Patients Want to Follow You Not Your Practice: How to Build a Social Media Following to Grow Your Practice ft. Dr. Harbir Sian

Welcome to the Marketing for Doctors Podcast with host Bob Miglani. In this episode, Bob sits down with Dr. Harbir Sian, an optometrist and host of Canada’s #1 optometry podcast, 2020. Dr. Sian shares his journey of running three successful practices, including one of the early adopters of teleoptometry in Canada, and how marketing played a pivotal role in his growth.

Key Insights from Dr. Harbir Sian in This Episode:

• The Importance of Marketing for Doctors
  Dr. Sian discusses how effective marketing can transform a practice and why it’s crucial for doctors to engage in strategic marketing efforts to stand out in today’s competitive healthcare landscape.
• Personal Branding in Healthcare
  Learn how personal branding is a powerful tool for optometrists and healthcare professionals to build authority, gain trust, and attract new patients.
• Leveraging Social Media for Practice Growth
  Dr. Sian shares the role of social media marketing in creating a strong digital presence and how doctors can use platforms to engage with their audience, share valuable content, and become thought leaders in their field.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Influencer Marketing in Healthcare
  Discover how influencer marketing can be a game changer for doctors looking to reach new patients and establish credibility in the optometry space.
• Engaging with Patients Through Digital Platforms
  The benefits of engaging with patients online through digital platforms, providing value in content, and fostering lasting relationships through social media interactions.
• Providing Value Through Content
  Why content that adds value—whether educational, informative, or entertaining—is essential for attracting and retaining patients in your practice.

Don’t miss out on this valuable conversation! Tune in to learn how Dr. Sian used marketing and social media to build his successful optometry practices and become a leading voice in the industry. Like, subscribe, and share this episode with your colleagues!

Transcript

Bob Miglani:
Hello, hello, everyone. This is Bob Miglani. Welcome to the Marketing for Doctors podcast. I've got an amazing guest today. His name is Dr. Harbir Sian. Dr. Sayan, how are you? Herbir, how are you today?

Dr. Harbir Sian: I'm doing well, Bob. Thank you so much for having me, man. I really appreciate this. I'm happy to be here.

Bob Miglani: Dude, you're a legend. You're a legend. You're a pro. iconic as you can get. So Dr. Sian is, I met him, I met you at Vision Expo or something. I don't remember. And I was like, guy is so dressed up. I thought it was a model walking down the runway. with a suit and everything with a three piecer. I think it was a three piecer, but it probably was. And so Dr. Sian is an optometrist. He has practice in Canada. He is also a host of a podcast, Canada's number one optometry podcast called 2020. And also, if that's not enough to serve patients, to share voices and experiences with other people, He's also a social media influencer, and he's got a wonderful public profile. I really enjoy his podcast myself. I listen to it whenever I can in the car, and I get a lot of value from his sharing of expertise. So I'm so delighted to have you, Herve. So we're going to get into it. We're going to share a lot of great, rich content today to help our audience understand marketing for doctors, what it means. So tell me, tell us a little bit about your journey, Herve. Tell me where you are, how you got to where you are right now.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Bob, that's one of the best intros I've ever had, so thank you very much. I know I got a beard, so you can't tell I'm like blushing over here, but I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yeah, where to start? So actually, I think maybe the best place to start is that we actually have three practices now, my business partner and I, and maybe the most important piece of information that I think kind of raises some eyebrows with doctors is that we have two different modes of practice. Two of the practices are sublease lens crafters practices and one is a standalone private practice, independent private practice. So we see the industry from these different angles and in fact the newest sublease practice which just opened a couple of months ago, we're really in the process of building it up. With that one, we are one of the early adopters of teleoptometry in Canada, so we're one of the few clinics in Canada that are using teleoptometry right now. And so, you know, I think that's kind of an important thing, the state of where I'm coming from. different modalities and even within the sublease modality, a couple of different approaches. And so we have to talk to our patients differently. We have to approach or search for patients differently. So that's a big part of my life. I practice, you know, people still ask me if I'm practicing patients, seeing patients given all the other stuff that I do. But yeah, I'm still seeing patients four days, four or five days a week, including, you know, one tele day. So that's what keeps me busy.

Bob Miglani: I want to know about teleoptometry. Talk to us about what it is, why you got into it, and what it looks like. I'm so curious about that. It's so interesting.

Dr. Harbir Sian: For sure. I'd love to. You know what? Stay tuned to the 2020 podcast. I got to do a little selfish plug here, but stay tuned to the 2020 podcast. Sometime soon, I'm going to give my real inside view of what it was like to set up the telepractice. But the high level is, essentially, we got some really high tech equipment in the office, which Essilor has provided, given that it's a Lenscrafter sub-lease. And we have an amazing technician in the office who will go take the patient through all the steps, do all the pre-tests, plus some additional tests that we might not even do for our patients in person, you know, in our other offices. She gets the patient in the exam room, I pop up on a TV screen in the exam room, I've reviewed the information, the OptiMap images, the other scans, the slit lamp, all this. And I do the refraction remotely. So she will put the phoropter in front of the patient and I'll control the phoropter controls from home. And you know which is better, one or two of the usual steps. And she'll move that away. I'll have a conversation with the patient. And, you know, so we were quite selective with the patients and we have to be in the beginning for sure, like kind of healthy, certain age group, make sure we're not missing any obvious pathology. If anybody comes in with certain type of complaint, we'll ask them to come back on a day when we have a doctor in office. Or if I pick something up during the exam, again, we'll ask them to come back in depending on the urgency.

Bob Miglani: Awesome. I love it. I love it. And I suppose the conversation is key. So is it like a big screen? You're talking to the screen?

Dr. Harbir Sian: Yeah, it's like a 40 some inch TV. It's a pretty good size screen.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, I know. I love that. I love that. And then so why did you decide to do that? Why? Is this like an opportunity? Is like, let's try it or?

Dr. Harbir Sian: Yeah, you know, weirdly enough, so it's in Victoria, BC. If anybody's been out here, Victoria is a beautiful city. It's a city. It's not a small, remote town, rural, nothing, right? It's an actual city. It's just a small city. But it's on the island. We call it the island. You know, it's not like Alcatraz. It's like a beautiful island. People will you know, visit. We go there all the time in summer, but people just don't want to move there. It's like from here, I live in Vancouver, in the city of Vancouver, it's kind of a four-hour journey when you get to the, you have to get to the ferry terminal, get on, drive, blah, blah, blah. So a lot of people don't, you don't want to make that commute daily, but people don't seem to want to live out there. Younger people don't seem to want to live out there. Most of the docs who are out there are older. So, there's a demand and we were kind of doing our research and on average, we called around looking for just a routine eye exam. I'm 41 years old, if I want a 41-year-old eye exam, I got to wait two to three months in that area. So, the demand was huge. Obviously, I'm not going to uproot my family and move out there. I wouldn't mind spending time out there, but we're not going to move out there. We have three kids and they're going to school and everything. I thought the opportunity to see patients, the demand is there, the patients need eye exams. If we can set up this technology, we could serve the region.

Bob Miglani: I love it. I love it. That's wonderful. So does that allow you as a kind of an interesting way to market as well? I mean, how do you do the marketing around that? Is there people who are like, because most people I suppose would be like, well, I don't know. I really want to talk to my doctor. Then maybe the younger generation is like, eh, I mean, telehealth, it's kind of used to it. COVID changed a lot of things, right? Yeah.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Well, certainly COVID changed a lot of things. You know, if we tried doing this in 2019, we would have a very different response. But people are used to looking at screens and talking to doctors through their phone and that. And we've had a good mix, to be honest, so far. It's only been a couple of months and it started slow. It's starting to pick up now to be totally transparent with you. But we've had a good mix of patients from, we won't see like senior, senior patients, but we were seeing patients in sort of the early 60s and on the younger side, you know, young adults, 18, 19 kind of age group. So people are kind of open to it. Marketing, to be honest with you, I haven't figured out yet because we just opened the doors a couple of months ago and there's been a lot of stuff going just trying to get the thing working and running. But I think so far just from talking about it and so when people kind of put her into the LensCrafters and the staff say, oh, we have tele-optometry of this new technology. People are actually quite interested. Just the conversation is enough to kind of spark the interest. So I think when we start kind of letting people know in the area a little bit more, it's certainly going to bring more attention.

Bob Miglani: I love it. So let's go into marketing a little bit, our audience, our doctors of all kinds. And so they're listeners here that we want to give them some value and some stories, some insights from your experiences over the years. So how do you look at marketing? A lot of doctors are reluctant to use the M word, say, well, I'm just a doctor, right? I don't want to sell anything. I don't want to do marketing. Let somebody else handle that. What's your view on marketing? Let's talk about that first.

Dr. Harbir Sian: So 100% marketing is absolutely necessary today, right? I mean, obviously, Bob, in your position, you're going to vouch for that too. But there's the days of like, let's put up a shingle and like, you know, open the doors and see what happens is those are gone. And I've personally experienced that with our practices. With the sublease, we've had support from LensCrafters in the marketing they do, and of course they have the buying power and the marketing dollars to do that. But with the private practice, it's just us, one little practice, trying to figure out how to get people in the door. Marketing to me is a really broad term, right? And I think sometimes we think marketing, we think just digital. We just think Google ads, Facebook ads, that kind of thing, which is important. But the shaking hands and kissing babies part is still really important, that community engagement, that getting out there, being present. People need to know your name and know your face. Our office, our private practice is in a city called Surrey, which is just a 30 minute drive from Vancouver. It's a very big, busy city. People think Vancouver is a big city. I think Surrey is bigger than Vancouver actually is growing. So, and we're like on one side of Surrey. So, for me to try to market to the other hundreds of thousands of people who live in that city is crazy. Like, I have to figure out how I'm going to get my name out there. And so, marketing is super important.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. How do you get your name out there? I mean, you've got a lot of competition, right? You know, people can choose to go to optometrists based on, you know, location, you know, the plan that they're on, the potential plans that you're on. Canada insurance plans that they're on here in the U S right. And then you have the first step, which is your website, but then you've got Google business profile. You've got reviews. So how do you think about like the allocation of all the different channels of marketing and then do you do it or other people do it? So to walk me through your mindset of marketing.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Gosh, I don't have a really clear roadmap. You know, it's funny, Bob, when I talk about, you know, I do lectures on like dry eye or myopia management. I'm speaking to ODs who want to get into this specialty. One of my first things I tell them is you got to develop like an algorithm or a roadmap of like if patient A walks in, what's the path they're going to take if patient B walks in. But for this, I don't have that unfortunately. So I can tell you for me, I've just dabbled like I've been practicing for 14 years and I've been an owner for 10 years. So for 10 years, I've been like, let me just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, right? So I did my own Facebook marketing. I did my own Google ads. I put stuff in newspapers. I did mail outs. We still do community engagement where we'll set up a tent at an event and we'll go sit and talk to people and things like that. I have also hired people to do it. So, you know, we've hired someone to build our website in the last couple of years, and they do Google ads. I hired another person a little while back who did Facebook ads. So I've kind of gone through a big mishmash of everything. And it's tough to say exactly what's worked really, really well. I'd say the digital stuff, it does work sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't work. Maybe it's dependent on who's doing it and how good they are. I know that when I did it, I was trying to track the results and it was really hard to do myself, especially Facebook ads. I find that's something that you probably want to hire someone to do. But I'll tell you what, my path to trying to get awareness and presence online and my form of marketing has been more about personal branding. So building my brand as an optometrist and who I am and creating my authority in the space has been really helpful for me to bring new patients in. Actually, that's where I feel like I have succeeded. The other stuff, I'm not sure. But like I get people coming in saying, oh, I saw you on Instagram. I saw you on TikTok. You're the guy who talked about myopia. You're the guy who talked about this or you did a TED talk. You know, these things that have brought people in. I don't want to be the sole kind of reason for people coming in, but at least they kind of find our clinic because of some of that stuff.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, no, I love that. So actually, there's something deeper there, which is this idea of scale. Because this is the challenge I think a lot of doctors have will become brands, quote, unquote, brand ambassadors of their business to the world, right? So you've got your become. So one of the things I talk a lot about with my team and others, and you know, Dr. Miglani, who's my spouse, who's an optometrist, and is this this idea of like, do I use social media as my practice or as myself, right? And that is, well, I've got a social media account. I've got an Instagram account for my practice. Okay. But do people follow practices? They follow people, right? They follow people. This is why it's that dilemma of like, well, they follow me, but then how do I triage them to this location, this location, that location?

Dr. Harbir Sian: 100%. That's a very valid point, and I've personally seen that myself. So I will post the same content on my Instagram page. Now, granted, the number of followers are different, but even that too is a point into itself. I have had a hard time building the followers to clarity I care. Whereas I've had more success building the followers to Harbir Sian, right? And that's because people want to see people. And so this is, I tell ODs all the time and other doctors too, build your own Instagram or your own social media, have your clinic stuff. It has to be there. You have to have a little bit of presence and then sort of, like you said, triage or drive people to Clarity Eye Care. So then they see, oh, okay, they offer these services. They have these doctors, they sell these frames. And then from there they can call the staff and book an appointment or go online and book an appointment. But, you know, I'm sort of like the funnel that's kind of bringing them to that page. And certainly you want to have the separate pages. I do see some people who have just like their business page and then they're the face of the clinic page. But I think there's value in having separate pages.

Bob Miglani: It's hard because you know, people don't follow Nike, they might follow Phil Knight, you know, and, you know, they follow Nike athletes, right? Right. Nike athletes. Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Harbir Sian: And then they'll go to Nike to see what shoes was LeBron wearing. Right. And that's that's how they'll do it. And that's what I that's the way I kind of I'm not LeBron, but I'm saying that's how I kind of look at this, too.

Bob Miglani: Oh, you're in the you're the you're the Canada's optometry. I'm the Canadian optometry

Dr. Harbir Sian: Based in Vancouver version of LeBron.

Bob Miglani: Okay. Another question here. So, a lot of docs, including my spouse, she's like, I don't want to open up my profile. I don't want to open my Instagram profile to the world. I get all these requests. I don't want to do it. I'm like, you're going to have to do it at some point. Just nip it in the bud. The world has gone completely transparent. just do it. And she's like, Oh, so what do you say that your profile, right?

Dr. Harbir Sian: I mean, it's like, yeah, so I okay, so there's something I've been preaching for a long time, but it requires more work. And this is the problem. You know, I think for for busy optometrists for busy doctors, it's it's hard to find the time and the motivation to do it. But, you know, I've, I've, I'm sort of on the border of the the millennial and what's the older gen

Bob Miglani: Yeah.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Gen Z or X, not X. Whatever the older, the older generation of millennial, like I'm right on the border of like what millennials and the other one is. And so I adopted social media kind of early in my career. It was available to me, but I grew up without it. So I kind of know life without technology as well. You know, Commodore 64 was the computer. So I'm old enough to know what that is. And at the same time, I adopted social media. So I was fortunate to grow up in that space. Younger generations, they were like born with a cell phone in their hand, right? So I get, there's like all these different perspectives. Now, here's what I suggest to most people who, like doctors who want to be on social media. I think you should have a personal private profile. Okay, you should have an open doctor profile. And then you should have a clinic profile, but the clinic and even your doctor one could be run by somebody else if you want, right? They can just come and say, OK, Dr. Maglani, time to film some content. I'll go put it, post it for you. But that's your open. That's what anybody searches you. They'll find that one. And it's the doctor speaking, talking about things and kind of developing that authority. And I have my private closed profile, which, for example, is my mine and my wife's anniversary yesterday. I posted pictures of us.

Bob Miglani: Congratulations. Happy anniversary, by the way.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Thank you. Thank you very much. But those pictures went on the private profile. I don't put that on my OD profile. So that's how I distinguish those things. And that way people are not prying super deep into my personal life, but they are for sure able to go as deep as they want into my professional career because I want them to see who I am.

Bob Miglani: Right. They want, I find that people want to see, you know, hey, what's going on behind the scenes a little bit like, okay, this is just doing this, this doing this, this doing this, you know, and then that makes that authenticity, you know, increase authenticity and a bond and a trust, you know, you know, one of the things that I looked at when I started doing social media, this is, you know, years ago, I was working in a big company and I was writing some books and I wanted to get myself out there and I started just tapping into Facebook at the time, you know, And I just, I would write, I would share, I would write and share. I had these rules. And then I put it on a sticky pad, I put it on a computer. I'm like, okay, I just got to do this. Never be negative. So always be positive. Two is be instructional. Give specific instructions that what you've learned that can be helping with somebody else, right? You know, third, third is, is be, you know, write detailed descriptions, you know, you know, and then the fourth is, you know, smile, you know, because I was always very serious, you know, simple. So it's like very simple things. And I think you have to have those rules, but I liked what you've laid out here. All right. So let's talk about social media for

Dr. Harbir Sian: Sorry Bob, before we switch gears or maybe this might be a segue to what you're going to say but I like that you had those rules and when I talk about social media or digital marketing to ODs, I have sort of my three pillars that I like to kind of share as well and the number one is in line with yours is to provide value always. Every time you're posting something, it's like what is the value? Don't just slap like 25% off. I mean you could do those from time to time. You got to like do the sale things. The majority of your posts should always be like, what value? And value could be like, this is going to make someone smile today. It's going to make them laugh, or it's going to teach them something. The second is engagement, especially on social media. If somebody comments, respond to it, or go find other people's posts that you can comment on and create that engagement. That'll help create more following. And the last thing is consistency. And that's probably the hardest thing for people. It doesn't have to mean that you post every single day, but you have some sort of cadence every couple of days or every few days. And then also posting. you're, you know, the same type of thing across platforms. So for example, I'll post on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and if it's a video, you know, YouTube, you know, depending on what it is that I'm posting, but I'll try to have the same tone. Like if I have kind of a casual or, you know, I'll have the same message, the tone might change a little, right? On LinkedIn it's a bit more professional, Instagram a bit more casual, but that consistency is key. So those are the three pillars I would, I would recommend everybody follow.

Bob Miglani: I absolutely love it. I think the digital karma, which is what I call like the posting and liking and sharing other, you know, I see so many people and I comment on so many things, you know, I like and whatever, and I see nothing, no love back. I'm like, dude, what are we doing here? This is a relationship, you know? One of the things we learned, and I want to go into this a little bit deeper, is that as an optometrist, as a doctor, or any kind of plastic surgeon, you kind of know, if you're going into the world of marketing online, you kind of know what you want. A lot of doctors are like, okay, I'm an optometrist. You know, I'm a plastic surgeon, I'm a dermatologist, whatever. And I just offer these general services. Right. But you have to kind of figure out what beam you want to kind of push in advance. For instance, for instance, dry eyes. Right. A lot of doctors say, Bob, I want to be a dry eye specialist. OK, great. Well, then what are you going to do? So that's number one. That's good to know. Number two, you've got to know the persona of the patient you're trying to influence and reach. Okay. It's a 40 year old woman, you know, who's spending a lot of time on the computers. Okay. Okay. So then you know that. So first, you know what you're trying to achieve. Secondly, you know, you have to know the audience you're speaking to. And third is then you have to shoot that content very specifically. So I bet you, you're, you know, you have a very strategic way to think about this may not be an algorithm per se, but very strategic way to think about it and say, and then you thoughtfully shoot content for that person. Right. Hi, today, you know, I want to talk to you about, you know, computers and how that's impacting our eyes and then go into myoglobin-inclined dysfunction, et cetera. Right. And therefore valuable content. And then the idea is for that content and to be shared among this platform, this platform, this platform, this platform. And I think if you have that kind of a thinking, I think a lot of doctors like yourself have that. And I see that come across. It's not just, Hey, I'm going to, I'm hanging my salad. Here's a photo of my salad. Look how healthy I am. because nobody cares about how you are, but what you're going to give to your point. Do you see that? Do you have that kind of a frame of mind?

Dr. Harbir Sian: That's 100% correct. Yeah, yeah. 100%. So the providing the value is, what is the value that I'm going to provide? Or what's the message I want to share in this post that I'm about to make? And for example, you know, you try to do, I'm not one for like super clickbait kind of like content, but you got to try to make it so somebody stops scrolling. Yes. Right? So A, that comes across in like how you are, right? In your mannerisms and that, but also like, what is your leading statement? What are you saying in that video? So for example, if I did an ortho case, you know, video, like what if I told you that you could see during the day without having to wear your glasses? You know, how, like, how cool would that be? And then, like, let's talk about how that works. You know, when, or, you know, the other way on dry eye, like, do you, do you find yourself, like, rubbing your eyes at the end of the day or, you know, things like that. You might ask your patient even, but you just do it with a bit more enthusiasm on the video. And certainly that stops people from scrolling. And you can notice if you follow your social media numbers, how many times it's been shared or commented on.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, please.

Dr. Harbir Sian: No, so then you see what the engagement's like, and then you could put a few bucks behind it. That's some easy stuff that like doctors can just simply do from your phone and say, oh, that posted well, let me put 50 bucks or 100 bucks behind that post and boost it. And it'll get more engagement and maybe drive more people in. I don't want to forget to talk about one thing at some point, Bob, that's been really helpful for us. And that's using some influencer marketing. So I don't know if that falls into what we want to talk about.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, let's do that. Let's go into it. Let's go into it. Tell me about it.

Dr. Harbir Sian: So one thing that's been helpful is having some influence. We haven't done a ton, but the ones that we've used have been really helpful, and we've had a couple of different scales. And I know when I talk about this, it kind of scares people, like how do I even start, right? So I want to tell you the story about how I found a couple of influencers for one of our practices. Our Abbotsford practice, the Lenscrafter sub-lease, it's in a mall, and Abbotsford's about an hour outside of Vancouver. There were these lovely ladies, kind of in their early 40s at the time when we opened, and they're two sisters who were bloggers, style fashion bloggers. and kind of, you know, talking about sort of midlife-ish kind of style and the way they dress and they got kids and their families. And I've started following them on Instagram. I didn't know them personally. And then years later, like five, six years later, I saw one of them posted an image of, she had glasses on her head. She was actually posting about dyeing her hair. She's like, oh God, I have to dye my hair now. And she was like, oh, and by the way, like I took this picture, I forgot I had my readers on my head. Also that's happening to me now in my mid or late forties. And she, bless her, she didn't change the photo. She posted the photo and commented on the glasses. I was like, that's amazing. Good for you, right? Owning it. Yeah. But I saw that and I commented, you know, to your point earlier about kind of sharing the love and I like their posts and stuff. But I commented, I said, hey, Laurel, you look great. But by the way, have you heard of multifocal contact lenses? You know, we could help get rid of your reading glasses. Yeah, boom. And she commented, she responded DM me back. And I was like, hey, just come in. Let me do the fit for free. Let me just see what your prescription is. I need to learn these things about you. We fit her in some multifocal. She went home. She posted about, wow, I can't believe I can see without my reading glasses. Um, you know, and we, we partnered with a contact lens company to sell her, give her a year supply of contacts. That was kind of the trade-off essentially. So it was inexpensive for us. And we got like a dozen new patients in the exact same patient profile, that same avatar, you know, that 40, mid to late forties, likes to dress well, you know, kind of just well-to-do, has kids, has a busy life. Oh, I saw Laurel posted something about some contacts. Oh yeah, let's do it. And then her sister came in, who's like a few years older than her. Also same thing, you know, stylish fashion blogger. She had laser surgery. So the multifocals didn't quite work for her. But she's like, I got dry eye from my laser surgery. I was like, hey, good, you know, good news. We have, we do RF, we do IPL, we do like, we have advanced dry eye treatments. Let me do some treatments for you for free. And let's see how it goes. And she would post every time she'd come in, I'm at, you know, Dr. Sian's office, we're about to do radio frequency. And a couple months later, she's like, guys, my redness is gone. I can blink normally. And lo and behold, we got a handful of new dry eye consults for, again, minimal cost to us. And they are what we would call micro-influencers. Their Instagram profiles are like 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people. They blog and stuff. It's about finding people who are engaged in the community locally where your practice is. You don't need to find the 100,000 follower person who's got reach across the country, because we're just trying to build our practice based on what's our demo. And so that was really powerful. We've had some bigger influencers who've helped us too, but I love the story of the micro local influencer. I think everybody can find that in their community.

Bob Miglani: And it started with you being engaged, right? You've got to, you know, you're not afraid to just say, hey, let me just share some valuable information with you that might be helpful in your life. That's what it begins with. It begins with you saying, you know what? I just don't want to just be in a clinic. I want to reach more patients. How can I reach and serve more people out in the world? And I do that by this. And of course, it's good for my business because that's, you know, it sparks interest.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I was, of course, my goal was to have Laurel come in, but I know that she's got a following and other people are commenting and hoping they might see it too, right, and draw other people. It has a trickle-down effect, that engagement. You never know who's going to see the comment.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, a lot of doctors, I think, and I want to kind of, you know, get into a couple more things, and we're going to wrap it up soon, because I want to be respectful of your time. You've been so helpful. We're talking to Dr. Herbier. Sian is the podcast guru of optometry and the LeBron of optometry in Vancouver, you know, however we call it. But one of the things I want to talk about is, okay, so time. So, how much time are you dedicating to marketing? A lot of doctors are like, oh my God, this is so much for me. I can't do it. Who does it in my office? How do I do it? Is posting there? I'll tell you this, a lot of people don't even have cameras in their computers, in their offices. I kid you not. I talk to doctors all day long, but they have a phone. I'm like, okay, you have a phone, so the phone has a camera. So how long does it take? Does it take a lot of work to do social media marketing or digital marketing? Give us a sense of that.

Dr. Harbir Sian: You know, in the years past, yeah, it did take a lot of time. These days, it doesn't take that much time. And I think the reason is because of the younger generation that's now working in our practices. So up until recently, I would ask my staff to do make some social media posts and they'll do it a little bit, but they're not as inspired. But recently we've had some younger staff come in, you know, they're in their early 20s. They're on social media all day long, TikTok and Instagram. And I asked them to just make a couple of posts and they'll jump at the opportunity. So that makes my life much, much easier. You know, I'll show them a couple of things that maybe I saw when I was scrolling, like, hey, these look like cool posts. Let's recreate these. And, you know, we'll plan for like next week or something. Everybody's going to do their hair and everybody's going to look good. And then we're going to just take a bunch of photos and then we'll have a couple of weeks worth of content. It makes life a lot easier. Now, that's from the clinic side. It shouldn't take very long. Honestly, it really shouldn't, especially given there's so much content out there. You could just straight copy it. Yeah. I don't copy what other people are posting on Instagram, whether it's dentists or other doctors or other, you know, I like following videos from barbershops because they come up with creative stuff and they're trying to get new customers into right. So there's kind of stuff like that. That's kind of cool.

Bob Miglani: How often do you post? How often do you post as your as your practice as well as your personal?

Dr. Harbir Sian: Again, I don't have like a super strict cadence, but we try to post on the clinic at least a couple times a week. It's not a ton. Again, Pete, you're not likely going to get a ton of followers on your clinic page, to be totally honest. It's there so when somebody does land on it, they see that you posted something recently, oh, that's kind of a funny post or a cool post. My personal, my Optometry or Harbiercyan.od Instagram page. Yeah, that's probably like three, four times a week. And again, I don't have, I know some of my colleagues and friends, they have like everything planned out in these calendars and I don't do any of that. I just sort of post. If I have an idea, I kind of do it on the fly. And at the same time for me, then it takes away the stress. Like there might be a week where I didn't post anything and I'm okay with that. I don't want my colleagues and my friends out there to feel stressed. Like I have to post something and then the quality goes away. The interest, you know, goes down.

Bob Miglani: And the reason, one of the reasons I find it's really important to have that personal connection, get out there, you know, your thing is because patients stalk you, right? This is not my word. This is like, this is the Gen Z in my team. And these are their words, you know, they stalk you. I'm like stalker in my day. I'm a Gen X, right? Stalker in my day was a bad thing. You know, guys stalking you, girls, you know, guys stalking you. And now it's like, they stalk you. What that means is that they want to, you're presenting a message in your marketing, right? To patients out there, prospective patients. You're doing, whether it's Google ads, you're doing, you know, some sort of advertisements or marketing or promotion efforts. Then they want to check you out. They want to stalk you. They want to see you. They follow you. And then they kind of look at your content and say, then they make the decision to come and visit. And most of that, especially in healthcare, what I've found was on the weekends, right? Weekends are when people are actually looking healthcare for Sunday night. Hey, I have to go see my eye doctor. I've got to make an appointment for my surgeon or whatever. So they're kind of checking you out there. And if you don't have any content that's useful, valuable, interesting, and fresh, they might say, well, it's not really relevant. I'm going to go somebody else. So that's why I think it's really important to post frequently and to do it in a way that it provides cover for your other marketing messages.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, I agree with that 100%. And people do definitely stalk. They'll come in and they'll say, Oh, I saw that you did the thing last week, or you did this recently, or, you know, people I've never met before, right? Or I only see once a year. So yeah, it happens. It's so that their people are consuming the content for sure.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. So let's talk about two more things that we kind of wrap up. And one is what content do you post? Like people say, you know, Bob, what do I say? I don't think I have a lot to say, you know? And so, you know, what are the themes that you think about? Do you think about your business and you say, okay, you know what, I really want to grow my dry clinic, or I've really got this patient case I just had with OrthoK for example, you know, how, what do you decide on what to say?

Dr. Harbir Sian: It's incredible how much stuff we have to actually say and what we could. It's endless, right? If you think about what we do day in, day out. Now, we just don't feel like it's that important because we do it day in, day out, but for the person who's consuming it, it likely is brand new knowledge. Even the most mundane thing we do can actually be really interesting to the other person who's consuming this content who's landed on your page. That could go from as simple as, you know, here, we sell this eyedrop and it's great because of X, Y, Z, right? And if you have dry eyes and so on, or here's my favorite frame of the day, or, you know, here our rep is visiting today, here's Ruby, like meet Ruby who's bringing in our Gucci frames, like let's talk to her a little bit about, you know, all sorts of, there's just endless things that you could talk about, you know, come up with Frame Friday or talk about, you know, your fun thing that happened this week, or talk about a medical case, like you said. There's endless, endless. Talk about the OptiMap that you have and why it's different than other retinal imaging. Talk about my biography. Again, there's so many things you could talk about, and you can repost or redo content every few months anyway, so it's really kind of endless. I think we just have this weird mental block, like, oh, I don't know if people care.

Bob Miglani: Right, right. That's the thing. Why would somebody be interested in what I'm talking about?

Dr. Harbir Sian: But all of those things are what help build your authority in the space, right? So every time they see the doctor talking about something medical, that helps in the patient's mind, that elevates the doctor as, you know, the authority and the entity that they need to value.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. And I guess, you know, sort of as we, as we wrap up here, I want to talk about your podcast because, you know, optometrists, I mean, there's, you know, there's are so interesting because you deal with so many multifaceted things. So tell us about how your journey in podcasting you know, tell us what you've learned and any offerings that you want, any information that might be helpful for our audience. And then, you know, has it brought you like, you know, the sort of someone who a cynic would say, has it helped you with your practice? Have you gotten more patience as a result of that? What have you gained as a result of doing all this marketing? So let's just, you know, those two questions.

Dr. Harbir Sian: I appreciate the chance to promote the podcast. Thank you very much to chat about it. So the 2020 podcast, it's almost five years and now over 150 episodes. And it started as, to be completely transparent, it was my way of trying to build a bit more of a reputation within the industry. So it wasn't actually public facing, it was more inward, right? Obviously that most of the content is for ECPs. And it was a way for me to kind of, again, develop my authority in the industry as somebody people would want to trust and speak to, or hire as a speaker, or things like that. And I would bring on people from outside of optometry. Initially, the first eight or ten episodes, I think I only had one optometrist, and it was about personal development, business development. I'll bring on a CEO from this place, an athlete or somebody else. How can we draw their stories and use them in optometry? And it's continued to grow. Now, most of my guests are within iCare, but we're always talking about how just to be better. It's not so much clinical conversations. It's like, How can I get through this difficult time? How can I build my practice? So on. And it's been really, really great. And it's certainly helped me achieve that initial goal of kind of developing a presence within the industry. But to go back to, I kind of use this phrase a few times now, from a patient perspective, People see me interviewing other respected people in the industry and it helps build my authority and kind of my level of respect, even from patients. They see if I'm hosting a podcast speaking to a bunch of other people that I must have some level of Yes. You know, authority in the industry. And so it's helped build in that. Indirectly, patients see that I'm doing all these things. I'm speaking on stage. I'm going to conferences. And that, you know, in their mind must mean that I'm somehow important, you know, to put it bluntly and not to inflate my own ego, but just to put it bluntly. And so for that reason, people come in and patients, new patients will come in and say, wow, I see that you speak at these things or you do these things. And, you know, if I'm on stage, educating other optometrists, I suppose that means I must have some level of knowledge to be able to do that. So that's where it's been indirectly helpful. I don't really market the podcast to the public, but I do get random people listening to it for sure.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, no, I love that. And especially when you're at conferences, I think it's really powerful because it tells the potential patient Hey, you know, he's staying up to date about what's going on. And these are medical conferences, right? These are not like parties or whatever. These are medical conferences. So when you do a live stream or you're just posting a photo or whatever with your colleagues, it's really important to demonstrate the halo of trust with that. I had a friend who used to work for Bill Clinton and you know, some years ago and Bill Clinton used to tell him, Hey, listen, when you walk into a room, You find the person everybody loves and you stand next to him because you get the halo of that trust. It's like a medical conference, right? It's sort of like, hey, there's a lot of white coats here. I'm with him. I'm with her.

Dr. Harbir Sian: That's totally what happens too, actually. It's funny. Very much what happens. Indirectly, I would say it's been very valuable, but it's not the same as directly marketing to your patients.

Bob Miglani: Yeah, but it's, but it goes hand in hand. I mean, that's the thing is that I think you do marketing, you know, direct patient marketing. But then, you know, some of those patients, I'd say about increasingly 50 60% of those patients are going to stalk you and check out your other stuff. Because it's just natural to check out the doctor because reviews are not enough today. everyone got pretty good reviews. We've all figured out the review algorithm, right? Ask them, be kind, you know, time with them and all of that, right? So we have to move beyond reviews. And then when you move beyond reviews, it's like, what else is there? Well, is there Instagram? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they doing all these other things? So as we wrap up here, Herbert, so tell us one piece of advice For doctors listening in right now, we're saying, okay, I want to improve my marketing. Of all the years of experience you've got, what is that one, I mean, I know there's a lot of things we talked about, but that one piece of advice right now that you'd give to a doctor who says, I want to be a better marketer. I want to be the LeBron of optometry in Canada. I want to be like Dr. Sian.

Dr. Harbir Sian: So, the one thing I leave people with, again, given that I spend a lot of time on social media, on the social media marketing side of things, the one thing I tell the other doctors is really just pick up the phone and make a video, right? And you'll realize it's not that hard and just post it. On the social media side of things, pick up your phone.

Bob Miglani: Don't delete it.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Don't delete it. And here's the thing. Don't like just for the first time. Now, I'm 100 percent. I use a tripod and stuff like that now when I do it. But the first time, because I just want you to get comfortable with the space and what it looks like. OK, open your front camera. Right. You know, the front facing camera. and hold it towards yourself and say, hey guys, it's Dr. Sian at Clarity Eye Care. I just wanted to let you know that we offer these services. If you're interested, please come on in, let us know, or give us a phone call. We'll be happy to chat. Boom. How long did that take? Do that, post that, just do it. Realize how easy it is. It'll just get you over that initial, you know, in chemistry, there's these activation energy that you got to get over that little hump and then all of a sudden it's go. And I think that's the main thing that I like to let people know about social media, at least.

Bob Miglani: Yeah. Take action, take action and make it simple. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it.

Dr. Harbir Sian: We're talking about Nike. Just do it.

Bob Miglani: Just do it. Just do it. There we go. We're talking about sneakers. It goes, all comes around to LeBron and sneakers. So Dr. Herbier, Sian, thank you so much. It's what a pleasure speaking with you. I learned a lot from you. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to interview you today. If I can return the favor to you in any way, please let me know. And where can people, you know, we're going to put it in the show notes. We're going to put all, where can people reach you?

Dr. Harbir Sian: Thank you. By the way, Bob, I'd love to have you on the 2020 podcast. We'll figure that out. So everybody who's listening or watching this, please hop over to the 2020 podcast and you'll probably see Bob there in the near future as well. The2020podcast.com is where you can find the podcast, or it's Apple, Spotify, YouTube. And then me on Instagram is usually the easiest, HarbirSian.od, or you could search me on LinkedIn. I kind of have a similar presence on both of those platforms. Awesome. Awesome. Funny enough. I have more followers on TikTok, but I don't use TikTok very much. Wow. So you can find me there too, I guess.

Bob Miglani: Wow. Interesting. Yeah. I, you know, I stuck with LinkedIn and I just like, just, that's it. You know, I have a little bit of Instagram, but you know, I guess you got to find your groove. Yeah. That's the thing. So, uh, thank you so much for your time. Have a great rest of the day. Thank you.

Dr. Harbir Sian: Thanks, Bob. Appreciate this.