Marketing Secrets: Lead Magnets, Social Media, and More

Struggling to take your occupational therapy business to the next level? Wondering how to build trust, gain clients, and effectively market your services?

In this episode of OTPreneur, Sarah Putt and Jayson Davies dive into the world of marketing for OT entrepreneurs, sharing expert advice, strategies, and personal experiences to help you overcome common challenges and take your business to new heights.

From lead magnets and social media tactics to building trust and relationships, let Sarah and Jayson be your guides on this journey.

Don't miss out - hit play now and better understand marketing in the OT world!

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Transcript

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Whether you plan for your clients to do business with you in person or online, you'll need to let them know you are open for business. In this episode, we are peeking inside the marketing world of owning your own OT business. So stay tuned for some of our best marketing tips as you start your entrepreneurial journey. Are you thinking about starting an occupational therapy business but don't even know where to begin? Whether you're starting something on the side or going full time in your business, the OTpreneur podcast is what you need. This show will help you get in the right mindset and give you actionable tips to go from just an idea to OTpreneur. Let's go. I'm Jason Davies, and With me is my excited to have a newly painted house cohost, the one, the only, Sarah Pudd. How are you doing today, Sarah? I'm good, Jason. I I always find it so funny because I didn't look at what what you were gonna say until right before you said it. And I was like, oh my gosh. That is amazing. Yes. My husband just painted our house, and we went from a very lovely yellow and brown house to now a white house. And I'm super excited about it. So, Yep. That that's what's going on over here. Is it is it white, or is it, like, eggshell white, or what is the actual white that it is? It is Pure White by Sherwin Williams. So even though the name says pure white, it is not the purest white as I learned all about this. Apparently, there are a lot of different shades of white, and it's not the purest white. So why they call it pure white? Who knows? But It's got a little bit of a, like, grayish I wanna say grayish bluish undertone, but I have looked at so many different shades of, I I was gonna say gray shades of white in the last, gosh, 6 months or so. But, yeah, we've we finally settled on 1, and it looks really good. And now we are in the process of actually white walk whitewashing the brick. We got a lot of updates going over at, The h the the h q the HQ over here. Yes. And, Sarah and I are both coming to you with a slight Cough. So, if you hear any coughs throughout this podcast episode, we live nowhere near each other, but we both happen to get a cough at the same time. So, yeah, just bear with us. But That won't prevent us from sharing a bunch of tips for you today. And before we dive in, we always want to say this, and we always appreciate you for being here. Thank Thank you so much for listening in. And if you are enjoying the show, we just ask that you take a moment to leave us a little review on, Apple Podcasts or anything that you can do on Spotify, I don't listen there. I don't know how it works, but, we'd love for a review. And anything that you share in those reviews or even if you send us an email over at 0tepereneur@gmail.com, we will maybe, perhaps, You know, share your review on this podcast episode or not this episode, but on the podcast. On an episode. So, Unless you call us right now. Yeah. 323-1815-567. Yeah. I need that number. Alright. Anyways, let's go ahead and dive into our topic. We're talking about, as I mentioned earlier, marketing. And not just any marketing in particular, but we're talking about marketing when you are just getting started as a business. Marketing plans must change over time just as your business is going to change over time. So to help you get started, Sarah and I are going to share some of the ideas with you about marketing with the assumption that you are just getting started with your business, a clean slate, if you will, with limited established contacts or leads. So let's dive into it with arguably the most important tip about marketing early in your business journey, and that is to trust yourself and also build trust with others. And so I'll throw it over you over to you, Sarah. Building trust, what does that mean for you in the marketing world? Honestly, I think trust is Everything. I mean, not just in marketing, but everything in business and everything in life. Right? Like, there are so many things that we have to do where we have to actually trust Other people and kind of give our trust to other people to go about and and make it in life. Right? Like, There it happens everywhere. And I think with marketing, that trust piece is just such a core component to Starting your business, growing your business, and then having your business thrive in its entirety. And if you cannot build that trust Or if you are struggling to build that trust, you're you're going to be struggling in your business because people are gonna Who is this person? Like, kinda what's going on here? And I just think it it it is pivotal. Right? And and both you and I, we're gonna gonna dig into this a little bit deeper, but it is so pivotal in really getting your business off the ground. So I I'm gonna throw it back to you, Jason. What do you think about trust? Yeah. You know, I I once heard, and I've heard it from a few different people. I don't know who originally said it, but people don't like to do business with businesses. People wanna do business with individuals, individuals that they know, that they care about, that they trust, that they have a relationship with. And I really feel that at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, your marketing plan should not necessarily revolve around trying to sell something. Yes. Eventually, you need to sell that product, but you really are are selling your trust. You are marketing the trust that someone should have in you. And only you know why people should trust you. You are an individual. You're the reason that someone has trust in you is gonna be different from the reason they have trust in someone else that is selling ultimately the same thing as you, whether it's, occupational therapy services, occupational therapy evaluations, professional development, whatever it might be. You want people to have that trust with you. They you want them to know you, to feel comfortable with you, and say, you know what? I'd rather give this person my money for their product as opposed to this other person. Whatever it might be, they trust you more, and they want to do business with you, not the LLC, not the s corp, the c corp, the whatever corp. They wanna do business with you. And I think that's, like, One of the really important things that it that it is you. Right? You are your business. And specifically for me in starting in starting my business and running my business Over the last almost decade, it is that relationship piece that is so huge. It it's not It's not business to business. Right? It is person to person, and we are really building building our business based on those personal relationships. And for me with my direct client care practice, bottom line, the most important thing is the relationships that I have with the people that are potentially sending referrals my way. Right? If I don't have a good relationship there, no referrals, no clients to see, no money coming in, no way to pay my employees, And it is all about building the foundational relationships with the service coordinators, with The case managers with the early intervention team, with the other practitioners, right, the physical therapists, the speech language pathologists, Anybody else that's on the team so when when a referral or a potential referral comes their way, they say, oh, yeah. Sarah, I liked working with her. Let's see if she has availability. But it all starts with that that relationship and that you have to show up and do good work, and people have to Know you and trust you to do the work that that needs to be done. Absolutely. That makes sense. And, you know, everyone out there listening, it may not be, service coordinators, that that's may not be the people that you need to build a relationship with, but you need to figure out who that is that you need to build a relationship with. Those are key stakeholders in your business. So figure out who those people are. And now I'm gonna ask Sarah, what are some tips that you use or some strategy strategies that you use to build that relationship and trust. So kind of the 2 biggest things, and they Kinda go hand in hand here. And, you know, keep in mind, this is a direct client care business, and I provide my team my business provides Services in the client's home, so no brick and mortar here. But the 2 big things were, in the beginning, when I was first starting my company, first Building the caseload, I said yes. I said yes to every referral that came my way regardless of regardless of frequency, regardless of anything. Right? Language. And I picked up a lot of Spanish speaking clients that I was like, hey. I I'm I'm not a fluent fluent in Spanish, but I am comfortable enough to work with this family if they're okay having somebody who is not fluent in Spanish. I said yes. I literally said yes to everything that came my way. And quickly, there were service coordinators that saw that, And they respected that, and they were like, that is amazing. I it doesn't matter where this client lives. Sarah will go. And they know that they can start to trust me That I will pick up these clients regardless of where they are, the frequency, or anything like that. So first and foremost, that was, like, Really, really, really important that I just said yes. And then all of a sudden people started to notice that, like, wow. She's she is not Saying no. She's not being picky. She's not being, quote, unquote, high maintenance or only picking certain locations or only picking certain kids or anything like that or cases. So that was that was the big one. But the other thing too is specifically for a mobile or a home based business, I was going to where the need was. There are a lot of practitioners that prefer to stay in some of these bubbles, and they don't wanna go Further away from their home where they don't wanna be driving long long distances or anything like that. And I was just like, let's do it. I'll I'll make room. I I will figure it out because there is a need, and these kids need to be seen, and so I will do it. And those 2 things right there. And I have actually had the service coordinators or, you know, the referral source. They have come to me and said, like, I I noticed that. I Absolutely noticed that you said yes, and you would go anywhere that I asked you to go. So that was huge. That's not, you know, dissimilar to the way that I got started. I mean, when I was first starting with podcasting and blogging, I would look forward to emails from people who were listening and reading because They were giving me ideas, so I would say, happily, yeah, I will gladly create a blog or a podcast episode about what you're sharing with me. Like, that's exactly what I want because, literally, the people who are my ideal clients are telling me exactly what they want. So, yeah, absolutely listen to them and Say yes. That's you know, eventually, you will get to a point where you can no longer say yes to everything. But when you're first getting started, that is a a great piece piece of advice. So I kinda wanna ask you because we're gonna dive into the digital world in a little bit. But when you were first getting started, Did the digital world, factor into your marketing scheme at all, or does it now? You know, I I probably should have started with Before I even said what I just said about my whole marketing plan, I actually didn't really have a marketing strategy when I started my company. I literally was just like, I have a passion. I started my business, and I wanna go to work. And that's kind of how the saying yes and going everywhere Started. It was just because I had the time. I had the resources. I had the flexibility, and I just jumped head first and just went for it. I don't think I was, like, strategically thinking that in my head. It's like, oh, this is what I need to do in order to get clients. After some on it. I was like, wow. That was actually brilliant of me even though I didn't know it at the time. So I'm telling people that, hey. Right now, if you haven't started your business or if you're at the very beginning stages, you're gonna be and bounce ahead of where I was because I had zero marketing strategy. I didn't I probably wasn't even really paying attention to it at that point, so keep that in mind. But When it came to that digital piece, and this was actually probably more of my husband's doing if I'm I'm if I'm being honest and, like, really thinking back, He told me, like, you know, we we should have a website, and I I think I kind of knew that. Like, yeah, we should probably just have some some place online that people could find me even though I was pretty sure that most of my marketing wouldn't be happening in the online space, but it's always good to have an existence there Because how many times do you come across a new company, a new business, or you're looking for something? Here's a perfect example. I had when I moved to Colorado, I needed to find a new hairstylist. And I was like, okay. I'm gonna go to the Facebook groups, and I'm gonna see what local people are saying. And then literally, found, like, this 1 girl, and then she popped up a couple times. And I found her on social media, And I liked her content, and I was like, let's go give it a go. And there were plenty of other people, but because they didn't either have an online presence or they didn't have any information that I Find out about them. I I went with this 1 girl. She's absolutely amazing. I went and saw her yesterday. I have my hair all did. No. Not really. But You know what I mean? I got my hair did for the conference coming up this this weekend, and it's all because of that online presence. So In person or online, having having a presence, regardless of how big or small, is really, really important. And so For me, I have a very simple, very bare bones website for my private practice. I probably haven't updated it in Years at this point, but there is just a little bit there about my company, about what we do, about the services that we have, about who we are, Who's on the team and a contact me. And that's basically it. And still, to this day, I get people finding me there, And they will reach out because they found me on my website that I haven't touched in years. There you go. There you go. Yeah. And, you know, that's very contrasting to my life, right, because I live online with the OT schoolhouse. But that that's, You know, it just goes to show for everyone listening out there, like, it depends what you are doing. Like, that that determines the way that you should go with marketing just as everything else in your business. Right? Like, you don't necessarily need a complex website. You need something that's simple that will help people find you. And the other thing I was kinda thinking about, and I don't know if you've done this, Sarah, but are there any websites or something that you've, like, Shared about your biz like a directory, an occupational therapy directory per se. I know that OT Potential now has has one, But something like that where you could even list your business on another website, kinda like Google, except, you know, specific to OTs, that's just an idea that I had. Yeah. I haven't done that with my private practice yet, But I have been in talks with people. Like, we we thought about it, gosh, months ago. Of course, we haven't gotten around to actually doing it. But, yeah, it's a great way For me, specifically, with my private practice, one of my previous employees who's an independent contractor, she started her own company, and I was talking with her of like, hey. I should have a link to your company on my company website, and if you want, you can have a link to my company on your company's website. Right? So She's in a different location. So if people are looking for, an OT practitioner in that location, they can go to her and, You know, vice versa. Right? For from her to me. And I think it just shows, like, you know, how many times do you do you stumble onto somebody's website and you go into, You know, they're recommended resources or anything like that. When somebody that you know, like, and trust recommend somebody else, you're like, Okay. I feel a little better about going this direction rather than just, like, Joe Schmo off the street. Absolutely. And I I think this is kind of a great time to transition more to that digital side now because, as I talked about, very, very contrasty to yours. Right? Like, my website is so robust compared to, something like yours and and several others at OT Schoolhouse, but that's because we provide digital services and digital products. And The big thing that I did that I can contribute a lot of the success to for the OT SchoolHouse and the the success that we've had with Growing our audience and therefore, producing revenue and and sales and whatnot is that I learned very quickly the need and the power of a lead magnet. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term of a lead magnet, a lead magnet is something that you provide 100% free. In most cases, they're it could be paid, but, typically, it's completely free, and the only thing you're getting in return is an email address. And so the 1st lead magnet that we ever produced at the OT Schoolhouse, which, as a reminder, in case this is the 1st time you're you're tuning in to the OT Preneur Podcast, Though 2 Schoolhouse is specifically for school based occupational therapy practitioners. So I had created adapted paper, And I wrote a blog about this adapted paper. I wrote I created a video about how to use the adapted paper, and I put that on my website. And I said, hey. This is a free download. You can get this free adapted paper that you can print out or send to your teachers or send to your parents completely free. Just share your email with me. Turning this back around, that is what led to a lot of that trust, a lot of that relationship building. I still get emails to this day, 6 years, 7 years later, saying thank you for your paper. I use it every day. I use it with my clients. It's helped so many of my kids, school based OT practitioners, and other people, parents, teachers. And so that is a way that you can start to build that trust, Build relationships as a digital, you know, I don't wanna use influencer creator type of status, or type of business model. So that's how I kind of started that idea of building relationships, building trust, giving away free stuff, and then I can follow-up with them because I have their email now to continue to build that trust. And I I wanna point out too, Jason, just in case people haven't heard the term lead magnet, Sometimes it can be called, like, a freebie or something like that. They kinda go back and forth depending on, you know, who you're listening to. So freebie, lead magnet, One and the same. Yeah. And it doesn't have to like, mine was paper. Right? It was a PDF that people received after they gave me their email. I have used other different types of lead magnets. A webinar can be a lead magnet. Right? Like, I have people that come and they say onto my website, and it says, join Jason for this 60 minute webinar on evaluations. And that is still a lead magnet. Right? They are giving me their email. I am sending them the details so that they can attend that webinar. It could be a PDF. It could be, a webinar, as I mentioned. Even this this podcast is, in a way, a lead magnet. Right? Like, you are learning about this podcast. We are building a relationship with you as you listen kind of in the hope that, You know, one day, maybe you'll venture over to OTpreneur.com and learn more about us and more about what we have to offer. So just about anything can be a lead magnet. Some people say you want your lead magnet to be worth as much as your product. So if your product is worth, You know, $400, then your lead magnet should be just or should be worth just as much. You're giving it away for free, but on its own, it could be worth that same amount. I like to say to other people, especially within the business world, that I provide $1,000 worth of free value to every single every single member within my OT Schoolhouse community before I ask them for a single dollar in exchange. Like, I want to provide them so much value that they just feel like you know, even if I don't get any value from actually purchasing from Jason, I've Already gotten a ton of value from Jason. So, Jason, I have a question for you, and I feel like this comes up time and time again. And this really can go for In person businesses as well as online businesses. But what is the role of social media or or, you know, various Platforms of social media within your marketing strategy. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't go on Instagram to be marketed to. Of course, ads show up, but I don't like, you know, being marketed to. With that said, Social media is a great place to be found. I honestly think that more of the deeper content, such as blogs and podcasts. Maybe even long form YouTube videos are that place to really build the trust, but social media can be that gateway to those platforms where you can start to build those trust or that trust. Even, like, longer videos on Instagram, stories are great for building trust as well. But you're not exactly marketing. You're building that trust, which I know we kind of have said. That's the point of marketing. That's what's that's what's great about social media. Now my advice for social media, though, is don't get caught up in too much of it. Start with 1. Find out where your people are, which social media platform they're most likely to be on, whoever you think is your ideal client, and and stick with that one. You know? Just for a few examples, LinkedIn tends to be a little bit more professional. A lot of academic people are on LinkedIn. Instagram is very general, kind of in the 20 year old range, 30 year old range. TikTok goes younger than that. Right? So if you're aiming for the eighteen Your old range, then that's where you might wanna go, but figure out where your people are. A lot of people spend time in Facebook Groups. And while I don't advise you to go into a Facebook group and say, hey. I'm Jason. I provide OT services. Give me a call. You can still provide value by helping people. Comment on other people's questions and say, hey. You know, I'd love to help you out. This is my Fonts, if you'd like to learn more, I have a blog over here about this topic or something like that. So you're not saying, hey. Come check me out. You're saying, hey. I helped you. By the way, I have more to help you over here. So that's how I kind of use social media. That's how I've used social media all the way from the get go, really. My biggest mistake with with social media is that I tried to be everywhere. I tried to use Instagram for, like, you know, a month, and then for some reason, I'd switch over to Facebook, And then I switched over to LinkedIn. And, you know, you can use tools like SocialBee and a few others that help you manage your all your social media. But I would say start with 1, become an expert in that one, and then later, you can start to branch out. If you want to. But you don't have to if you don't want to. Right? Like, it it really is up to you. And I think the biggest part about social media that people Start to lose sight of, specifically, when you go from kind of personal more to business related type stuff and business related type content. It's that social piece. It is about showing up and connecting with people. Right? Going right back to the beginning of this conversation, trust, Relationships. It is not, hey. Look at me. I'm great. I have this product. I have this service. I can do this. I can do this. I can do that. It is, Hey. I am here, and let me connect with with the other people that are in my community, that are, You know, within my audience and really build that trust, that know, that like factor, that's what social media is. You don't necessarily have to sell anything. If people like who you are, they're gonna look for more resources from you. And as long as you have your resources Accessible to them and they can find them, they're gonna be like, oh my gosh. I didn't know that, you know, this person had x, y, and z resources there. People will look. People will seek it out if they like what you do. But if you are spammy and you just show up, nope. That's not we're not spammy. We are not spammy on the OTpreneur Podcast here. Nope. Not at all. Yeah. And, you know, people like to think of Instagram and all those as a one to many platform. Form. But as you kinda pointed out, it's not a one to many platform. If you have a 1000 followers, it's not a 1 to 1,000 platform. It's a 1 to a 1000 individual followers platform. Like, each of those people is a chance for you to build a connection with that, with them. And so don't view them as a whole group per se. View the view them as a 1000 individuals that you can potentially make a connection with. Alright. Well, we're gonna wrap this up, but I do just kinda wanna, in a way, give this Kind of a a visual here. And so I wanted to share just, like, the example that we're using at the 0Trepreneur, and that is that this Podcast really kind of acts as our, find us opportunity per se. Right? Like, you might tell a friend, hey. Have you listened to the OTpreneur podcast? Or someone probably told you about the OTpreneur podcast, and that was your 1st interaction with us. And from here, our goal is, a, to continue to give you amazing content here on the 0Tpreneur podcast, but it's also to go deeper with you. Like right? We don't Just want to provide you once every other week, 30 minutes, especially if that's not all you need. And if you do need more support, we want to support you more, and that's where our website comes into play. And so that's, like, the second part of our Marketing strategy, I guess you can call it. And, again, we are so transparent here. We're literally telling you our plan for yeah. It is so meta right now. But, Like, we're using this podcast as a way to support you, a way to, get to know you, and we hope that you'll go over to our email, or not our email. Well, I hope that you'll go over to our website and then send us an email and click on, you know, hey. Contact Jason and Sarah and let us know what you'd like to hear a podcast episode about, or leave us a review and let us know what you would like to hear a podcast episode about. So that's just kind of a a behind the curtains type of, you know, look Again, we also do have a lead magnet over there that you can get when you do provide your email address, all about the 7 different business models for 0 tepreneurs. So, Yeah. I think that's gonna kinda wrap us up here. But before I I do the lead out, Sarah, did you have any final thoughts? This question always gets me. Any final thoughts? I have, like, a 1000000 thoughts. What what what do I wanna say? So for me, I think the biggest thing, the the takeaway, the the one thing that I want to kinda leave this conversation with is show up and do good work. That's pretty much it. Right? From there, everything else will fall online. You will be able to build the trust. You will be able to build the relationships. You will be able to eventually start selling things and all that kind of stuff, but you have to show up and do good work. And this can be In a, you know, in person business, this could be in an in an online business, you have to show up and do good work. How many times have you had to Hire a contractor or somebody to come do something for you, maybe for your house or an appliance or something like that. And they're like, we'll be there between 8 and 12 Or 1 in 5, and you're

like, alright. You have to be kidding me. And then at, you know, 5: 27:27

30, they show up, and you're just like, this It's frustrating. I have been waiting all day for you to get here, and you don't even show up any time. You you had 4 hours or whatever it was. Right? And you didn't even show up during that time. And if they would have just reached out to you and said, hey. I'm running a little bit late, or, hey. It looks It's like my window's now gonna be about this time makes it all better. And I think it's that personal connection. Right? That That individual personal connection is so important, and I we just keep going back to that. So there you go. Show up. Do good work. People are gonna see you For what you're doing. 100%. Can't agree more. I've got appreciate I've got an appreciation folder in my email, like, dedicated to people saying thank you for Simple things like that. Like, nothing big. Just those simple things. Right? They really appreciate the little things in life. So absolutely. Alright. Well, that is going to wrap Up this episode of the 0Tpreneur podcast, we really do hope that this helps you as you start to just, you know, put together a little marketing plan. It doesn't need to be anything elaborate. You know? As Sarah mentioned, she didn't really have a marketing plan at the beginning. I didn't really have one either except, you know, produce a podcast every other week. So that's really what it comes down to. Your marketing plan will Change over time. This is something to get you started just like we do in therapy. Right? Take data. If you if if you're an analytics 1st, take data and see what's working, and then kinda go with that or change it up based upon that data. In our next episode, we are actually going to be having our very 1st interview with another OTpreneur, actually, a duo of OTpreneurs. So be sure to, tune in for the next episode. We're gonna be talking about how OT preneurship changed their lives and how it can change your life as well. Thank you so much for tuning in For tuning in, we appreciate you, and we will catch you in the next episode and over at 0tpreneur.com. Remember, wherever you are on your OTPreneur Journey, we are here to support you. We'll catch you next time, OTP Group. Here at the 0Tpreneur podcast, we can't thank you enough for listening in day. If you're looking for a community of OT entrepreneurs, be sure to check out the website atotpreneur.com. At OTpreneur, OT means business. We'll see you next time. Whether you plan for your client see. I can't even Spent some sense. For your clients to do with I was like, woah. Wait. That doesn't make sense. But if I would've finished the sentence, it would've made sense. I just need to trust myself in what I wrote. Whether you plan for your clients to do business with you in person or online, you'll need to let them know you are open for business. In this episode, we are peeking inside the marketing, the world What did I write? We are peeking inside the world. Peeking. Not marketing, though, world. But we need to world if you wanted you? I was like, do you have more to say? No. I don't. I've been really struggling with my words, Jason. Like, this conference presentation's gonna Great. Because the whole time, I am going to be stumbling on my words. It's fine. Totally fine. I'm just gonna make fun of myself while I do it. But