Tristan Bond has a background in Physiotherapy and runs a business coaching company that helps healthcare business owners find success through his Practice Acceleration Method, a step-by-step process for marketing, management and business systems that will help you double your profits while building a practice that doesn’t depend solely on you.
Listen to this informative Publish Promote Profit episode with Tristan Bond about growing healthcare businesses with a book.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
How all businesses are based on three principles: clientele, method, framework.
How the same principles used to get a body healthy can be applied to business.
Why it’s important to create a system to train new employees effectively.
How many doctors are burnt out and need to gain some of their freedom back.
Why adding more leads to the system isn’t smart if you’re already feeling overwhelmed.
Connect with Tristan:
Links Mentioned:
thepracticeaccelerationmethod.com
Guest Contact Info:
Facebook
facebook.com/practiceacceleration
Rob Kosberg:
Welcome everybody. Rob Kosberg here to another episode of the Publish Promote Profit Podcast. I’m here with a great friend, and somebody I think you’re going to learn a great deal from, Mr. Tristan Bond, all the way from Australia. Tristan has a background in physiotherapy and runs a business coaching company that helps healthcare business owners find success through his Practice Acceleration Method, which is also the title of his bestselling book.
The Practice Acceleration Method is a step by step process for marketing, management, and business systems that will help you double your profits while building a practice that doesn’t depend solely on you. So, we’ll be talking a great deal about that. Tristan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being with us today, brother.
Tristan Bond:
Rob, thank you for having me. Anytime I get to hang out with you, I’m having a good time. And anytime I’m talking about business in your company, I’m having an especially good time. So, I’m really happy to be here.
Rob Kosberg:
Thank you, my friend. I feel the same way, and we’ve already had a great chat about all the things that we love, like cars, and watches, and business.
Tristan Bond:
Exactly.
Rob Kosberg:
So great. Let’s dive right in. Obviously, you wrote a fantastic book that has done really well.
Tristan Bond:
Thank you.
Rob Kosberg:
The Practice Acceleration Method. Tell us a little bit about that book, your methodology. Maybe even give us the steps for the person you help, and how your steps can kind of do the things that you share. Doubling profits and helping doctors, physios, etc. to build the practice they love.
Tristan Bond:
Fantastic. All right, great. So, I’m not sure exactly where to start, so I’m just going to start talking and see what comes out.
Rob Kosberg:
Do it, do it.
Tristan Bond:
So, I remember, I was having dinner with yourself and our friend Kevin Huddo one night over in LA, and you said, “I like your method, I think you need to put it into a book.” And then after I got past the fact that writing a book could be quite agonizing, it turned out to not be at all. I thought, “I better write this down, I better turn it and to actually put it onto paper.”
So, what we’ve done over the last 12 years of coaching is we’ve designed a very structured method for growing healthcare businesses. So, if you think about this, like I always say to my clients who are physical therapists, chiropractors, podiatrists, they’re in healthcare. Allied health, typically. And they have a clinical reasoning method to assess a patient. A patient comes in, there’s a real process to find out what’s going on with them in terms of conversation, then objective examinations, testing, and so on. Then they formulate a treatment solution, and they go through, and they help the patient.
So, what we’ve done is the same thing with the business. How do we actually diagnose these healthcare businesses, and then go well, if we’re diagnosing the symptomatic symptoms then objectively looking at the problems, how do we then provide the right prescription for our clients to then go to that next level in the right way?
So, for example, with a patient, a patient in, say, physical therapy or chiropractic might come through with pain, and their desire is let’s get out pain. Which is fine, but when you objectively examine that patient, you might find… Well, hang on, in order to get out of pain, we’re going to have to change A, B, and C and 1, 2, and 3 first. So, we’ve got a very structured way to do that. Much like a client comes to me, and they want to do better in business, which is like getting rid of the pain. We have to actually diagnose what’s the best order to do this so that we can get our clients to be more profitable and have a business that operates less dependent upon them and gives them not just the physical head space – we decrease their hours – but gives them the mental head space to actually better enjoy their business to the absolute fullest.
As a business operator yourself, I’m sure you can appreciate that as a business can become very overwhelming physically and mentally. So, our goal is to free our clients of that. And the way that we do that, we think about business overall. Your business, my business, any business for that matter, is based on really three principles. Firstly, we need to attract more of the clientele, of the customer. In my case, in my client’s case, the patients. Need to attract the patients to come through. You need to attract them in a way where they don’t want to see an individual practitioner, because that’s just going to create a bottleneck. Need to attract them to the brand, even if it is a personal brand, which other people work for that personal brand.
Secondly, we need to introduce the method around how do we sell to this person? Ethically, of course. We call that re-booking. We’re not actually doing a sales presentation; we’re actually doing more of a re-booking process.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
How do we re-book them appropriately into the best clinical outcome care?
And then finally, the third part of our methodology, the third framework, is around management and leadership. Once we’re attracting leads coming in, and we’re re-booking them to fill a list, how do we then scale that business up so we can continually hire more people, and manage them so that the business owner can still be stepping back, earning more income, but not having to be a revenue-generator themselves?
Now that said, a lot of my clients still love the clinical side. But they love it, because they’re able to do it at the level that they choose.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
It’s by choice. They don’t have to do it. They don’t do it for financial gain. They do it, because they genuinely love the contact. But the vast majority of their time is either free time, or it’s focused on growing their companies.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow. That’s sexy.
Tristan Bond:
And under each framework, there’s dozens of tactics and whatnot. So that’s where we do the diagnostics, too. What do you need, what do you have available to you as an asset, which one do we plug into to really help you grow really quick?
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. I love your clinical approach to it.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
And if I’m not mistaken, that is your background. Right?
Tristan Bond:
That’s correct.
Rob Kosberg:
So, it’s not as though you come into this field as somebody completely inexperienced, but you come with a rich kind of background of having your own clinic. Can you talk about that?
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, my background is physiotherapy, and for our Northern Hemisphere listeners, it’s physical therapy, for you guys, we’ve got a lot of U.S. and Canadian clients, as well. So, in my background, I only really got into physio because I was injured as a youngster. And I was 14, playing field hockey. And I couldn’t get back on the field, and at some point, in time, after going through these processes of not getting better, I was introduced to a physio. And I thought, “Wow. This guy’s amazing. He’s a miracle worker. I want to be able to do this when I get older.”
But let’s fast forward a number of years. I studied physiotherapy, and I started my first practice here in Adelaide, where I’m sitting right now. The practice I set up is maybe four kilometers from here, actually.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Tristan Bond:
So, I started that with using a lot of the principles that I teach inside my book. And at that point, it wasn’t a refined methodology at all. At that point, I was very interested in marketing. So, I had the marketing side, it was whirring around in my head. But I did not have any of the other things worked out by any stretch of the imagination.
So, I started that practice, and using my marketing, started to grow pretty quickly. I took a big risk to do it. I left another practice to do this, and I walked away from a partnership opportunity. I only had a year and a half experience, so I was lucky to be given that opportunity at such a young age. But I was pretty driven. And my dad owned an accounting firm. I knew that I wanted to be a business owner, regardless of what I did.
So, I pushed pretty hard with this practice for a number of years. But what I realized is I’d built a real bottleneck around myself. I’d created this business that was dependent on me for any number of different functions. And it was really strangling me, to be honest. And it was around this time that my dad had a stroke, as well. And I had this realization, and he owned his accounting firm, I was really mirroring what I’d learned from him. Environmentally and behaviorally, I was mirroring this workaholic lifestyle. And I decided, “That’s it. I can’t do this anymore.”
So, for that moment on, the next 12 months, I dedicated to, “That’s it. Things are going great. But this revenue, this profit. It’s dependent upon me. We take me out of the equation, we’re done. We’d break even, but that would be it.” So, I set about building a business that would be highly profitable, more profitable than it was at that point, without needing me to be involved in it at all.
So that was my next 12-month journey, which was very intense. Because to turn a company around from depending on one individual to not at all, that’s a lot of stuff. But that was it. That was my mission. I’m not having a stroke.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
I’m getting my life. So that’s when I did it. And I ended up selling that practice a couple years later. I let it run passively without me for some time. And then I saw a really great opportunity to sell to a buyer who was very keen to take it on, and we did handsomely out of that, because it was so systemized.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, so that’s kind of my journey within physiotherapy. And during that time, people started asking me for help with their practices, which I found weird. I thought well, here I am running my own journey, struggling in my mind. I didn’t realize other people would be doing it, too. Because we’re so insular.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
So, people started asking me for help, and I say, “All right, I’ll come have a look at your practice, and see if I can give you some tips.” And I started realizing that the things that I was doing by this point quite naturally, it was a different language to a lot of my friends and colleagues. And when I was able to help them and give them some tips, they were getting tremendous results, and they started offering to pay me, which I found very weird. We’re just chatting as buddies; you’re going to pay me for this?
And then the penny kind of dropped at some point. A consulting firm picked me up to work for them. I thought, “Wow, I can actually get paid to do this, and love it?” So shortly after that, I started my own brand. I thought, “I’m going to teach my method to people.” That’s kind of how it all started, bro.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it.
Tristan Bond:
That was 12 years ago now.
Rob Kosberg:
I don’t know. My story is very similar. I didn’t start out with the idea of ever having a publishing company or to help people write their books and do the marketing. But in much the same way, when I wrote my first book back in 2008, and the success of that, and in particular, the growth of my business during the 2008 financial crisis, really stunned a lot of people. And so, I had people, in the same way as you, coming to me. And this thing started organically.
So, I don’t know. I hear that, and I think to myself, “Wow, that’s the best way to have a business.”
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, I think so.
Rob Kosberg:
There’s an organic nature to it. And you could have chosen to do it or not to do it. You, of course, chose to do it. And obviously chose to do it because you love it, which is really pretty cool.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, exactly. And I still love it.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, I was catching up with a buddy last night. And this is totally off topic.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
One of the challenges I have now is I’ve got way too much free time. Which is great. I need to come over to Florida and hang out with you guys.
Rob Kosberg:
Absolutely.
Tristan Bond:
So, I’m struggling to find people that have free time to hang out with me.
Rob Kosberg:
Did you speak to Rob Nixon?
Tristan Bond:
I should, actually.
Rob Kosberg:
You should speak to Rob Nixon, because I just talked to him on Monday, and he said the exact same thing.
Tristan Bond:
Okay. Cool
Rob Kosberg:
He says, “I’m getting comfortable being bored.”
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, oh great.
Rob Kosberg:
Those were his words.
Tristan Bond:
Oh, I’ll have to chat with him. I’m a professional café hopper. I just jump around and read the paper and jump from café to café. And then I come back into the business and I’m tinkering with it, and wondering how can I add more value here? Because I have so much free time. But I’m really lucky. I love my clients, and I love my team. So, all of my energy now goes into developing my team. And whilst I’m not personally involved in the direct one to one coaching of my clients, we’ve got a methodology that operates entirely without me, it would be incongruent for me to set up a company that depends on me in terms of the delivery.
Rob Kosberg:
Right. 100%.
Tristan Bond:
So, where my time goes now, really, is in developing coaching modalities to train my team. And so, a lot of my time will go into training them one to one. And then I’m thinking, “Hang on. I don’t want this to depend on me at all.” So, we’ve now, we’ve turned that into a system, too. So, they all learn my method and Sarah’s method, and without me having to be physically present. And it brings back to that problem of, “Geez, I’ve got a lot of free time.”
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
So, I’m looking to fill that time now.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. I don’t think that that’s necessarily off topic. There’s going to be a lot of people listening, and quite frankly, getting back to your entire profession, I have a lot of friends that are in the medical field.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
And in particular, a lot of them that are doctors. And I don’t know any nice way to say this, but most of them really hate what they’re doing.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, it’s true.
Rob Kosberg:
And it’s not because they hate the practice of medicine. They hate the system of insurance, they hate the number of hours that they have to work and give of themselves, which takes them away from their family and the people that they love. And so, you’ve been able to create something that gives you the free time to do exactly what you want to be doing, and still meet the needs of all of your clients. That’s amazing.
Tristan Bond:
Thank you. Yeah. But you’re right, a lot of people come to us, and that’s it. They want to quit the profession.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
Which would be tragic, because the value they offer is spectacular.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
They’re really helping people, and it’s just a matter of how do we actually change this up so they can get their lifestyle of freedom back?
Rob Kosberg:
I’m sure there’s dozens of problems that you deal with within somebody’s practice but give me the top two or three. So, a practitioner comes to you and says, “This is all of what’s going on.” Give me the top two or three things that you face, and how you help them to overcome those issues.
Tristan Bond:
You know, it’s funny, because we could break it down into the top two or three symptoms that they have.
Rob Kosberg:
Okay.
Tristan Bond:
But the overall thing is people will come to me, and once we break it down, and they realize that my team and I are safe characters to talk to, and we have a real honest chat, what it comes down to is going either I’m completely overwhelmed, and I just don’t know how to start solving things, and I’m feeling like I’m out of control. Or the other one is I’m feeling totally paralyzed. I can’t move forward, because I don’t have a pathway. There’s too many things going on, I’m not sure which one to solve first. And I’m feel like I can’t cope. Or the other one is I’m stuck, how do I move forward?
And if we break it down, we can systematically choose one. And obviously the more moving parts to a business, the more overwhelm there is. But it will come down to, if a company is larger, there’s different symptoms to accompany being smaller. Obviously, as you understand, too.
But if we look at what drives the business. And the biggest problem. If people want to get out of any sort of level of pain, they’re looking for a quick fix, right?
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
Let’s say someone’s overweight or what not, or they want to get into better shape.
They think, “Oh, I want a magical diet. I want to take a magical pill to lose weight really quickly.” The magical pill that my audience reaches out for is, “If only I could get more new customers, more new patients, I’ll be fine.” Which is not the reality, actually. Because we can put more leads into a machine that is still… If you’re overwhelmed or you’re paralyzed, we’re just putting more leads into that system.
So, we need to be very, very careful about what we actually prescribe. Because we could scratch that itch and give more leads very quickly. We’ve got literally hundreds of tactics to get leads on demand. New patients on demand is one of our proprietary methods. But we have to be cautious of what we prescribe.
So, people will come in and go, “Hey, I need more new patients.” I say, “Cool. Let’s check if that’s actually what you need, or whether this could be a re-booking issue. And let’s figure out which one we tackle first, or if we tackle them in conjunction with one another.” And the biggest overall issue to really address, in terms of freeing up mental space and physical space for the owner, the operator, the founder, is the company structure itself. Do we have the right people in the right seats? And that is the toughest one to solve, because there, we’re dealing with leadership qualities, we’re having to really address the nitty-gritty of teaching our clientele how to have conflict resolution conversations, how to be very vulnerable, how to really lead and educate their team, which is something they haven’t had to do before. Because typically, my clients will be like me. Which is, I’m a natural academic, and I tend to more the introversion side of things more than the extroversion. You put me in a room, I want to get away from an argument pretty quick. I say, “Hey guys, I’ve got a meeting.” I’m faking phone calls, and I’m out of there.
So that’s the toughest one to actually train. And then I can completely empathize with our audience. But in answer to your question, it’s going to come back to how do we solve getting more leads really quick? How do we get the team to actually re-book appropriately so they can service the customer, the patient, better? And then win more referrals as a result of that outcome, and also there’s a monetary aspect to that, as well. Obviously, we’re in business. We’re not doing this for free.
And then finally, how do we actually grow this team to have the right people in the right seats, and educate the owner with the skill set to be able to first of all manage, then lead? My mantra is you can’t lead unless you can manage. It just doesn’t work. A leader without management skills and management insights is just someone who’s abdicating responsibility and pushing sideways. There’s no role for that person in today’s modern business, in my opinion.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
So, we train a lot of that. I know I’m kind of moving around through some different stuff here.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s great.
Tristan Bond:
But someone will come to me, “I need more leads.” And I say, “Perfect. We can do that. But let’s have a look, first of all, at what’s really going on.” And then if it was leads, for example, Rob, we’d say, “All right cool,” because we’ve got a bunch of different proprietary methods which work only every time, and we’ll look at, “All right, cool, what assets do you have for us to plug this in really quickly?” And we’ll assess do they have the right asset in place for us to deploy that tactic? And if it’s a match, we say, “Hey, here it is. Let’s do this.” If it’s not, we say, “Hey, guys. It won’t work for you, because you don’t have the right asset. Come back when you’re grown a little bit more, or when you’ve developed this side of your business.” So, we critically assess it.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. Love it. Let’s go just a tiny bit deeper on that.
Tristan Bond:
Sure.
Rob Kosberg:
Because I imagine, and by the way, the stuff that you’re sharing is gold.
Tristan Bond:
Oh, thank you.
Rob Kosberg:
I love what you’re sharing. It clearly doesn’t just apply to clinicians or physical therapies.
Tristan Bond:
No, not at all.
Rob Kosberg:
This is applicable to all kinds of businesses.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Which I’ll tell you something funny about that, Rob.
Rob Kosberg:
Go ahead.
Tristan Bond:
If you don’t mind me jumping in.
Rob Kosberg:
No, please.
Tristan Bond:
So, you know I’ve got these naughty dogs. Watson and GG, little French bulldogs.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. Yeah, I love them.
Tristan Bond:
So, I was hanging out with you and Kevin one night. We were having cigars. And I was having way too much whiskey.
Rob Kosberg:
I remember that night.
Tristan Bond:
And I was trying to buy a house at that time. And I’m on the phone with Australia. It was 11:30 at night with you guys, and I’m bringing back to Australia, and I’m trying to buy a house, because I couldn’t manage my dogs in the existing house. Because they’re just so naughty. So anyway, this new house is almost built now, a couple years down the line. We’re six weeks off from having that built, and the dogs have got their own little area where they’re not going to infiltrate my personal space and eat couches and things.
But anyway, there’s this dog whisperer, George, I hired two weeks ago. And he’s come around and helped me manage Watson and GG a lot better. So, I’m hanging out with him, and he tells me the animals are one with him. They look at him, and think, “You’re the senior wolf.” So, I’m trying to impersonate George.
But after I hung out with him for a day, we got along really well, he then asked me to coach him in business, because it’s the same thing. How do I get more leads? He’s got a franchise. How do I scout this franchise? And it’s the same stuff, is what I’m getting at. And my niche is healthcare, so George and I are not going to work together, but we have forged a friendship. And we catch up for coffee now, and he gives me tips on my dogs, and then I help write marketing copy for him to attract more leads.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s brilliant.
Tristan Bond:
So, it’s the same stuff. It’s the same stuff, mate.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, I thought you were going to share about how you’d finally gotten the management of Watson and GG under control, but clearly not.
Tristan Bond:
No, no. Definitely not. No. But George does. If I just move him in, we’re all sorted. But I’ve definitely learned some new tactics, it’s working. It’s definitely more effective. I feel less hopeless as a dog owner.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. I love it. Well, as a fellow dog owner, I completely understand. My dogs aren’t with me in the guest house right now, which is where I do this podcast from, but typically, they are. And usually they’re walking around behind me while the video’s going, which is a little distracting. But hey, it’s my life, man.
Tristan Bond:
I learned that cuddling them and using all the cute dog talk is probably not positioning me as the alpha male of the house. So, I said, “Oh, that’s a shame, because I kind of like doing that.”
Rob Kosberg:
You know, I hate to say, but I still do that.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, yeah. It’s hard not to.
Rob Kosberg:
I love my dogs.
Tristan Bond:
I just won’t tell George about it.
Rob Kosberg:
There you go. So, let me ask you a question about the people that are coming to you.
Tristan Bond:
Please.
Rob Kosberg:
Because I’m sure you have people coming to you that may be solo-preneurs, as well as people that are coming to you with bigger practices.
Tristan Bond:
That’s right.
Rob Kosberg:
When it comes to, say, the average person that’s coming to you that maybe has a business that’s doing maybe just barely cracking six figures or something, my assumption is that they’re wanting to grow their business. They’re the ones asking a lot about leads, I would assume.
Tristan Bond:
That’s right.
Rob Kosberg:
Although everyone wants more leads.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Look, you and I want more leads, and we’re a much bigger company.
Rob Kosberg:
Clearly.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
Clearly. So that’s a commonality. But what would you say is the biggest issue that that smaller business owner faces, versus the one that has the team and maybe has some of those assets, as you mentioned a minute ago. They have some of those assets in place. They clearly have different issues than the person that’s more on their own, maybe just in the first couple years of their practice.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Definitely. So, if you’re a start-up, so to speak, you’re maybe cracking six figures or just under, the number one issue, obviously, is to be able to have a way to get more leads. And then sell to that lead at an appropriate price point where you know that you can predictably grow.
Rob Kosberg:
Right. Consistent, right? A consistent source.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Yeah. A systematic way to go, “How do I get a lead? How do I do it consistently which doesn’t take up too much time?” Which is replicable and repeatable. And the way that we teach that is through social media. One of my pet hates is… And this is going to divide our audience, and I’m just going to put it out there.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s okay.
Tristan Bond:
Because I’m happy for them to have this way, it’s just not my way. I’m not really into referrals or into networking. And the reason for that is it just frustrates me, because it takes up time, and I can’t really track it through a funnel. I can’t pixel it. I can’t scale it. So, it feels like I’m giving up a lot of time in the hope that something will work.
I remember giving up so much time in meetings with potential referrers when I was physiotherapist. And just giving up so much time and energy building this relationship, and then it would just kind of go nowhere, or it’d be like a trickle of leads. It was really exhausting.
Rob Kosberg:
Yep.
Tristan Bond:
So, I look at that, and I say, “Guys, let’s just give you a predictable way of getting leads. Even if you’ve got no database, and nobody knows about you, we can show you how to start creating that following on social media, by creating really valuable content which is in alignment with your values. And we can start getting leads predictably.”
So, for someone that’s a sole practitioner, we’d show them that method. We would then systemize how often they would have to do it, so it becomes part of their routine. It becomes a ritual.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
And then we show them how to re-book those people appropriately so that we can get predictable growth. And then it becomes about planning. Once we do that, what’s the actual next step? And don’t worry about the next problem coming. We’ll deal with that then. Let’s just know what the next step is, because then it’s great. Then we’re going to introduce a hiring method where we will teach you. Let’s just worry about fix this next problem as it’s coming up. We don’t have to solve all the world’s problems in advance. We don’t have to do that.
So, we go through that process, and then I say, “Perfect.” Now we’ve got that, what’s the next thing in front of us? Which is a six-week training program for their new staff member so they can fundamentally impersonate the owner in terms of re-booking and so on. And then, great, let’s repeat that process. How do we increase the lead generation that we’re already doing, to then fill this new person up, and do we have to now add in another channel to then get them to the appropriate point? Based on predictability, when do we go again to get that next person?
When they get the next person, then the problem might be, okay, the next problem we have is now we need to step your hours back so you can become the manager.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
Let’s do that. Let’s set a point in time and so on. And we schedule that. Great. Now we’re going to give you the management skills. And then from there it’s great, now we’re going to hire a manager. And you’re going to train the manager, and then you step out as the leader. So, it’s very systematic like that. And hopefully the way I’ve described it, it doesn’t sound overwhelming.
Rob Kosberg:
Oh, no.
Tristan Bond:
Because it’s not. But I think that, as humans, we think, “Whoa, what could go wrong? Oh, my goodness, I’ve got to solve all these things in advance.” And, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” So, we really break it down. Solo practitioners, I love working with them, because it’s so clean and easy.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
If someone’s bigger and they come to us, we can get really fast results. But there’s more stuff going on, and it’s like, “Wow, you do actually need to solve these three things, and they’re all pressing. But let’s just pick one. I want to pick one that’s easy to affect right now. Easy to bring about impact right now to bring out a monetary improvement and head space improvement, and a lot of confidence as a direct consequence of doing that.”
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah.
Tristan Bond:
That’s kind of how I do it. That’s exactly how I do it, actually.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s really well said. You’re going to have a lot of people that want to hire you after this.
Tristan Bond:
I hope so.
Rob Kosberg:
Because that was brilliant.
Tristan Bond:
Oh, thank you.
Rob Kosberg:
And you certainly know that we’re one in heart and mind when it comes to this. So, we do zero networking.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
My experience is filled with people that want to do affiliate and joint ventures.
Tristan Bond:
Same.
Rob Kosberg:
And things like that. And nothing against that, but I feel like that’s exchanging dollars for hours, and I don’t want to do that. I want to set up a system that predictably gets us leads, just like you do that for your clients. So, I love it. You know I’m heart and soul with that. Well said.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. And people can do that stuff if that want. That’s fine. It’s just not for me.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
And not for you. But I’m going to be a bit more poignant about it and say if you want to do that, that’s cool. You won’t grow a big company.
Rob Kosberg:
Right. Exactly. You can’t.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, you’re becoming a professional event manager yourself.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
That’s not going to be much fun.
Rob Kosberg:
Right. Yep. I totally agree. I totally agree.
Let’s change gears for a second.
Tristan Bond:
Please.
Rob Kosberg:
This has been brilliant. And I think people have gotten a ton of value. This is all laid out in your book, and we’ll give them a link to where they can go and get a copy of your book and get some information. We’ll put all that in the show notes and everything.
We’ve talked a lot about what is in the book itself. Obviously, who the book is for, etc. Talk to me about how the book has helped you. Most authors think in terms of I want to write a book to help this kind of individual. And hopefully they’ve also thought about well, writing a book really can change my life and help me grow my audience, etc.
So, do you have some examples of how your book has helped you do that? How do you use your book, etc.?
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Of course. I can definitely talk to that point. Something I didn’t realize when I was writing the book, and it’s been a really positive effect, and really, I even love this maybe the most, actually, since writing the book. I didn’t realize how many people would read my book that were not my ideal audience for becoming, say, a coaching client, because they’re in a different of their life, that would just get so much value from it.
So, for me, I get a lot of messages coming through, and emails, thanking me for the book. Funnily enough, even outside of healthcare, which I’ve found weird. But maybe friends in healthcare have spoken with them about it. And they’re just thanking me and telling me about the difference it’s made for them. And those people I probably would have never met, because they wouldn’t have considered joining a coaching program. But everyone loves reading a book.
So, I’m able to help a lot more people I never would have reached before. And I didn’t think about that prior to writing the book, but I love that the most. We get so many of those messages coming through. So that’s a heartfelt thing.
But in terms of the promotion and whatnot, we’re very much into social media and digital media marketing, as are you. And to insert a book as a piece of content that we provide to our audience is incredibly powerful, to better lead by giving a lot of information away without a huge commitment from an audience. We’ve done free plus shipping models and so on, where it’s just so easy for our audience to access it. We do guarantees on it. If they didn’t love it, we refund the money in full.
So, wherever we get our message out there and our methodology out there where people not only know about me and about us, but they know exactly what we do and how we do it. So, they’re able to learn a ton more about that, and that really does differentiate our method from other people’s methods out there in the market.
Now, there’s a lot of people in my space working and coaching with healthcare professionals, but I stand by our method, because I’m obviously biased, because this is what works for me. This just works. Let’s just keep it working. Whereas other people, I know are jumping into different fads and whatnot, my methodology is clearly inserted in my book. This is who I am. This is what I do. This is how I help. Here is information, and if you like it, let’s get in touch.
So, it really stands me apart from other people in the market who, number one, don’t have a book or who are even writing a book. And you really helped me with that going, “Well, let’s not write a book. Let’s write a book with purpose, and really get your methodology down.” And that’s been massive to go, “Here is how I do it.” I’ve got so many case studies in there of proof. It’s pretty overwhelming.
So anyhow, I’m ranting.
Rob Kosberg:
No, it’s good.
Tristan Bond:
But what’s been really beneficial for us is now, also, through working with you, a lot of people interview me on podcasts and whatnot, because they want to talk about the book. Everyone wants to talk to an author, especially if it’s had some great success. Much like we’re doing right now. So, I really love going on the podcasts. It means that I can get a greater reach to a greater audience. But even if the audience isn’t exactly my audience, we share that across social media, and my audience that follow me see me continually getting interviewed.
So, my social status and authority in the mind of the market continues to increase as the person, the go to person in our market. As a direct consequence of everything that flows on from this book.
We’ve also set up, in a digital media marketing sense, once again, you and I are all about how do we actually have a predictable way of getting leads? I use my book to then reach more leads, to educate them about us, to then create a funnel so that people go to. It feels very safe to reach out.
So, it’s an incredible lead generator for us, and when people do come to us as a lead, they ask, “Hey, can I just work with you please?” I say, “Yeah, of course. Let’s see if we can help first.” But they’ve read the book, and they love it. So, it’s putting our best work out there without our clients, all they have to do is the buy the book, and they’re getting access inside my mind. So, I think it’s a pretty good deal for them. And I’m enjoying the benefits, too.
Rob Kosberg:
Oh, I love that. Let me go a little bit deeper, and maybe even put you on the spot.
Tristan Bond:
Please.
Rob Kosberg:
If possible. You’re using the book in a free plus shipping funnel, you’re using the book to drive leads. What are your metrics? How many leads do you drive with the book? What does that actually look like? Dollars in, dollars out. And you may not have all of those exact things, but how are you using the book? We like to talk about making an impact and an income. The impact is clear. The income is clear, but I’d like to just hear some specifics around that, if you could.
Tristan Bond:
Definitely. So, I don’t have the exact numbers around cost per lead and so on.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s okay.
Tristan Bond:
But I do have access to these numbers, and I attend a marketing meeting every week, which is where I go through these metrics, and we have certain parameters we need to be within. So, I can tell you that we’ve been running our book marketing ever since we completed it, and it’s something that we can turn off and on, depending on how many leads we’re getting.
Rob Kosberg:
Right.
Tristan Bond:
And we’ve got it back on right now, and it’s crushing it. And we’ve tested so many different things. Free plus shipping, and also now we’re testing digital downloads.
Rob Kosberg:
Love that. You totally should. Great.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Absolutely. So, I don’t have the exact numbers at hand. What I can tell you very safely, since we’ve been doing this, we’ve generated easily over a million dollars in revenue.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Tristan Bond:
And at a significant profit, as well. Because we ensure that our cost per lead is within a certain parameter. We know what we can spend to generate a customer, but yeah, it’s definitely been a seven-figure process for us, a seven-figure windfall. And we’re continuing to do it, and we’ll keep doing it.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. Well, why would you stop?
Tristan Bond:
Well, if one was crazy, they might stop.
Rob Kosberg:
Perhaps.
Tristan Bond:
But hopefully I’m not that crazy.
Rob Kosberg:
Maybe if you hate money.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, exactly. If you hate money, you stop doing it. But if you don’t hate money, then you keep going.
Rob Kosberg:
Right. No, I love it. Look, I love the free plus shipping.
Tristan Bond:
GG and Watson can’t feed themselves. I need to make some money.
Rob Kosberg:
They can’t, they can’t. And clearly, they need new furniture to tear up.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. If they learn to feed themselves, then I’m in all sorts of trouble, because they won’t need me. They’ll just turn on me.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. Tristan, I love it, man. Thank you for sharing that.
Tristan Bond:
You’re welcome.
Rob Kosberg:
You certainly didn’t have to, but thank you for being honest about that stuff, because I think there’s lots of people that see the complexity of what you shared, and they just don’t understand the reward. There is complexity in writing a book, there’s complexity in using a book in conjunction with digital marketing, and a funnel, or for those of you who don’t know what a funnel is, a series of webpages that take people down a path. There is complexity.
Tristan Bond:
Very much.
Rob Kosberg:
But when you figure it out, it’s gold. It’s like having an ATM, and it’s like being able to make an impact on not hundreds, but thousands, or tens of thousands of people.
Tristan Bond:
Exactly. It is having an ATM. That’s what a predictable funnel is. And that’s our mantra. Let’s just keep using that process. And that’s what we teach our clients.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, yeah. Love it brother. Love it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Tell us, where can people get the book? Where can they learn a little bit more about you? Where’s the best place to send them?
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. That’s a good question. So usually I have an assistant to tell me these answers. Let’s have a look.
I think it’s practiceaccelerationmethod.com. Let’s have a look.
Rob Kosberg:
That certainly sounds like it should be that if it’s not.
Tristan Bond:
There it is. The thepracticeaccelerationmethod.com.
Rob Kosberg:
Is that where they can get the free book?
Tristan Bond:
Yeah. Exactly. Thepracticeaccelerationmethod.com.
Rob Kosberg:
Okay.
Tristan Bond:
And get the book for free there. Just have to pay the shipping. And I’m on there right now, and I’ve got this little thing called Proof. It’s popping up, telling me people are buying it.
Rob Kosberg:
Yes, I love Proof.
Tristan Bond:
Which is great news. I love seeing that people are buying my book, and I hope that Antonio, who just bought it, I hope that you have a wonderful read and really enjoy it. I look forward to getting, hopefully, a lovely message from you saying it’s been helpful.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. Love it. That’s beautiful. Tristan, fun to talk to you, man.
Tristan Bond:
You too.
Rob Kosberg:
I miss talking to you more often. I hope when all this craziness ends, we can see each other again soon. You’re on the other side of the world, as I am. And hopefully we’ll be able to spend some time. And I want to hear more about the stuff that’s going on. But thank you. Obviously, go to practiceaccelerationmethod.com. Whether you’re in the healthcare field or not, get a copy of the book. I think you will love it.
Tristan Bond:
Yeah, I think so.
Rob Kosberg:
And make sure you send Tristan an email, because he loves getting emails about how the book has impacted your life.
Tristan Bond:
I very much do. Yeah, if you do that, I’d be really pumped. So, thank you very much.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. Thank you, brother.
Tristan Bond:
Thank you, Rob. Pleasure, as always. We’ll chat soon.
