TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Our Experience for Your Use
This website was created created and co-founded by us – Sarah Breymeier and Ann Dosen.
Both of us have spent nearly ten years in the podiatry industry, attending dozens upon dozens of podiatric meetings and trade shows.
Therefore, we want to put our experience to good use!
Below are some helpful “tricks of the trade” from us to you… enjoy!
GOOD ADVICE – PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
No matter if you work in the podiatric profession as physician, vendor, or meeting organizer/planner, utilizing the tips and resources supplied below will serve you well!
Increase your Productivity and Without Getting Overwhelmed.
I read this book cover to cover in just a couple of days. It’s been a few years since I read it, but it always stands out as one that I recommend to anyone that wants to continue to achieve. Whether you own a small business (like a podiatry practice or a device company), it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the things you should be doing.
The Slight Edge provides practical/doable advice to help you set your goals and break down the activities that must take place to achieve those goals – step by step. By doing a little bit every single day, you will see big changes over time. There’s no need to do everything in one day, one week, one month, or even one year.
Do one action item every single day and the result will show itself!
-SARAH
Every day I listen to at least one podcast episode while I’m driving or working out to give me inspiration for the day. There are days when I wake up and don’t want to do a single thing other than catch up on episodes of Outlander, but after listening to one of these podcasts, I know I can take over the world! No matter what your daily life brings you, every single person on the planet will get something out of listening to these individuals.
John Maxwell Leadership Podcast – a weekly podcast from the leadership authority John Maxwell. This podcast focuses on the principles, practices, and process of becoming a transformational leader. Even if leadership is not one of your primary goals, the principles translate to any project or position you are in. I always come away with new motivation or a fresh outlook on a current project. Each episode comes with a downloadable resource to work through.
Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield – Amy Porterfield is considered the GIANT in the online marketing space. She is so inspiring to listen to. Her episodes include expert interviews, mini execution plans, and secrets from her product and service launches; all tied together by her mission to make each episode as actionable and profitable as possible. Every episode I listen to of hers gets me thinking about the next big thing I want us to tackle. Her advice is tangible and for real life.
Rise Podcast with Rachel Hollis – hosted by the best-selling author of “Girl, Wash Your Face”, this podcast is a series of conversations with business powerhouses and personal development leaders where each episode provides listeners with tactical, valuable takeaways.
-ANN
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Tips for DPMs
CHECK OUT OUR LIBRARY OF DPM DOWNLOADS – CLICK HERE!
LET THE LITERATURE LEAD, What I Learned from My MLM Experience
Say what you want about multi-level marketing programs (or as most people refer to them, the dreaded PYRAMID SCHEME!). Granted, it's unlikely I would ever get involved in one again (I had my first and last experience in 2014), but there were a lot of "crash course" business lessons learned. One of them is a semi-extension of an article I shared last month: (click to read it) Collateral Damage: Get Rid of Those Printed Materials Those who invest into an MLM program, very often have zero sales experience. The creators of these programs know that; they know they have a [...]
THE NEXT 30 DAYS, Maximize Each Day of Foot Health Awareness Month
Be honest - are you ready for the month that's made for you?!! Obviously I'm talking about FOOT HEALTH AWARNESS MONTH. Every year, I urge DPMs to use the 90 days (January - March) to plan an epic marketing/communications/awareness campaign to launch on April 1. 90 days may seem like a lot of time to put a plan together, yet I fail to see many practices utilize this time to make something happen. Trust me, I'm not scolding anyone for finding it difficult to find time to plot a 30-day strategic communications campaign; let's be real, I write this newsletter [...]
Collateral Damage: Get Rid of Those Printed Materials
One of my favorite things to (teasingly) make fun of, especially at conferences / exhibit halls because it's so prevalent, are the individuals that freak out when they think they're going to waste their collateral materials. Oh no!!! I printed those materials for everyone to see, but I don't want you to take any!! If you're not familiar with "collateral", it's simply a marketing term for communication materials.... flyers, brochures, postcards, hand-outs, etc. GET IT OUT OF YOUR OFFICE AND INTO YOUR PATIENTS' HANDS!! I've seen physicians spend thousands of dollars on materials that they never want to let go [...]
Reruns Are a Good Thing
You Heard It Before... But Now It Means Something Else If you are a creature of habit (like we all are) you probably go to many of the same meetings each year. No agenda is ever copied & pasted from year to year, but when you continue to hit the same events, you will likely start to hear some recycled lectures. That's not always a bad thing! I was reminded of this when I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts (The Daily Stoic with Ryan Holliday) and he was discussing "Meditations" from Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. "Meditations" [...]
Results with Rapport: The Art of “Mirroring” to Enhance Relationships and Revenue
REPORT TALK vs. RAPPORT TALK You've likely been a part of a practice management and/or marketing presentation discussing how to build a rapport with your patient base. The first time I had given any attention to rapport was in graduate school and understanding the communication theory presented by Dr. Debra Tannen, a professor at Georgetown University and focuses on a term called: genderlects. Ultimately Dr. Tannen describes how males tend to communicate with report talk (transactional and without the need to share anything other than information for the sake of gathering and giving information) and females communicate with rapport [...]
Become a Brand Champion
Having worked with various podiatric providers (from orthoses and lasers to AFOs and emollients), I've come to understand how certain products can become the basis of a thriving podiatry practice; products that the DPM relies on daily to provide optimal care. So, what I wonder is - do they know? Have you taken the time to let your provider(s) know just how critical their products and/or services are to your practice success? They may know simply by the recurring orders, right? But why not take it a step further? Consider becoming a BRAND CHAMPION. Ultimately what this means is taking [...]
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Ideas for Meeting Planners
ARTICLES WORTH SHARING; MARKETING EQUALS ATTENDANCE
Achieving consistent growth in meeting attendance gets more challenging year after year. We've discussed in past newsletters the factors that play into these statistics, but knowing why doesn't change the facts. We just need to be able to adapt and make decisions based on the data. One thing that continues to surprise me, is when meetings tend to do less marketing in order to save dollars, and then are astonished when attendance is down. Well - there's a reason why marketing professionals stay in business. Meeting Marketing = Higher Attendance. Plain and Simple. So if you're looking to cut costs, [...]
ARTICLES WORTH SHARING; UPDATE YOUR EVENT EVAL?
When Ann and I launched podiatrymeetings.com, the initial concept was to create an unbiased source of meeting feedback from both DPMs and exhibitors so we would be better educated in choosing the "right" meetings for continued education and company growth. Hence, we love a strong survey. In the article shared below, it provides some useful tips for your event evaluation. If it's been a hot minute since you last updated your post-event questionnaire take some time to review the article below and determine if yours needs some polishing. 29 Survey Questions for Reliable Event Feedback https://www.meetingsnet.com/event-design-ideas/29-survey-questions-reliable-event-feedback Thoughts? Questions? Email Me! [...]
VIRTUAL SABOTAGE; LACK OF ATTENDEE APPRECIATION
Last month I shared an article with you: HCPs Weigh In on What Draws Them to Conferences https://www.meetingsnet.com/medical-pharma-meetings/hcps-weigh-what-draws-them-conferences It still continues to evoke areas that are worthy of discussion. I was particularly interested in the statistics regarding online continued education vs. in-person. What was found is that when it comes to the education portion of a meeting, online learning is preferred. "Specifically, 37 percent say they mostly or always watch sessions on demand, 32 percent say they watch live and on-demand about equally, and just 23 percent say they watch all or most sessions live. As a result, HCPs overwhelmingly [...]
THROUGH THE YEARS; UTILIZING NOSTALGIA MARKETING
Nostalgia; everybody loves it! An article in techtarget.com describes Nostalgia Marketing as: "In marketing, tapping into nostalgia means associating a product, service or brand with memories from the past to establish an emotional bond." If you're looking for a unique idea to add to your next meeting/event, consider something that creates an emotional bond between both the attendees and the vendors who have been coming to your meeting for years. This is an extremely cost-effective way to create meaningful engagement to your event. What I'm suggesting is some sort of display that showcases pictures of your meeting throughout the years. [...]
ARTICLES WORTH SHARING; GET THEM ON SITE AND AWAY FROM THEIR SCREENS
We can't say it enough... and we all know it... 2020 changed everything. Online learning, while always available, became standard and the benefits have stuck with DPMs. However, we know that when attendees experience a meeting in person, they are engaged in a much richer experience. As we continue to strive to find the magic formula to make an event a perfect combination of ideal results for both attendes and exhibitors, I found a recent article that helped to pinpoint many of the issues/aspects that go into modern meeting planning consideration. The portion of the article below that I found [...]
ARTICLES WORTH SHARING; WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH POSTERS?
I'm going to be 100% honest... the poster area of an exhibit hall is one that I just don't have much to say about. The only thing I can say I know about the posters is that most exhibitors find no value in being near them. I'm going to cut myself a little bit of slack for being in the dark about this conference staple, though, after reading this statement from the article I am sharing below: "With medical conferences having so many moving parts, it’s understandable that something as basic as poster creation might not command much attention from [...]