What Business Success Looks Like in 2021 [ Ep #172]

In this episode, I am going to break down what businesses must do to remain relevant and open in 2021. Stay tuned. Hey! It’s Andrea here and this is episode 172 if you can believe it and this was inspired by a podcast episode that I just recently did on Dr. Megan Walker’s podcast The Anthropology podcast and she always is just such a great host and asked really awesome questions and has perfect insight and one of the questions she asked was What is it going to look like for business owners in 2021? 

And at first, I really wasn’t sure how to answer that because there are so many things that really don’t change from year to year like getting your system in place, getting things automated. This is the big reason why I wanted to create The Maximize Practitioner Program which we just launched last year to walk you through the pillars of building that confidence, getting in front of people, putting yourself out there on one or maybe two social media platforms. All of those things don’t really change so when she asked that question I was kind of like, well, I don’t really know what 2021 is going to look like any different than any other year but it is different and I love what she said, and she said 2020 showed everyone and if you weren’t paying attention you clearly missed the message that if you are not merging your practice online if you are not tripling down on social media you will most likely have a huge struggle ahead of you staying in business and staying relevant and keeping that consistent flow of new patients coming into you. Because 2020 more than any other year we’ve ever experienced was completely virtual. Everyone was now connecting virtually. Everyone started to launch things virtually. Zoom increased 600 percent this year with regard to their revenues, probably one of the biggest spikes in revenue growth of anyone in 2020 I would say. Zoom clearly won The Pandemic Awards for a business that really offered people what they needed in a crisis and that is exactly why we also created our 3-step framework video training about how you can merge your practice online. I work in a brick and mortar and I still have my brick and mortar’s running but I would say now we are closer to 30 percent virtual visits and we are still trying to train our patients to use the virtual platform. I also did an entire podcast on how we almost 40x our Facebook ad spend during the end of an insurance year for teachers in our area. A lot of those teachers opted in with us, were 100 percent virtual, and will remain virtual patients at the office.

So for 2021, for you to remain relevant. For you to not be a statistic of businesses that are closing. For you to not only maintain the growth and revenue that you’ve had already but actually continue to grow virtual is where it is at and I have always taken that stance that I don’t think you need to go 100 percent virtual. I don’t think you have to abandon your brick and mortar that exactly our video training is all about. But, you do need to get over the fear or the discomfort or the dislike of social media and become very much best friends with it and that is exactly what we have been doing inside our business is leaning into Facebook ads this year more than we’ve ever had. Doing more virtual training than we ever have. I’m showing up and doing more lives even if they’re just 5 minutes longer than I ever have and it is a sense of discomfort for me, too. It is not the type of lifestyle that I have easily adopted where I’m kind of tethered to my phone, I need to show my community what it is that I’m doing at any given time. It isn’t me. But, that’s also the old way of running a business and I have to adapt to what the expectations are of 2021. I have to get over myself. I have to get over my ego. I have to get over the fear of making a mistake on social media. I have to get over the fear of saying something that might puter someone. I have to get over the fear of having trolls troll me which happens. It already happened and I know that is a huge source and a huge objection for a lot of you listening to use social media is, you know, you haven’t developed that armor yet to protect you against people that don’t agree with what you’re saying or uneducated people that say things that aren’t what you are trying to get across but they just have to put their opinions out there and their not going to work with you ever anyway so don’t even give them a second thought. But, even we are doubling down tripling down on social media and it isn’t easy. It’s not easy for me but it does become a lot more fun once you get a handle on it. 

Once you find a unique way to help your community and I’m giving you this morning now because you should start stepping into the ring this year so that next year it is way easier. And yes! There are a lot of you that will continue to have 100 percent in office only visits but I don’t want you to think that just because that is the way that you’ve always done things because that’s the way they taught in school that limits you to adapt to a new way of running your business. To be ahead of the curve compared to everybody else in your industry. There are people that are doing it. There are ways of merging your practice online. There are ways of using online to make income whether that be an educational online course that you offer, whether that be paid training so you could do paid webinars, a paid Facebook group for you to offer things that’s kind of along membership level. These are all options. People are doing them, but you can’t half-fast it. You can’t just have every once in a while show up online, make a couple of dollars and then not do it again. You do need to say this is going to be clearly part of the system that we are now offering. 

Just like us, we are doing a live webinar training every single month. I am trying to do a 5 minute live whenever the inspiration comes to me so I don’t warn people when I’m going live. I don’t have a particular time except for Fridays at noon that is the only consistent time I show up on our Facebook page all the other ones are totally random, totally when I get a second but I can always hear my brain talking me out of it saying “Oh no! Just chill tonight. Don’t worry about it, no one’s going to show up anyway when you go live don’t worry about it don’t do it, don’t do it.” and I have now trained myself when I hear that ego talking when I hear that subconscious talking trying to keep me safe and staying small. I’m always just like “No, shut up!” I’m doing it and then I just turn my camera on and lo and behold ten minutes go by and I have just now accomplished my goal. There are tactics that you can use. There are courses that you can use. There are agencies that you can use to help you figure the social media strategy piece out but I encourage you to just show up for your audience, just show up for the algorithm of the platform that you are using. In Instagram right now Reels are where it is at and posting reels every day or every other day is going to help you stay on top of everybody else who isn’t doing it. IGTV is also very huge and now you can start organizing your videos into series so every time you do a live show you just add it to your IGTV series or IGTV channel and you’re good to go. If you do a Facebook live that will always stay on your feed, you can download it and repurpose that information in other places

The other part of this. So yes, showing up organically, showing up live doing those things is very very very important and people have built seven-figure businesses off of just doing a vlog basically. They were not saying anything impactful. They were not saying anything inspirational, they were just being authentic, they were just showing people into their world. They were just being there. Being a break from the day to day and having a conversation with people and sharing what was going on with them. People have made seven-figure businesses off of doing that and I think that is more apparent now than ever that we can and of course the first thing is What am I going to say? What am I going to talk about? As I said most people don’t watch a video much longer than a minute so even if you just committed to doing a sixty-second little sound byte of something that was inspirational you’re out for a walk and you just want to talk about the importance of movement. You know, you’ve been crushing out a new workout routine let us know what that’s all about, your kids are driving you crazy, comments on what is like balancing a business and being a mom just let us into your world, and honestly sixty seconds is more than enough.

What I will also say though is organic reach is also getting harder because everyone is going virtual. Because 2021 shows us that jumping into the social media puddle and getting your feet insanely wet is where your business needs to go. But organic reach is going to become a struggle and this is where you also have to lean in into running ads. Now, in our program The Maximize Practitioner Program, we teach our people all about setting up engagement ads that kind of walk people through a bit of a funnel so you have your top pieces of content sixty minutes, two-minute pieces of content, three-minute pieces of content at the top then we create an audience of all of those videos that you created to now funnel people into more of your clinic side of things. So, what are some services that you offer, lab tests that you offer, what does the walkthrough look like at your office? All of those happen once people watch that initial piece of content and then finally we bring them into a booking link page or a direct video saying “ Hey! Book in with me you’ve gotten to know me a little bit more.” and this is the type of engagement that people are looking for where they get to know and trust someone before they actually take that leap. And so, in The Maximize Practitioner Program, we show our students how to set-up that type of funnel where they’re spending maybe five dollars a day which may sound a lot but I’m sure you’re spending more than that on coffee or food or any sort of luxury item that you can think of. You know they always say where did all my money go either I ate it or I’m wearing it, it’s so true. Maybe we can minimize that spending and really start focusing on what we can do to grow your business and even at five dollars a day so five times 30 is a hundred and fifty dollars, even if you get one new patient a month by that strategy it should pay for itself, right? And remember the initial investment of any patient really doesn’t matter. It’s the lifetime spent that they have with you once they enter into your world, into your ecosystem. So a hundred fifty dollars could now be quadrupled within a couple of months depending on how often their visits are or what other upsell items that they have.

But failure to jump also into restarting to run Facebook ads and Instagram ads just as engagement posts are also going to keep you struggling. It’s going to make social media harder because no one is seeing your information. This is all kind of part of the game and this is a huge heads up for you. You’ve got a couple of months left of 2020 to start dabbling in this and start showing up and starting play around with low-cost Facebook ads or better yet reach out to me and we can see if The Maximize Practitioner Program is a good fit for you when we reopen enrollment and you can kind of not do it on your own just follow our exact strategy. But, I don’t want to see anybody closing their doors anymore. I don’t want anyone to also be kind of on that tipping point of “well, if something were to happen it’s out of my control and my business will go under because of that. I’ve got no back-up plan.” We don’t want our eggs in one basket and I did an entire episode on that already. So, listen to my words and be brave and take courageous action and start stepping outside of your comfort zone and do the things that make you uncomfortable but its that level of discomfort that will always bring on more personal growth and therefore business growth and you will see a huge difference in what your 2021 clinic year or practice year looks like versus any other year and the best part is, is once you do implement this strategy I can almost guarantee you that your business is also going to be around a heck of a lot longer than people who don’t. Then people who are constantly in the old way of doing things and staying in their comfort zone that way 2020 was a huge wake-up call. If you weren’t listening it’s going to be a problem. It may not be instant but things will start to fizzle out and the stress will start to mount and the worry will definitely be there and it will be absolutely valid. 

So lean into what 2020 has shown us and really double or triple down on your social media presence on using Facebook ads strategy, on using the engagement ads strategy that we kind of alluded to, and of course don’t do it alone. There’s no reason why you have to do all of this alone, learn it on your own or spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on multiple different courses when we have the strategy. We can help you. My team can help you. We can even set it all up for you as an elite implementer level member.

First thing first though, what I want you to do now downloads our Maximize Practitioner Program handbook which walks you through all the pillars and sets your foundation up to be rock solid regardless of the climate. Then, I want you to go watch my three-step framework to merge your practice online video training which is also found on our website www.maximizewebsite.ca as well as the link tree link in my Instagram @andreamaximMD. I wish you all the best of luck in 2021 and I cannot wait to see the growth and the level of confidence you gain by doing this just by offering your tribe, offering your community, and extra five minutes of your time on social media. I’m Andrea Maxim and I’m out