Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: Welcome to interviews by The SMART Chiropractor. This show is where Dr. Jason Deitch and myself, Jeff Langmaid, give you a front row seat to our conversations with the current influencers, future leaders and fantastic people involved in our profession. Hey Docs Welcome to the The SMART Chiropractor Show. In our featured guest segment today, we’re sitting down with somebody that I met a little while back that has been doing fantastic things not only in practice but online. Dr. Rebecca Deyo of Better Doctor Project Podcast. Thanks for taking some time and chatting with us today.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: Better Doctor Project I want to pick it up right there. You are the first doctor we’ve talked to this year that has a focus in the podcast niche, and I think that’s an area where we’re going to dive deep today before we get into the specific podcast. How did you think about getting started? It seems daunting with technology. Some docs think think they should have a podcast but don’t know where to get started. You took action. How did it all begin?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: So to be honest, I have this huge obsession with challenge and I was just kind of at a place where I wanted to learn a new skill. I wanted to do something that was outside of my realm. And podcasting has been growing like crazy over the last couple of years. You know this very well because you have several great podcasts, and at the time I had this idea of Better Doctor Project in my head. I knew I wanted to communicate with students, young docs, seasoned docs about topics that are just really challenging and difficult. They actually got to the point where I was getting emails, texts, Facebook messages at least once or twice a week from all kinds of providers out there. Hey, I know you did some work at the VA. How do I handle this situation? Or Hey, I’ve heard through the grapevine that you deal a lot with X, Y, Z type of patient. How do I do this? And after repeating myself over and over and over again, I realized I think I could better help people by just throwing it all out there on the Internet. So podcasting was just the platform of choice, mostly because of opportunity and because I was just dying to learn something new.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: To be honest, I feel like I’m still learning every single day, every single week. I’m sure you’re the same way just because the Internet changes very fast. But I want to give a lot of my credit to Pat Flynn. So Pat Flynn is a mastermind on the Internet and he is the owner, and I don’t even know what his title is, but he basically runs the Smart Passive Income Podcast, which is also a company, and he created a podcast school called Power Up Podcasting, and I’ve done a lot of his work. He has several courses online and he’s incredible and I listen to his podcast regularly. He’s extremely inspirational. I’m still learning from him and I highly recommend him to anyone who’s even remotely considering creating a podcast. Follow other podcasts that you really like and you enjoy their style. That was you for me. Dr. Langmaid I listen to you all the time and I loved how easy and straightforward your episodes were to listen to and to be able to model off of like minded podcasts and to follow somebody like Pat Flynn. It was it was a great place to start for me.

Dr. Jason Deitch: That is an awesome story. I got lots of questions like, What’d you do at the VA and all that. But what I really want to focus on, on this episode specifically is, you know, our goal is to help chiropractors really see what’s possible. Most chiropractors don’t run for the challenge and try to take on new skills and make time to become a beginner again and start from scratch. How’s it going? Most chiropractors kind of go well, how do I know it’s going to work? If I’m going to make the time, I’m going to make the investment. I got to make sure that there’s going to be a good return on investment. But I think, you know, I know we know that typically these projects take some time to take off. You’ve got to get good at it. You’ve got to get it right. I don’t know anybody who’s done their best work on their first try or their first episode. What has it been like for you? Have you been building an audience? What kind of feedback have you been getting and why are you doing it? Sort of what are you what are you getting out of? What benefit are you getting out of doing this type of project?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: So I think the most important part, whether it’s a podcast or any other kind of platform or business idea, I think you really have to be honest with yourself and figure out why you want to do it so personally. For me, it was never supposed to become what it’s becoming. It was honestly just supposed to be a hobby podcast and I just wanted to put things out there so that when people reached out to me, I could say, Hey, go listen to episode 26. So personally, where I started is very different from where I am right now. So I started recording episodes. Each season is a bit different, but I knew my primary goal was to help chiropractors, but also merge other health care providers with that. So if you look at my episodes, I’ve had orthopedic specialists on there physical therapists, nurses, medical physicians, people who work in hospitals, people who work in private practice. Obviously, I’ve had tons of chiropractors on there. But my primary goal, I knew I specifically wanted to bring everyone together because with my work at the VA, that’s when I learned how important integrative care is. I know I learned tons of things from the medical professionals that I was working with at the time, and they learned a lot from me and I was just there as a student on a clerkship, and I was literally educating nurse practitioners and medical physicians about how to do a basic lumbar exam. And that’s when I realized there’s so much we can all learn from one another. What better way to have it all together on a platform for people to come and go as they choose? And I think the most rewarding thing about that is seeing, seeing my work shared, helping other people that I might not even know personally.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: I’ve had so many people reached out. You know, my my friend in California was struggling with this in practice, and I sent them this episode and they reached out to me and told me that they’ve been able to improve their patient communication. And I think I just get a personal joy from it. We have been trying to remember we technically buried the idea, I believe, in 2019, started recording and just kind of dabbling through that first year. And now we’ve grown quite a bit. I like to work in advance, so we’ll record several episodes, have them all ready to go, and then we actually post every couple of weeks. And I think the biggest thing now is my Hobby podcast is turning into a lot of opportunity, especially the medical professionals that are getting involved. I’ve received a lot of offers for people who want to partner with me too. Podcast networks have reached out to me to join them. I have two books that are probably going to be released in the near future, and there are just things that are happening that I never expected. So I think when those new things arrive, it’s important to realize, okay, did I reach the goals that I initially set out to reach? But am I realizing what this could potentially be in the future? Most things have the ability to monetize, of course, but you want to make sure you’re not losing sight of the primary goal. For me, again, it’s just helping people wherever they’re at in practice and then merging medical with Chiro.

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: That’s fantastic. We have a saying results follow actions and you’re a testament to it with your story of taking action, you know, dabbling a little bit, figuring it out, following people that you thought could lead you down that path. And then what do you know? You know, opportunity knocks once you start taking action. And that’s such a powerful story for so many docs out there. When you first started getting going in the podcast realm, do you were you doing everything yourself? Do you outsource everything? I know the technical challenges can intimidate some of the docs out there, and any time you’re learning something new, it is challenging. Do you outsource the production of the podcast or do you post and record yourself? How do you manage each side of that coin?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: So my other goal was I wanted to make sure this stayed relatively fun, right? So I didn’t want to be stressed out. I didn’t want this to become a job. We have jobs. I didn’t want to have that negative connotation on top of this project. So I personally do right now all of the work on my own. But I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to publish daily or weekly if I did it that way. So that’s the primary reason I decided to have an episode come out every other Tuesday instead of every Tuesday or every day. So again, what I like to publish every day, absolutely. But I had to kind of come to the realization of where my life is at. I also had my first child, it’ll be a year ago next week, so I had to factor that in as well. You know, what am I capable of doing? What will still bring me joy? That being said, I plan on those things to change over time. You know, like I said, I’ve been speaking with a couple of podcast networks.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: If I do transition into that role, all of my production will be taken care of and then I will solely be in charge of mostly creation and interviewing. So I think it’s important to have an idea of where you want help and where you do feel strong. I know I just want to learn as much as possible. So right now, doing it all on my own, it’s okay. I feel like I try to learn something new every week in the podcasting world, but it would be great to get to a point where I could have more help. And I think it’s important to capitalize on people’s strengths and weaknesses. So personally, one idea in the future is to maybe have another guest host who maybe is a medical physician and maybe male. So it’s very a different perspective than myself. Maybe in the future I should have a panel on some of my episodes and the possibilities are endless. But I think as long as you determine where your strengths and weaknesses are, you can better add people to your cohort.

Dr. Jason Deitch: It sounds like you are having fun. You’re going into this very deliberately. You know yourself well what you’re willing to do, not willing to do. You’re not trying to be overzealous and try to take on too much and stress yourself out and obviously sort of self sabotage the whole thing. Kudos to you for all of that. How do you get people to listen? How do you get people to follow? How important is that for you? As I’m sort of listening to you, a lot of the benefit of the project is not necessarily to get more new patients tomorrow, but to learn and to build relationships and connections and sort of be more of a magnet attracting people to you as opposed to always pushing your agenda on others. One. Am I getting that right? And to what do people need to know about that approach?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: Yeah, you definitely are getting that right. So personally, I’ve been very fortunate and both of my associate ships, I was able to double, if not more, each practice that I’ve been a part of. And I think the real reason I’ve been able to do that is because of my ability to foster relationships with my patients. Even if I see a patient there are new patient, I might maybe have 6 to 8 visits with them and all of a sudden they’re great. I’m able to let that patient know long term. They always have a place to come back to. And I think that’s more important to me personally than having 100 new patients. You know, I’d rather have ten great ones instead of 100 that will never come back to me because I wasn’t ethical or I wasn’t honest or I wasn’t personable. So personally, that’s just the way I love to build my practice. I love to get people better as fast as I can and let them know that whenever they need me, I’m there for them. And it’s been wondrous in practice and I cannot speak highly enough of that. So my goal is for other providers to find their strengths with communication and realize where they may be falling short. So personally, where I fell short was my ability to use layman’s terms instead of medical terminology, or to realize that not everyone had the same personality type as me, and I needed to learn about what other people were like to better reach them. That was the hardest thing for me when I switched from school to practice and I learned that the most while also being at the VA because I have nothing in common with a US veteran, literally nothing.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: And so being in that environment, I learned very quickly how to relate to someone very different than me. You know, things that they like, things that they don’t like. And it’s important to build a relationship that way, and it’s been a blessing in practice. So to get followers and listeners on our podcast, honestly, Instagram has been huge, but it’s honestly word of mouth, which is the same way I get most of my patients. Ironically enough, just people having common struggles and a lot our podcasts are getting shared a lot at universities, so they’re being incorporated in lectures during certain classes. They’re getting brought up at, for example, some conferences and seminars and things like that. So another one of my big goals long term is for that to be a regular thing. I want to start public speaking at these events. I want to make sure that my work is definitely being explored throughout curriculums. And goal would be to start changing the curriculums of a lot of these schools. Make sure that we are showing these students how to improve patient communication instead of just saying good luck when they graduate. Obviously, the didactic part of our learning and training is so important, but we’re just missing a critical piece and I would love this podcast and Better Doctor Project as a whole to inspire these changes in the universities.

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: I think you are well on your way. How do you stay consistent? You know, getting out there in 2019, dabbling, becoming more consistent into 2020, 2021, as we roll through into 2022, what are maybe the strategies that you use to be able to stay consistent with content production because so many docs out there struggle with it?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: Yeah, the number one gold standard for me is using a database system, so I’m not sure what you guys use, but personally I love air table. It is a database where you can input information and it creates just beautiful works for you, like visual concepts of what you’re trying to accomplish with social media, with content production, a calendar for your for your podcast episodes. So my air table is just a massive, massive group of information. And it’s so helpful because it keeps me in line. I have it set up in a way where if I have a busy week and I’m unable to work on the podcast, I can pick up right where I left off. I don’t have Post-it notes all over my office. It’s just all concise in one location, so I highly recommend Ear Table. There are a few others out there that are very popular, most notably Mondaq.com. A lot of people have heard about them, so I recommend them. You can get templates for content production. I personally made my own to kind of tailor it to exactly what I wanted, but that’s what I recommend.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: What a lot of people don’t realize is there are a lot of automated processes out there. So personally I use scheduled emails, scheduled communication services to make sure that everything is very streamlined. And it’s ironic because it takes away half my work. So I have emails going out and I don’t even know what’s happening and they’re just scheduling people for me. I use Calendar, which is a scheduling service as well for everything. It automatically puts my meetings and interviews in my agenda, in my planner. I use a digital agenda called Artful Agenda, and that has been life changing because it syncs with it syncs with my Google calendar, it syncs with iCal, it’s syncs with Zoom, it syncs with everything. So I think making I always say work smarter, not harder. And that has been really, really effective for the podcast because I’m able to do so much more and still spend time with my family, still be very, very busy and practice. I think when you lose that everything becomes a chore and you lose a lot of passion for it. So automated services for the when.

Dr. Jason Deitch: You are speaking our language, obviously we at The SMART Chiropractor would fully agree to work smarter, not harder. Right on. We’re drinking your Kool-Aid. I don’t know. Maybe you’re drinking hours or whatever. Cheers. To cheers to automation. Yeah. So I want you. I’m just. I want you to think out loud with us about how you came to the conclusion of wanting to help doctors and just your thought process. And why not go to the public directly and help? I think chiropractors are probably trying to figure out, well, how are you getting more new patients? By talking professional to professional and not necessarily to patients or potential patients or just people in general. Help break that down. Why did you decide that? Obviously, you’re still very young relative to those that have been around for many, many decades. How did that become your passion to want to help other chiropractors and and help connect the dots as to how that’s actually building your practice?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: Well, honestly, I think it stems from my childhood. My dad’s actually a chiropractor and there are ten chiropractors in my family total. I married one, so we got an extra one out of that deal. So my dad growing up, he was very integrative in his mindset and that was less common back then. I think he graduated in the early to mid eighties or so from Palmer Davenport, and so growing up I always saw him working with other docs. I always saw him letting students shadow. I always saw him helping other people when it wasn’t even convenient for him to do so. And so watching him do that, seeing how successful he was in practice, to me it was just you can’t have one or the other. You have to do both. He had tons of students go through and become chiropractors themselves, come back and help him with other projects. It was like this reciprocal partnership that was effortless, you know, when you’re really helping people because you want to just genuinely help them, they will help you in return. And it’s just easy. I mean, I don’t know how else to describe it, but even while I interview medical professionals, I’ve been able to figure out we have mutual patients. I’m learning that they know so-and-so who lives in California that I went to school with in Iowa. It’s a small world, even outside of chiropractic is what I’m learning. For example, last week I had someone on an interview who lives in Pennsylvania. She’s actually she’s an influencer on Instagram, not a health care provider. And when I was interviewing her, she actually ended up needing a chiropractor because she’s having post-COVID issues with her musculoskeletal system.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: So she was telling me all about her back pain. I ended up hooking her up with a chiropractor. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, through the forward thinking Chiropractic alliance. I mean, possibilities are literally endless. So I think for me, learning and meeting as many people as I can, it just creates these opportunities you would never think otherwise of, whether that’s health care related, just simply fostering a friendship, being colleagues in a space where you promote each other and grow together. And when your patients see you doing these things, they’re automatically interested. You know my patients, sure. I mean, they know I have a podcast, they know that I’m active with politics, they know that I’m doing this, this and that. And they will literally tell me all of the time how much they love that, to know that I’m passionate about what I do. We can all just show up and see our patients and that’s fine. But patients will be able to tell every single day if you’re in it for the right reasons, they can tell that you’re truly passionate about what you do. And that for me, I think, is another way I’ve been able to grow the podcast and grow my practice at the same time. They’re they’re totally separate entities, but they go together so well. So even though on my episodes, I’m not obviously trying to get new patients, I think because the podcast fires me up every single time I interview that same passion I can take with me to practice every single day.

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: Leading the way you do is awesome. Congratulations on the success of the podcast. On taking action. I know we’ve been following what you’ve been up to and it’s definitely inspirational and it’s something that many docs, hopefully with this interview stimulate that thought maybe they’re taking action because of it, the docs listening, where can they where’s the easiest place for them to learn more and subscribe?

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: Honestly, the easiest place wherever you get your podcasts. Better Doctor Project is the name. We’re also on Instagram at Better Doctor Project. We do have a website Better Doctor Project. You can literally find us anywhere. Feel free to reach out to me if you literally need anything. You can tell that my number one passion is just communication and helping others. So I’m always a text away and email away. I love helping people out wherever stage they are in practice, so feel free to reach out to me with any questions.

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: Awesome. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for coming on. On behalf of Dr. Jason and the entire smart chiropractor team. We’ll talk to you very soon. Thank you.

Dr. Rebecca Deyo: Thanks.

Dr. Jeff Langmaid: Thank you for listening to interviews by The SMART Chiropractor. Join us again next week for another episode and leave us a review when you have a moment. This episode has been brought to you by The SMART Chiropractor The SMART Chiropractor can deliver more new patients, better retention and more consistent re activations to your practice without spending any money on paid advertising. Learn more and get started today at The SMART Chiropractor dot com.