Radio Front Desk
Radio Front Desk is a podcast that talks to real people in real clinics about what it takes to build a health and wellness business.
Host Denzil Ford, Editor-in-Chief of Front Desk magazine, digs into the inspiring stories of folks building their practices from the ground up — including what works, what hasn’t, and everything in between.
Created by the team at Jane App, this podcast is your source for discovering fresh ideas and proven strategies for clinic life. Join us on this journey of building a practice you love.
Radio Front Desk
How to market your health & wellness practice (and still feel like yourself)
Marketing doesn’t always come naturally — especially in healthcare. It can feel overwhelming, confusing, or like something you’re “supposed” to know how to do. But what if marketing didn’t have to feel like marketing at all?
In this episode of Radio Front Desk, host Denzil Ford shares highlights from a live panel recorded at a recent Jane retreat. Five practitioners from across North America — a chiropractor, a psychotherapist, a trauma psychologist, and two physiotherapists — joined Jane for a rich, candid conversation about marketing that feels human.
Together, they explored what it looks like to show up authentically and meaningfully in their communities.
What You’ll Learn
- Why “word of mouth” still works for clinics — and how to create experiences that spark it
- How to build long-term practitioner referral relationships that last
- Why your personality (and preferences) matter when choosing your clinic marketing approach
- Simple, scrappy ways to build trust through your clinic’s social media
Our Panelists
- Roxanne Francis – Psychotherapist and public speaker
- Amanda Buduris – Clinical psychologist and trauma therapist
- Emma Jack – Physiotherapist and owner of Press Play Physio
- Josh Satterlee – Chiropractor and educator
- Roni Glassman – Physiotherapist and movement specialist
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Radio Front Desk is Brought to You by Jane
The practitioners in this episode reminded us that great marketing isn’t about being loud — it’s about being present.
That’s what inspired Jane’s new AI Scribe — a charting assistant designed to help you stay present in the moments that matter most. With AI Scribe, Jane securely listens during your session and generates a first draft of your chart note, so you can stay focused on care, not catching up on paperwork.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional medical, legal, or financial advice.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast host or its affiliates.
Welcome back to Radio Front Desk by Jane Up. I'm your host, denzel Ford. Today we're talking about a word that makes a lot of us tense up a little Marketing. Not because it's bad, but because it can feel like something you're supposed to know how to do without ever being taught, and in a world of algorithms, email funnels and 15-second videos, it's easy to wonder if you're doing it wrong or if you even want to do it at all. So what does it look like to market your practice in a way that feels honest? What if it didn't feel like marketing at all, but more like showing up?
Speaker 1:At a recent Jane Company retreat, we invited five of our customers practitioners from across North America, to join us for a live panel discussion on this very topic. A chiropractor, a psychotherapist, a trauma psychologist and two physiotherapists All at different stages of the business, all with very different voices. What they shared wasn't a list of marketing strategies. They were stories. All with very different voices. What they shared wasn't a list of marketing strategies. They were stories. Stories about trust, creativity and doing things their own way. Here's Amit Jack, a physiotherapist and business coach, on delivering a memorable client experience.
Speaker 2:If every single time I delivered an out-of-the-park client experience, word of mouth just traveled like wildfire. And so thinking about those little ways to just surprise and delight, like you guys talk about, and really make it an experience right, people are coming to us often in really vulnerable places during a really hard time in their life, and I just really put so much thought and attention into how can I make this something that people share, that people return to.
Speaker 1:For Emma, that meant finding small, meaningful ways to make her clinic feel joyful even before patients walk through the door.
Speaker 2:I made really custom parking signs in my parking lot that said something like reserved for the stellar clients of Press Play Physio or can be bribed by chocolate. And so everybody, when they first came to my clinic, they would take a picture of that sign and share it on Instagram of like how funny is this? Right, I wasn't talking about people being towed at their expense Little treats along the way. I have little enamel pins made for graduation day when people were done and people like put them on their backpacks and wore them proudly. There's little things that you can do to make the client experience amazing, and I think even more in this day and age. People are looking for an experience. They're looking to be a part of something, a community, and if you can put your energy and attention on that, I don't think it takes a lot of. You know the google ads or the, the sort of hard marketing tactics, because your patients become sort of your disciples.
Speaker 1:The focus here was more on creating a sense of belonging than a marketing strategy. For chiropractor Josh Satterley, relationship building is about quality not quantity. He focuses in on building super strong professional relationships that turn into referral engines and those power his business.
Speaker 3:I were recommending to a young therapist, what I would do is focus on key referral relationships that will be faucets that never stop dripping patients out. So as a chiropractor, I work in the world of ow. Like people say, ow, we get hired, and so it could be. You know, it may be somebody like an orthopedic surgeon who has patients that don't need their services and so they're saying I need another place to send them. It could be a coach. Or I remember early on we had a golf coach and a triathlete coach that were coaching people that were trying to go for performances and they are developing nagging owls and so we take care of those, and so those are really good sources and so we take care of those, and so those are really good sources.
Speaker 3:If you're lucky enough to have a really strong relationship with a general practitioner, for example, I mean I have friends that have less than 10 relationships with general practitioners and it completely fills their schedule, just because they're always getting two or three or four patients every week referred over. So the last piece of advice I would say is build that relationship and then work hard and making it as easy as possible for that office to send you patients. I think sometimes we build a really great relationship with, like dr emma, but we forget it's not really dr emma who's sending the person over. She's telling her front desk staff send them to cairo. Make it easy on that person and honor that person, because they often get forgotten in the world of healthcare. Bring them treats, but also like, if it's like, hey, you can send me an email, you can call our office, whatever is easiest for you, and they may reply with Well, the doctor wants us to fax things over, and just smile and say, right on, we use fax as well.
Speaker 1:And if networking feels like a lot, you're not alone. Amanda Buduras is a trauma psychologist and a self-described introvert. When she started her practice, she skipped the coffee chats and focused on building something behind the scenes practice she skipped the coffee chats and focused on building something behind the scenes.
Speaker 4:I'm an introvert. I get overwhelmed by lots of social exposure very easily, and so when I was starting my practice, I really doubled down on. I'm going to build a really nice website. I'm going to self-teach myself search engine optimization. So for me, like doubling down that early in my practice has helped it to build up so well in the past three years that every single client who comes to me finds me from Google and I've never spent a single cent on a Google ad.
Speaker 1:Amanda's strategy wasn't loud, but it was consistent and it worked. Your marketing should match your energy and your audience. It doesn't have to be everything, it just has to be yours. For psychotherapist Roxanne Francis, showing up meant opening up. She started using Instagram to share generously and consistently.
Speaker 5:So, during the pandemic, when all anyone could do is look at their phone, I started showing up a lot, and what I did was I provided value. I started to talk to parents about their children, who are struggling with anxiety. Are they struggling to sleep? Are your kids suddenly wetting the bed again? Right, what do I do when my kids don't know what to do about this pandemic? Relationships are falling apart, and in between clients I would, in between online clients, powered by Jane, I would hop on my phone and just share something in my stories or pop something up on my feed, providing value. And a lot of people were not my clients then, but what started to happen was I was providing so much value so often that I became what I like to call the obvious choice.
Speaker 1:Over time. People didn't just follow her. They remembered her, they referred her and they trusted her.
Speaker 5:So when someone's cousin needed a therapist, they're like, oh, I don't remember her name, but let me look up her handle. And I started getting a lot of clients that way, through word of mouth. How did you hear about me? Well, such and such saw you on Instagram. How did you hear about me? Such and such saw your stories. And you were talking about this and we were talking about that, and so it. It's kind of like a referral process. It's like a mishmash between referral and marketing, right. And so I was so personable with the information and gave it so freely that people began to think well, if I can get this knowledge just off of 15 seconds off a story, I wonder what a whole session would be like. And so I started to grow that way, and once I became more established in that way, then I could spend more dollars on the actual marketing.
Speaker 1:And if Instagram's not your thing, no problem, there's always the old school approach. Physical therapist Ronnie Glassman built her practice the classic way, by showing up in person.
Speaker 6:I think the most impactful ways that I've marketed myself and my business have been literally going in door to door to the providers that I want to have a connection with and fostering that relationship, and going once and then going again, and not just showing my face a couple of times, but showing that I'm a provider that they can trust and making it fun for them Even now.
Speaker 1:Ronnie carved that time to connect on purpose.
Speaker 6:I talk about the ideal client that I'm trying to see, so that way they know who to send to me. I talk about how it's always one-on-one physical therapy. I explain my space and kind of my why for behind, why I got started in my own business in the first place and often I'll offer them to come by and see it, maybe get a treatment on me or whatever. It is something to get them in the door to see what I'm all about.
Speaker 1:Marketing doesn't have to feel overwhelming or performative or pushy. Done right, it's just you. Be thoughtful, be visible, make it easier for the right people to find their way to you. Big thanks to Roxanne, amanda, josh, emma and Ronnie for sharing their time and ideas, and thanks to you for spending a little of your day with us. Take care of yourselves and each other Until next time.