The No-Stress Way to Market Your Practice: A Conversation with Michelle Grasek

In this episode of the Staffless Practice Podcast, I sat down with Michelle Grasek, an acupuncturist and marketing mentor who has spent over a decade helping practitioners grow their practices in a way that actually feels good. 

We talked about something I know so many of us struggle with… how to market your practice without feeling fake, pushy, or completely burned out.

Michelle shares how she went from running her own acupuncture practice to teaching marketing, and why consistency, connection, and authenticity matter more than doing everything. We dive into practical strategies for both introverts and extroverts, how to build trust with your community, and what to do when your marketing feels stagnant.

One of my favorite takeaways? You don’t have to do marketing you hate. There are so many ways to grow your practice, and the key is choosing what actually aligns with you.

We also talk about:

•  Why is connection the foundation of patient trust 
•  The biggest mistake practitioners make on social media 
•  When to focus on in-person marketing vs digital 
•  How to get unstuck when you feel like nothing is working 
•  Why your Google Business profile might be your best starting point 

If marketing has ever felt overwhelming or “not your thing,” this episode will completely shift how you think about it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

You are listening to the Staffless Practice Podcast. We aim to serve the facilitators, practitioners, and teams of the wellness practices of our community with real deal Monday morning ready tools. Be sure to follow us wherever you're watching. Tag us, like us, and make sure you check us out online at gostaffless.com. So it's always fun to have a guest on the Staffless Practice Podcast who I've never met before. And Michelle is one of those friends. Um, she is a marketing mentor coach to the acupuncture profession and beyond. And um, I know that we have a lot in common. So, Michelle, please introduce yourself. Where are you? Who are you? What do you do? All of it.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Sure. Um, so I am in upstate New York, uh, near Rochester. If anyone is familiar with that, I always like to clarify we're closer to Canada than we are to New York City. So upstate is like way upstate. Um, I am an acupuncturist, I've been practice for about 16 years. I have a practice locally, and then I've also been teaching marketing both in person and online for almost 12 years now. So I also get into that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Like how did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Um, you know, when I opened my first practice, I realized that I loved my quiet time sitting, building out my website, thinking about ways that I could reach new people in the community. Like, how could I put together an effective postcard for a cold audience? And uh over time I started talking to my mom about it because like who else am I gonna who else am I gonna share this really nerdy stuff with? And she was so funny, she was like, I think you should tell the people of the internet, like basically, maybe you should start a blog and tell people who this is relevant to. So I did that and I wrote the blog for a couple of years before realizing that people were sending me questions, the same questions about their target market, about visibility, about their mindset over and over again. And that's when I decided to put together my first class on all of these concepts to walk people through it step by step instead of me writing these extensive emails every single time.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Right. When um I don't know how much you know about staffless, but when the pandemic right right before the pandemic, my last front desk person had just quit. And I I it broke my heart, like it was rough. And my kids thought it would be fun to count how many people had quit my office and they counted 30 that they could remember because I've never been trained to be a boss, right? And um, and I got really good at running a practice without staff because I was like, I'm never gonna do this again. I never wanted to do this again. And then the pandemic hit, and everyone was like, Hey Jode, what do you do if somebody's in your waiting room asking about money and you don't have your front desk person because their front desk people were leaving? And I was like, wait, I have this written out, I'm gonna send it to you, and then I made the book and then it took off from there. So, what were some of the problems that you were? I was naturally answering problems from my friends in practice for efficiency tools. What are some of the problems that you were finding yourself answering?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Definitely questions about marketing and what is effective, kind of the same sorts of questions about effectiveness and efficiency, but for marketing. Like, what can I do to get visible in my community in ways that don't feel gross to me, that don't take a ton of time. Um, and I found myself answering a lot of questions about things like target market and ideal patient, which everyone has heard of, but it can be really hard to actually implement those effectively in your marketing uh by yourself if you if you don't have any training. So I get or I used to get and still do get a lot of questions for that angle as well. And I think that once you know how to do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Give us us, Michelle. What do they do?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

The target market and the uh ideal patient.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Well, if I let's say that I I um had five minutes with you, what would you tell me to do if I was like, I don't know, I don't know how to not feel slimy when it comes to growing my practice. What do you tell them to do?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, in order to not feel slimy, I always tell people that first of all, there are a million different ways you can get visible in your community, and you really only have to lean into a couple of those methods consistently in order for them to be effective. So I always tell my marketing students, you do not have to do marketing that you don't like, because consistency is really important to actually get results. And we are very rarely consistent with stuff that makes us feel slimy. So, like if there's slimy stuff out there and you don't want to feel like your neighborhood car salesman, just don't do that stuff. Like, forget it. You can, you're welcome, you can take that off of your list of things to do. Um, so it looks different for everyone. I usually recommend that people lean into their personality strengths. So if someone is an introvert and the idea of networking is horrifying, then that's okay, right? There are lots of things in the digital world that they could do. They could work on their search engine optimization behind the scenes, they could write blog posts and email newsletters, or they could engage their community in person in ways that feel comfortable to them as an introvert, like maybe um starting a book club or volunteering, just showing up somewhere in person in some in an activity you enjoy regularly where people are gonna get to know you and then start to ask you questions.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

So if I if there's a let's talk about the introvert and um right, because that that's that's legit. That's a lot of us. It's a lot of us. I always say that I'm an extroverted introvert because a room of people is completely overwhelming to me, right? So how does an introvert grow? They're good with one-on-one, maybe they're not the best writers. What's an example of something that they can do regularly?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, I mean, so I think volunteering can be something that works really well because especially if it's something that you are doing, like at least on a regular monthly basis, right? The idea is if you're gonna work on building trust in your community, you need to show up consistently. So at least monthly, if not like twice a month or weekly. But the structure of volunteering often helps introverts because you show up, you are often with the same people, maybe there's a mix, you have a job. So it feels less of that pressure of walking into like a networking room where people are standing around with a drink and it's very clicky and you feel like an outsider, right? So over time you get to know these people and you you will become one of them, more or less.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

I love that idea.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah. I do, I have one strategy for introverts who are are interested in getting better at networking. And my like, so I'm such an introvert. My personal strategy was to volunteer with the local chambers of commerce so that when those monthly meetings came up, I was already very friendly with the people in charge of the meeting. And I knew them well enough to tell them, like, hey, I'm an introvert, I feel really challenged introducing myself to a group of strangers. Now, most of the people who work at the Chamber of Commerce are going to be extroverts who love to introduce you to other people. So whenever I walk into one of those monthly meetings, I know four or five people right away who are running the meeting. And usually at least one of them, if not multiple, will be like, Oh, I know someone you should meet today. Let me bring you over there. Right. So sort of like knowing the extroverts who can facilitate making that easier, it really does help.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

It's even if you have one person in the room that you're comfortable with, and I I there's a there's a theme on, especially with the podcast that we're running, of the conversation of how important feeling connected is, yeah, choosing your practitioner. So I I know I know for me, let's say I'm at a chamber meeting and I'm awkwardly uncomfortable, right? And I start a conversation with a dentist that I had never met before, and we had a connection, I would absolutely go to their office as a patient because we have a connection. Yes. Can we talk a little bit about how important it is to feel connected to when you're choosing your provider? And especially within like accuracy acupuncture, I think is similar to chiropractic, where people have this idea that it's gonna hurt, right? Yeah, they're curious, they they'll have they probably have the idea they'll have to come forever, it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be expensive. And I was actually at my acupuncturist's office yesterday. I know that that's not true. So, how do you see connection and the significance of connection when it comes to growing your practice? How does connection play a role?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

It is hugely important. One of the first concepts that I always teach my marketing students is that one thing we are trying to do with our marketing is build trust, right? When we are answering questions, when we are dispelling doubts, when we are showing up and teaching something, we are helping like explain like, here's how I approach this medicine and here's what I might expect from you. All of that builds trust. And that helps remove the barriers that people have to getting started with you, but it's really connection-based, right? So you can also just think of marketing as choosing an avenue through which you want to build connection. Is it social media? Is it in person? And I like to think of it like this there are some marketing touch points or marketing strategies that build trust much faster. So meeting someone in person builds trust way faster than seeing like your Instagram post or reading a blog post. It's not that the Instagram post or the blog post aren't effective. They are, but it might just take more of those touch points before someone moves into that space of trust where now they feel like, oh, I like this person, I think they're a good fit and they can help me. I'm willing to make the investment, like the financial investment, the time investment, and to share my personal health information with this person, like sensitive info. Um, so all of that is about trust building. So it's it's everything that we're doing should be building that connection.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Where do you see, where do you see practice owners going wrong when it comes to this? Like, where do you see that not happening?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Oh gosh, that's a good question. The the first answer that comes to my mind is on social media, what a lot of people are doing is they are creating content and spending a lot of time educating, but they which is great, right? Like we all know social media, it's like the the beast that always must be fed. It needs new content, but they're not spending any time on the social aspect of social media. They're not answering their comments, they're not checking their DMs, they're not engaging with other like local business owners, they're not using it for networking, and they're not engaging any of their followers. So that means that their accounts often are not growing, right? They're they're not making an effort to get in front of new people. And so they'll often tell me, well, I just feel like I am teaching the same stuff to the same followers, and some of them are already my patients, and the rest are like my aunties who are never going to become my patients, right? It's like my mom is watching my Instagram account. Um, and so the problem there is a lack of connection, right, with the Instagram local community and who are the people who are already following you, and you need to engage with them. And that's true in the digital world, especially on social, and it's true in real life in our community.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

You're listening to the Staffless Practice Podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Just search Staffless Practice. If you see a like button or a follow button where you're watching or listening, tap it so you never miss a beat. Visit us at www.gostaffless.com for resources to help you run your practice with less stress and more freedom. Now back to the show. How much of the practice growth is happens in real life as opposed to what happens online? How important is it to show up and suit up, you know, go door to door, shake hands, kiss babies in 2026?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

It's a great question. I don't know if I have like a specific percentage answer, but the way that I like to think about it is this if a marketing student or a client comes to me and says, I feel like I'm doing a lot of great things, but my marketing is a little stagnant. I seem to have plateaued. And typically when they come to me with this thought process, they're doing a lot of digital marketing. And I will ask them, well, how much, how much kissing babies basically are you doing? Like, are you out in your community? How well do people know you? Are you meeting new people in any structured environments? And generally their answer is no, their entire focus is digital marketing because SEO and email newsletters and social can be very powerful by themselves in growing a practice. But if you're hitting a plateau, I often find that what you need is to shift the energy of your marketing in front of the opposite audience. So if you're mostly digital, try to get more out in your community in real life. Because if you think about it, it's probably a different population, at least slightly, right? Because the people who love to engage in person are probably spending less time on social media and less time researching on websites. Or if someone comes and they are more extroverted and they say, you know, I'm doing a ton of networking, I'm a connector, I like building connections between my community members, but I feel like things are stagnant. I'll ask them, what is their digital marketing like? And it's often very minimal. And so I ask them to shift their energy in that direction. Because again, those people who they're going to find online are still local, but probably a different population. So it's where you put your energy depending on what you are seeing in your growth. Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Great, yeah, it's great advice. And so for somebody who is struggling and they're they're throwing all the noodles on the wall to see what's gonna stick, and they're feeling burnout, they're feeling like they're just going in circles. Where do they start? What's a good starting place for that person?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

In terms of what seems to be most effective right now for marketing?

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Yeah, like to grow their practice, they're intimidated by social media, they just feel like they're trying everything to grow the practice and it's just not happening, and they're losing hope. Where do they go? What do they do? Where do they go?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

So usually I'll tell people to like if they're if they're burnout, they're throwing all that spaghetti on the wall, and they feel like they're not getting traction anywhere. I will generally ask them to focus their energy on their Google Business profile because it is something that typically responds with results from your efforts a little bit faster than other things. And I don't necessarily want them to like abandon their Instagram account if it's something that they've been maintaining for a long time or their other socials, but to really dial in on making updates on their Google Business profile every single week for whatever reason. In the past, I'm not really sure, maybe like eight or nine months to a year, Google has decided there are certain indicators of um like activity and relevance on your profile. And they're very easy. They're little updates you can make every week that makes Google more likely to show your account because it understands your business better. It knows when you are the answer to a question. So I find that if they can start doing that and seeing some results, it gives them some relief and a little bit more motivation, like, oh, finally, I'm doing something that is moving the needle. Um because it's really tough to just continue every avenue of marketing indefinitely forever. That the social media beast of content that always needs to be fed. It's exhausting, and I hate for people to feel burnt out and then just like give up. Right. So sort of focusing their energy on something that tends to get results faster.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

I I also like to remind people that you don't have to do this part. This is the part that you can hire somebody to do. You're more of a connector and you like to sit across the table from someone and have a conversation with them as opposed to feeding the online monsters. Uh, it definitely will move. We my husband and I were having a conversation yesterday about how um in college now they're going all the way back around to using blue books, like handwritten essays. Wow, okay. Because AI has gone so far on the extreme of like you sit in a let's say an economics class, you can use AI to answer every question, but if you have to write down the answer like old school, so I feel like the further into the um the screen world we get, the closer we're coming to full circle of like sitting across the table and having a cup of tea with somebody and tell me about your practice and I'll tell you about mine, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tell us about go ahead, sorry. I was gonna say I found that phenomenon to be true on Instagram. I'm trying an experiment with my marketing account. So not my clinic account, but my marketing account where um, you know how you can leave a comment and I'll automatically DM you a link. Well, I got rid of the software that does that, and now I am individually answering every comment and reaching out on the DMs. Now it's a lot, right? I'm not gonna lie, but the connection that I'm building with people and I'll put in the post to say, please be patient with me. If you comment XYZ, I'll send you the free opt-in. But you know, I I'm not using a robot anymore, and it might take me 24 hours. And people's response has been so positive because they're like, You're really not using a robot. Like, I'm speaking to you. I'm like, Yes, hello, Allison. I am on the other end.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

It makes a huge isn't that sad that we doubt authenticity, like 100%. It's so interesting. It it changes as soon as we grasp it. You know, we grasp the concept and then it changes, but what doesn't change is what's been working for decades. So tell us a little bit about the wellness marketing school. What is that?

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Sure. So wellness marketing school is a class that I teach live on Zoom twice a year, and it walks people through the foundations of their marketing first. So we go through all the stuff that people think is uh kind of boring. I think it's like the unsexy parts of marketing, like your target market, your marketing message, your brand, right? Helping people build a strong professional brand that they're proud to share. Because if you're not proud to share it, you are not going to want to put it out there in the digital or the real world. And then really helping them dial in with their marketing using all of those pieces. And then the second half, we talk about how to apply all of that to different strategies. So we have an SEO chapter, email marketing, we build a lead magnet together, we install it on their website. I mean, as much as I'm able to help them, there are so many website platforms now. Um, we talk about like if they wanted to get on local television, how to send a PR pitch to the radio or the TV. So, like we I try to make it broad because, as I said, I want people to focus on the visibility pieces that are a good fit for their personality. So that means offering a variety of strategies so that people can find something that feels like, ooh, that's interesting. I could maybe do that.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Right. You guys feel how not intimidating that is. Like that, that would feel like any anybody that I know, any one of our clients would be down for taking that class because it's not sexy. It's not like this is going to go so far over my head. If we can, and there's nothing wrong with being intimidated. I also want to I want to make that really clear. There's there, I sit in a I study with the greatest marketing minds on the planet. And I sit in that room and I'm the dumbest person in the room. I don't know what most of the Words they're saying mean, I catch on to like 10% of it. 10 out of every 100 words they use, I understand 10. So it's kind of like speaking a different language. But of those 10 words, I'm like, ooh, I could jam with that concept, right? But the idea of being in a course that I understand 100% of what you're saying. And I'm the first person to raise my hand and say, I have no flipping idea what you're talking about right now. I love that idea. I think, and you do it twice a year in Zoom. Why twice a year? Tell us more about how you break it down. Like how yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

So I do have the entire course pre-recorded so people can go through it self-paced, but uh it's uh it's called acupuncture marketing school in that format because when I recorded it, it was mostly acupuncture um students and mostly acupuncture examples. But since then I have realized that you know, there there are so many people who raise their hand to join me and I like chiropractors and naturopaths in particular, and I want them to feel welcome. So I make sure that twice a year I'm offering it where it's super clear that like everyone can join us. And I mean, I love teaching online, I love teaching in person, like being there with the students and having the opportunity to get their feedback and understand like, oh, this is a sticky area. Like I could explain this differently, it could be better. And things are always changing as well, right? Like, you know, having a pre-recorded class means you're always updating it as social media changes. Um, and being able to do it on Zoom live really allows me to dig into what the students need and what those changes are in real time.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Right. I love it. Are you still in practice?

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Uh, so I run a practice. I just stopped seeing patients about eight weeks ago after 16 years. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Do you miss it? It's interesting. You know, the the transition has been a lot. I hired someone to take my place and we're sort of like working everything out. So I feel like I'm too busy to miss it right now. My specialty was always cosmetic acupuncture. And I think, yeah, I will, I will probably miss that.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

What is cosmetic acupuncture?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Like it's uh it's a specialized style of acupuncture for reducing and preventing fine lines and wrinkles. And the idea is you're boosting collagen.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

So I basically should I should have added tape here.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Oh my gosh, you are fine.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Well, I think that is there anything else that you want our community to know about you? Do you want to give us your best commercial? Like anything at all that you want us to dive into?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Oh gosh, I feel unprepared for my best commercial. It's funny because I am actually going on local TV for the practice in a couple of days. So I've been practicing that commercial very much. Can we hear yeah, sure. So it's a I'll give you an overview. It's a four-minute segment on the local morning show where I'm gonna be doing a demonstration of cosmetic acupuncture on their executive producer who has never had acupuncture before. No way. Her first time for acupuncture, and she'll be getting needles in her face.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

So you don't have one wrinkle on your face. Is that because of acupuncture?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

I I really want to say yes. I have been getting cosmetic acupuncture for 16 years, but I do just have a baby face also.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

So even though now I need to find a cosmetic acupuncturist for me. It is great stuff, it's so good. So um, anything else that you want to share with our community, our audience?

SPEAKER_00 25:54

I guess I would I would encourage everyone, if you feel intimidated by marketing, to think about it as a grand experiment. Pretend you are a researcher, right? Researchers are typically supposed to be unbiased, they're supposed to be neutral, they're not supposed to have a lot of expectations about the outcome. They just put together the work and then they execute the work and then they see what the outcome is. And then if it worked, great. If it didn't, that is just data to help you of course correct next time. It does not mean that you can't learn marketing, that you're bad at marketing, that you should just give up. It just is information like, okay, if I repeated this marketing experiment, I would do this differently next time. So I think it relieves a lot of pressure off of people to do things perfectly or get what they think is like a hundred percent result from their marketing efforts. It's never going to give you a hundred percent. There's always room for improvement. Um, but I just want people to try without pressure.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

You know what I like so much about you is that the vibe you give is it's like safe. It's bite-sized pieces, it doesn't have to be overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Where again, when I'm in that room with all of the marketing moguls, it's so intimidating. And they're talking, they're talking marketing banter left, right, and center. And I really do trust that whatever you're teaching, you are making it really easy to comprehend and to integrate. And I think that's awesome. I think it's unique and I think it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Thank you so much. That is my goal. And high five for you for being in that room with those people.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Oh they're really cool people, but I don't know. Um, I am learning a lot and my brain is tired. All right, you guys. So if you're watching this, you see below Michelle Graysick.com, uh, go check out her stuff. And um, you come highly recommended. That's how I got in touch with you. Somebody dropped your name as someone that needs to be on my podcast. So I'm so happy you said yes. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. And um, Michelle, please hang tight in the podcast room. If you guys are watching this live or the recording, go make the world better with great care. And we'll talk to you soon. Okay, there it is, our amazing community. We are so pleased to bring you another great episode of the Staffless Practice Podcast. Now, go make the world better with great care.