then a customer success.
In between,
I did some physician liaison
work with physical,
worked with breakthrough
physical therapy marketing
as a customer success rep.
I had an itch for marketing and said,
what better place to learn
than from those guys?
And then finally got a
chance to work with rehab CEOs,
which I felt like was a
cherry on top of sort of my
background and how I can
help contribute to the industry and help.
And now I'm at a company
called Arrow Help and super
excited to be here.
man you've that's a lot of
name draw that company name
drop and you've you've hit
the you know some of the
big ones accidentally it's
just I laugh because I'm
mistaken all the time as a
pt and I get job offers and
everything I'm just like
nope I just can play one on
tv really well well we'll
talk about that you know in
terms of like big pain
points and obviously
finding and retaining staff
is obviously a pain point
and if you don't think
marketing or communicating can help
some of your big pain points
in this profession, you're missing out.
You've said this,
referrals are the starting
point for patient care.
It might not feel like that, but it is.
So what are the clinics
getting wrong about how
they manage and track these
things that we call referrals?
Yeah, I think right off the bat,
they think that the
patient's experience with
them starts at the point of evo.
They don't think it's how
easy is it to get booked?
How easy is it to find out
anything about me on my website?
Do I have Google reviews?
Like, what do people say about me?
They think it's that's not their problem.
And
whatever there's plenty of
referrals out there so I
think that's the first
mistake and then when you
aren't thinking through it
you don't invest in a
method to make sure you
know when you call somebody
and say hey I'm out of town
for the next two weeks or
I'm a snowbird or whatever call me in
two weeks, three weeks,
you just forget because you
don't have an easy way to track that.
And then you wonder why
doctors stop sending to you.
And then it's just all this
trickle down effect.
So I definitely think it
starts both from a patient
experience side,
but then just an operation side too.
That's the referral to start about.
I heard somebody,
I think it was Rory Sutherland,
who's like this,
is he English or Australian?
But he's a marketing dude.
Look him up.
He's brilliant.
And he had a question in
front of a live audience.
I love this question.
He said,
Hilton and Nike are two elite brands.
But if I said to you that
Hilton was going to create a sneaker,
And Nike was going to create a hotel.
My guess is you could
picture what that hotel would look like,
created by Nike,
but not what the Hilton
sneaker would look like.
And that shows you what brand depth is.
If Nike came out with a cologne,
we could kind of smell it.
They might have even done
that or something like that.
It's the difference of like,
when does this experience
start and how is it
ingrained a lot earlier than you think,
right?
What do you expect when you
walk to the front counter
to McDonald's versus what
happens when you sit down
and someone puts a steak
knife in front of you at
Smith and Walensky's?
The experience probably
started way before both of those things.
And we need to understand
that in healthcare.
It's simple for me to say that,
but it's not easy, is it?
no it's it's because you've
got to fight the algorithms
you've got to go outside
your comfort zone and do
what they don't teach you
at pt school which is how
do you market how do you
make it so people want to
be there they just teach
you hey if you have a good
product they will come and
unfortunately in today's
market it's so competitive
and you've got the bigger
entities fighting to take
over the smaller ones and
so it's just it's a vicious
little cycle and I think
the big difference is how
well do you stand out and
get that authentic
brand like you said where
people are seeking you out
and coming to your doctors
hear about you and want to
send people to you yeah
it's not just who it's not
just uh who knows you it's
what do they know about you
like exactly you could go
on linkedin and act like a
raving lunatic and a lot of
people will know you but
that's not going to help
you so what do they know about you
Let me ask you this question.
Should PTs be doing their own marketing?
Is there a tipping point when, hey,
if you're a solopreneur, yeah, man,
it's not in the budget.
So you need to be doing
something and you should do
these couple of things.
At what point do they start
to need to refer out to
somebody who maybe is an expert in that?
Yeah,
I would say once they put in the work
to develop their own brand
and their own identity,
that's unique to them.
And that way they can then
communicate it to that outsourced person.
So it's not an outsourced
person trying to help shape
their practice that they might not
Be who they are.
They might be like, well,
the marketer I'm paying X
amount of money tells me I
need to do this.
And then it's just not authentic.
And I think it starts with
if you're willing to put in
the work and build that foundation,
figure out who you want to
be and who the community sees you as.
Then it just makes it easier
for the outsourced marketer
to come in and help put
that put gasoline on that
fire instead of trying to build it.
I'll put you on the spot,
but not in a super scary way.
If you're talking to a
clinician who's saying, well,
they're using the word
expense when it comes to marketing.
good objection work would be
to change it from expense
to an investment, right?
Because if marketing isn't
bringing you more than you're spending,
it is an expense, right?
So how does that
conversation typically go
where someone finally lands
in front of you?
They're still on the end of
a diving board.
They haven't jumped to go
jump in the deep end and go
all in on marketing.
What are some of the things
that you use to explain to
them of why it is an
investment and not an expense?
Yeah, because generally with marketing,
you can get that money back
in a lot of ways.
You can tangibly see if you
invest this much,
this is how the difference is.
And then I always love
pulling up the Google and
just typing physical therapy near me.
And if they're not popping up.
then no one's finding them.
And that's the easiest way
to track that investment and see it as,
holy moly,
this will only help me and not
necessarily like an expense of, oh,
this money is just going out.
But I think the industry has
been burned by too many
marketers that just show up,
put them in a routine and say, oh,
this works for,
a doctor this works for
someone else in the medical
field there's no difference
and then there's a little
bit of hurt in the industry
I think where they can kind
of be a little like uh this
hasn't worked in the past
yeah yeah yeah if you've
been burned and people talk
right especially this
profession is big but also
pretty small so if you've been burned
People will tell you what
are some of the low what
are some of the things that
you'd suggest?
I don't want to call it low hanging fruit,
but what are some of the
starting points that people
can dip their toe before
they jump in the deep end with marketing?
You mentioned Googling
physical therapy near me or
physical therapy in your
town name and making sure that number one,
that you exist there.
What are some of the things
that people would after
they hear you say it would be like, yeah,
of course I should do that.
But maybe you haven't done yet.
Yeah,
it's all going to be in the world of
Google.
So first thing is make sure
Google actually has a
picture of your practice.
I was helping with BD solution.
Role was our pictures
actually our practice.
I can't tell you how many
times Google found a back
alleyway to post next to a dumpster.
And so when people Google you,
all they see is a back
alleyway and a dumpster like that's
not legit.
It's not what you want.
Right.
And then too,
what are your patients posting?
You might not have a Google presence.
You may have put one up,
but haven't monitored it.
And your patients are
posting pictures saying how
much they love you,
but some of them might not be on brand.
I remember we had one guy, he was awesome.
Uh,
He looked awesome.
He seemed really nice.
The clinic spoke highly of him.
However,
he was sort of flashing gang signs
and had teardrops in his
picture saying how awesome
the clinic was.
And it's like, oh,
this is the only picture
that people see when they Google you.
Are you aware of this?
How are you combating this
and helping make sure?
everything's nice into how
you want to be represented.
Yeah.
And some of that might be hard.
You can't really,
you can't really control a
hundred percent what other people say,
but at least being aware of it.
I mean, you know,
my cohost on PT breakfast club,
Tony Meritato says, open up a,
a Google Chrome incognito
window and Google yourself
once a month at minimum and
and see what comes up and
then ask yourself,
is this the best I have to offer?
Or am I holding some things
back that I haven't put out there?
Because people are doing that.
That's the first thing we do, right?
We go to someone's socials
or we Google them and see
what do they stand for?
Who are they?
Yep.
No,
the incognito mode in Google is awesome
for doing any sort of
research on yourself or on
your clinic to see where do
you pop up and how does that work?
And two, Google reviews.
Last time I heard,
and the algorithm's always changing,
thirty is the magic number.
Yeah,
it's not that hard to get thirty
reviews for the algorithm
to start recognizing your
legit business and start
helping promote you.
It might be higher, it might be lower,
but I'm pretty sure that still,
like if you can aim for thirty,
then the algorithm's like, hey,
let's help.
It sounds like a pretty tall order.
Let's say you're sitting at
zero or somehow one or two stumbled in.
But if you wanted to put it in perspective,
and perspective is powerful.
If you asked two people a
day and one person a day
actually followed through for a month,
you'd get to thirty faster
than you'd think.
Exactly.
And if you do struggle with that,
it's a great time for self-reflection.
Why do you not feel
comfortable asking your
patients to give you a review like,
is your brand as great as
you think it is if you
can't quickly think of
maybe one or two patients to say, hey,
can you just give me a review real quick?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or make it, make it easy.
I've seen people do the real simple thing,
which is a QR code at the front desk,
right?
The almost the passive ask, right?
Somehow or in an email, right?
Could you, could you,
could you email them and
set up an email sequence of
a day or a week after a
treatment session to kindly ask if you,
if you had a great experience,
we'd love an honest review,
like great and honest or two good words.
Yeah.
And that's, what's fun is with technology.
Everyone's used to that.
On a scale of one to ten,
how likely are you to
recommend us to your friends or family?
The minute they give you nine or ten,
you can have it trigger.
So that way they get the invite to say,
hey,
leave a review and you automatically
know who's good and who's
bad and you don't have that fear.
And I think that's what a
lot of PTs fear is.
Well, if I ask anyone,
how do I know if they're
going to give me a good review?
Well,
there's tech out there that can help.
So we sort of touched on
like even asking for a
review might feel salesy or
pushy or spammy.
But if you do it in a spammy way,
it will feel spammy.
If you do it in a non-spammy way,
it's going to feel not spammy.
So let's go with patient retention.
It's a big hot topic right now.
It's going to cost you less
in terms of time, effort,
and money to retain a
patient than it will be to
find a new one.
So since that's a hot topic right now,
What does retention look
like after a discharge?
Some people might even say
you never discharge a patient.
You just might stop this plan of care.
But what does retention look
like after someone is
leaving a plan of care?
And how can PTs stay
connected without being spammy or salesy?
yeah I think the world of
social media is the first
and easiest step it's
creating an instagram and
just posting something
quarterly even like just
something to keep you top
of mind I know a lot of
people will send out
birthday cards they get it
and it just stays top of
mind and then too just
finding ways to stay in
touch is it hosting
workshops where you're
staying engaged with people
and just finding impactful ways that
remind them who you are and
create opportunities for
them to stay in your
ecosphere instead of going
to google or go somewhere
else to fix an issue that
pt probably can fix without
injection surgery
everything else yeah you
did mention the uh the world of google
When it comes to technology,
especially like we get into the specifics,
software, tools, vendors,
it can be a little confusing.
There's a lot out there.
How can PTs separate signal from noise?
How can they sift through that?
What should we actually
expect from technology?
What are some things that
you suggest people actually embrace?
Is there anything that comes to mind?
I think that.
When it comes to that, it just depends.
There's so much out there for people,
like you said.
I think the first step is
look at your EMR company
and see what is in their ecosphere.
Because I think one thing
that gets really easy to do
is try and piecemeal your
own workflows throughout it and be like,
okay, well,
I'll use this system for marketing.
I'll use this for emails.
I'll use this for documentation.
And sometimes there's ones
that your EMR company might say, yeah,
we integrate with...
x y and z like I recently
was talking to somebody and
I had no idea prompt
apparently integrates with
the crm now and so it's
easy to say you want that I
never would have known that
I don't imagine anyone else
would have had I not asked
and then there you go so I
think there's a lot out
there where instead of
trying to piecemeal it see
what's in your ecosphere
and go from there
If it's not easy,
if simplicity is not one of
the first two things being offered,
I usually tell people to
keep looking because it's
twenty twenty five.
This should not be complicated.
They should.
There's things called APIs.
They should be connecting to each other.
And if they're not.
You typically can find
something else to do the same thing,
and your time is your most
valuable finite resource.
Yes, and I think, too, in that same world,
ROI.
If it doesn't make sense how
they prove this is helping your practice,
then it's not worth the risk of saying,
let's go for it.
Let's invest in this,
though they can't tell me
what an ROI is I can expect
or how I can track it for myself.
They might not say, hey,
this CRM can give you a clear ROI.
But if you don't know your
referral conversion rate,
then there's your ROI right there.
You're getting data to help
inform everything else you're doing.
I think that's one of the
big things that a lot of
people don't think through
or they hear this
convoluted thing and they
get confused and they just say, oh.
okay,
you said there's an ROI instead of
actually trying to force
them to explain it and see
are they full of crap or not.
Yeah.
Hunter,
you got a great quote and I love me
some quotes, big quotable, movie quotes,
inspiration quotes, history quotes.
I love them.
You got a great quote.
You're in control of your practice,
not your vendors.
Help me understand and help
us understand that quote,
how PTs can take back that
power when making business decisions.
yeah I think the first thing
is asking questions and
knowing having that data
for yourself of your
practice what are your key
metrics that matter to you
and feed your family and
once you understand that
then you start going to
these vendors and saying
hey I don't agree with this
price increase I haven't I've seen
more unstable system,
downtimes have increased.
I'm not able to do all these
things and you're increasing my price.
I know what I'm worth and I
don't need to continue this
relationship just because I
have to for my practice's sake.
I need to be willing to take
a risk potentially or try
something new to improve
the life of my practice, of my clinicians,
of my patients by leaving
this vendor instead of just
be stuck in like an abusive relationship.
That's a good way to look at it,
asking those questions and
constantly doing sort of an
audit of what is this – if
businesses try to sell you
on a relationship,
like you're not just a client,
we're having a partnership,
we're a partner,
constantly doing that audit and saying,
what am I getting out of this?
And it doesn't need to
necessarily always be financial.
It could be we're expanding,
we're giving you more
without charging you more,
or we're charging you more,
but we're going to give you ten X that.
We're going to let's focus
on the value side of the equation,
because if you show up with ten X value,
people would easily pay ten percent more.
But you've got to do that
value side for you.
You got to you got to paint
that picture so people understand it.
Yep.
And if your goal is to scale,
can this allow you to even
scale or is are they going to be like,
hey, if you get beyond five clinics?
We are going to need something new.
If it's a billing system,
like start thinking,
where is your future state?
You want to be a multi-locational clinic?
Why not try and find a
solution that can handle
that instead of settling
for something that's like, well,
they specialize in me doing
the billing for now.
I don't know how to do the billing,
but here we go.
And in a few months time,
I'll be able to get a different one.
And then you're just
constantly in a state of change.
Yep.
Now, Hunter,
you've got the energy and the
passion who could talk
strategy around this all day,
but you're also something a
little bit different.
You're an ordained minister.
Yes.
Yeah.
How does that show up in your work at all?
How does that it's got to
come into play because it's in you.
Right.
If you ever need pet blessings,
pet funerals, anything like that,
that's really where it shines.
It was a fun,
boring high school challenge of like,
I bet you won't get
ordained when you turn
Kept it up ever since.
I think, I mean, like with Bryan Cranston,
like all these big celebrities.
Also,
we all got ordained from the same group.
So, you know, it's an elite crew.
That's great.
All right.
We're going to do speed, speed round.
Three questions.
Rapid fire.
You ready, Hunter?
Let's do it.
All right.
Give me a simple system or
habit that any practice can
put in place tomorrow to
better track referrals or reactivations.
Is there something simple?
Doesn't need to be expensive,
but what would you suggest?
a spreadsheet track when you
get a lead added in there
and then see how many leads
came in and how many got scheduled.
And I think that's huge just
to help with that.
And then you also have a
list that if they didn't
come in for whatever reason,
because maybe they're too costly,
whatever that might be,
you can then pull from that
well later on down the line.
If it doesn't get measured,
it's not going to get improved.
We know that.
Can you share a case where a
PT practice you've worked
with made a small change
but saw big results in one
of their big pain points?
Yeah.
Secret calling.
Having someone call your
practice to hear what your
people are saying.
I was told I was calling somebody.
I said, hey,
my grandfather just had hip replacement.
Can you treat him?
And the answer was no.
It's like what you accept Medicare.
There's no reason not to.
So just again,
finding these little things
that create pain points for
you as a practice and for
your patients that doesn't
take much work to call or have a
friend call and go through
the process and just see
what's it like for them.
Yeah.
Where's the leak, man?
Plumbers will tell you that
is when you're trying to find a leak,
you don't turn the water off.
You turn the water up and
you try to go through that
and see where the, uh, the bleed is.
Uh, what's a book,
a movie or a podcast that
you'd recommend for someone?
It doesn't have to be
physical therapy related,
but it's something that
inspired or educated you
that you've consumed in the last year.
Ooh, yeah.
I would say Extreme
Ownership by Jocko Willink.
That is one of my all-time
favorite books that I try
and read annually.
And it just kind of helps
reframe whatever I'm trying to do.
If it's a new role, a new challenge,
or just a refresher on, hey,
how can I grow as a person?
And I think it's cool because it helps you
no matter where you are in a clinic,
understand how you can
contribute in that role and
help influence up the chain
and below the chain.
So I think that one would
probably be the best.
Yeah.
Former Navy SEAL, Jocko, he's famous.
If you follow him on social media,
he's always taking pictures
of his watch because he's
always getting up at like
zero dark thirty and saying, listen,
if you want to get after it,
you got to get out of bed a
little earlier every morning.
So he gets out of bed like
four thirty in the morning.
Yes.
His good philosophy makes me
want to run through a wall all the time.
Yeah.
If people wanted to reach
out to you and connect with you,
what's the best way to do it?
Yeah.
LinkedIn.
That is the easiest.
I'm super active on LinkedIn.
Hunter recorder.
Pretty easy to find.
And yeah, that's DM me slide in that way.
I'm sure my email and
everything else is on there.
So if that's easier.
There you go.
Love it.
Hunter,
appreciate the time doing a rapid
fire episode here with us on PT Pinecast.
Thanks for doing what you do
for this profession, man.
We appreciate it.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Thanks for having me.