Hello and welcome back for another episode of the Future Ear Radio podcast! After a nice hiatus from the podcast, I’m excited to fire up the podcast again and continue the discussion with some of the most interesting people and companies inside of the world of Hearing Healthcare.
For this week’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Amy Trusler, Au.D. & Kristopher Hewitt, H.I.S. – cofounders of Pacific Audiology Group.
In this episode, Amy, Kris and I discuss:
– How the two met, the origin story of Pacific Audiology Group, and the path the company is on
– Building an educational platform specific to Audiology with the goal of developing high-end content
– The learning modules built so far and which modules the company is focusing on next
– The methods of content production that the company has developed, including the use of a “RED” camera (same camera used to film the Hobbit!)
– The next phase of Pacific Audiology Group – democratizing content production for Audiologists through the company’s new, “Learn On” program
– Learn On = Catering to the booming creator economy within Audiology by enabling creators through Pacific Audiology’s platform, tools and experience
-Thanks for Reading-
Dave
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dave Kemp
All right, everybody and welcome back to another episode of the future your radio podcast. I am thrilled to be joined today by Kris Hewitt and Amy Trusler of Pacific Audiology Group. So Kris and Amy, thanks for being here. How you doing today?
Good, great! Thank you!
Dave Kemp
Absolutely. So wanted to have you to on talk about sort of the past the present and the future of Pacific Audiology Group. It’s really cool what you guys are doing, and I just figured this would make for a great chat. So why don’t we start with the past? Either one of you can jump right in and just kind of delve into the origin of how Pacific audiology group began.
Kristopher Hewitt
Oh, talk about the past because she she was here before me. Yeah.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Yeah, just slightly before Kris. I’m, I guess. So the origins of Pacific audiology group really started on in, I guess, my desire to be involved in education. That was sort of always my primary goal in in this field. And I found myself in private clinic ownership, um, which was a bit of a conscious choice, because I felt like it would be slightly hypocritical of me to enter like education, without having any clinical experience. Because I know, throughout graduate school myself, like, often your instructors are telling you how things go, and then you would go to your placements? And they would say, oh, yeah, is that what your PhD instructors told you that I’ve never been in a clinic. And so I’m, that was always very apparent to me, and one of my conscious choices to enter the field. But I always had the pullback to education. And so I sold my practice in the US 2019, with the goal of entering education within this field. And that was really, those conversations with people that I trusted, it was how this all came about. And it was actually a big phone conversation with Dan Passaretti, who was one of my sales reps and had recently retired. And he was sort of a mentor to me, and we had a long chat on the phone about where I should go. And he felt strongly that and so did I, that there was like a big gaping hole in sort of quality education that was really accessible. And, um, you know, not sort of in the university. And so we talked about what areas of audiology were and hearing care. We’re needing education. And we just started with sermon management. And we just said, let’s design a sermon management course, on something amazing, and that’s accessible. And just see where this goes. And really, that just, that conversation really just started this rolling ball downhill of what’s become Pacific audiology. It’s just been building and evolving. And somewhere along the line, Kris got involved, so I can let him speak to that and we become what we are now.
Kristopher Hewitt
Yeah, so Amy sold her practice in 2019. Amy’s an AUD, by the way, I have a hearing instrument specialist, I had a private practice, also sold it at the end of 2019. Right. And as Amy and Dan, were starting this sermon management training, and so we started chatting about heartbreak up at how to grow this and get it online and add more of course content we have so I left my position. And we started working at this really full full time in early 2021 and rebranded specific audiology group something we recently got some feedback on you should change your name again because it’s not entirely clear that it’s a training organization. It sounds like a group of hearing clinics so we we spent all this time and effort on the brand and we love people love the brand or the website and who knows we might have to rebrand at some point but yeah, we’ve just been going full speed with online video bass continuing ed that isn’t so much you know, sort of product focused or information down. So we’re trying to are trying to meet the needs of hearing care providers. It was initially a lot here in Canada. We have some good traction in Australia and now in the US as well with that course being AAA and IHS approved.
Dave Kemp
Awesome. So Well, thanks for being here today. I’m excited to dive into all this. So going back to what you said Amy, you know, kind of like you you identified there being this big hole in the market around education. Can you speak more to that what what exactly was in your eyes lacking? When did this crystallize in your mind that you wanted to You move out of private practice audiology soldier clinic. And it sounds like this was sort of premeditated that you already had identified kind of what your next step was going to be? Can you walk us through what that period was like in terms of what was going through your head and what felt like the opportunity to you?
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Yeah, yeah, that was a really interesting period of my life, I always envisioned myself ending up working, like at a university, you know, in AUD program, teaching and doing research, I’m, it had been a really hard decision for me to turn down a PhD offer after my master’s, I’m gonna get I felt strongly that I needed clinical experience. And so I followed that which brought me through, you know, clinic ownership. And within that, I realized that, like, it’s really easy to find amazing education, when you’re, like, immersed within an institution, you know, like, I did my grad school in Australia, and you’re living there, and you’re learning and living and breathing audiology. And then you get into the clinic. And for me, I was in a rural and remote town and I was like, quite isolated, and accessing on, you know, specific information was sort of challenging and accessing, especially like specialized area of practice, like server management, or tinnitus, or vestibular, I found it hard to like access that within where I was. And yet, it’s also extremely challenging to take a long period of time away from a clinic, especially if you own it, I’m, and in general, I am very passionate about, like accessibility and education. So just this concept, that and I know some, you know, medical schools and institutions are doing this, but the concept that like, you don’t want to have to have this brick and mortar where people come to you that you can bring the education to them. And so that’s what sort of started, all of this was taking a really high quality topic that I personally had really struggled to find training and swim and management, and creating a course that like anyone could take from anywhere. And then as, as we saw some success in that, and I was extremely happy because I was doing what I love doing, which is teaching and creating content. The conversation started to be how can we do this in other areas, and people started to approach us and say, well, there’s these other areas where this is needed. And so, you know, another huge area that I really struggled with in clinic was infection control. And so I dove right into that next and then I’m sure I had a pardon. Big shout out to AU Yes, yes. Yes, huge shout out to you. I am and, and ear impressions because I had support staff and audiology assistant and that like, like changed my ability to scale and grow at the clinic was being able to outsource to an audiology assistant. And I’m a lot of clinicians were asking you, How did you train her and I had designed my own training program for her. And then so getting that online with her, she became a course contributor, um, in that and so all of a sudden, it just felt like I was able to do to get these trainings and this education out to people that they could take from anywhere. And so that’s what I mean, when I say like, things weren’t as accessible, like not everyone can always go to a conference. And even if you can go to a conference, they might not be teaching that topic I’m on. And also, just being able to access courses on your own time, like even if it’s an hour a day, when you’re in the mode to learn, being able to pause and rewind and zoom in, cameras have these abilities now that we’re not taking as much advantage of especially in audiology, like fields far more complex than audiology. And I don’t want to say far more complex, but they kind of do, like people are doing remote stuff. I’m in all kinds of fields that we’re not quite doing yet. And we can and I want to be a part of that a part of someone in a remote community saying I want education in this and we’re like, well, we can bring that to you. And not only can we bring that to you, we can bring it to you in a really high quality, immersive way on your schedule. And then that levels up everyone so I can go on forever about this, I probably need to stop talking on this. Like, I’m quite passionate about it.
This is what happens. This is what happens.
Dave Kemp
So so no. And we’ll get into kind of like exactly the kind of content because it is when you say it’s high quality. I think that’s like what really stands out when you when you see it for the first time is that it’s very, very professionally done. But I want to stick on this theme of like making these topics and basically like these procedures within the clinic and more widely accessible. So for you Kris, like when did you kind of enter into the fold here and what what got you really excited about what Amy was developing? Just kind of give me a sense of how this whole Relationship came to be and, and where your head was at when you kind of saw the vision here and what got you excited?
Kristopher Hewitt
Yeah, for sure. So, I was Amy’s Otakon, sales rep for a few years. So we knew each other that through that relationship. And so that’s how she, she came to me when she was trying to grow this, her and Dan had this servant management program. Dan’s looking to scale down, not scale up in his career, or slow down, he was just retired, and this was kind of starting to grow. And she needed a hand with it. So she reached out to me, knowing that, you know, I’ve got some industry connections, and some, you know, experience and training, a lot of training a lot of sales, before I had my private practice. And so there was kind of a natural partnership, actually, Amy and I knew each other, like the my clinical job before I left to go work in wholesale, I quit that position. And then Amy kind of filled it, the next week just showed up out of her master’s program 1012 years ago, so we’ve known each other since she’s kind of been back in Canada for a long time. And so it was a good fit, I have sort of business development experience. And she’s really good at sort of driving this thing forward and generating more learning contents. So together, it just kind of made sense to give this a try. And it’s been, it’s been quite a ride last couple of years. So very different than, you know, it’s an unpredictable business for us, right? It’s not, it’s not a private practice peering clinic, which most of us are, that’s where we work, or you work in wholesale as a sales rep or a trainer. It’s something new, and it’s something different. I had listened to your episode with, with Nicole and Joe from allergy Academy, and it’s so funny that that that story sounded so familiar, except their, their husband or wife, but starting with one, one topic, like how to get front office staff better trained. And, and then kind of going from there. So yeah, it’s working really well. And we have a good sort of synergy in in terms of like, what I’m doing and what she’s doing.
Dave Kemp
I mean, Amy, you said, you can talk about this for hours, you know, when going back to that episode with that, with Joe Nicole, the thing that really stood out and it’s you know, I think we talked about this on that episode, which is it’s part of a broader theme, which is kind of like one of the things that really gets me excited about what’s happening right now in audiology is a sense of, of like camaraderie and collaborative newness. Amongst the profession that I haven’t been is involved in this space, as long as maybe you two have, but it just seems like this is kind of a new trend that’s happening, where you have a lot of the, it’s almost as if the audiologists are kind of taking the onus upon themselves to say like, the best way for us to sort of upskill ourselves collectively is to work together and kind of, like nurture that and foster that amongst ourselves. So, you know, Kris, like, that was I was thinking of the same thing. And I’m just curious to kind of get your sense, like, when you started to produce the content, you started to develop your training courses, like when, what were those first few experiences, like where you felt as if this was paying off and that, like, people were seeing the value in this? I’m sure that was probably pretty gratifying and validating of like, we’re onto something here.
Kristopher Hewitt
Yeah, I mean, it’s, I mean, when we set up like we have a website and an online store and a learning management software, so for a long time it was just because a these become the IT group so we DIY database, this whole thing and so to actually have it come together and have someone go and you know, add a course to their cart and purchase it and then you can get notified on your watch through Shopify. So the first time that started to sort of gel and come together that’s a very good feeling. And we still do some of like the in person stuff as well and seminar training, but to see the online thing actually start to take shape and what’s coming next with that is Yeah, I guess it’d be what happened with the sermon management program that happened pretty early. Once I came on, we put the website together the new brands, the story already had the learning management thing going.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
So it all have is it was recorded slideshow for a lot of it at first and that was a huge shift for us is when we were able to take it all really high quality, like the premium courses are all basically 4k video with like, incredible zoom in there, filmed on like the same camera that the hobbits filmed on. Like it’s, it’s simple, you know, it’s it’s great. And then you know, our our Our new product, which we’ll talk about is, you know, still extremely high quality video filming. And I think for me, it’s it’s like every time that someone’s like impressed with it, like, I’m still like, I don’t know, like, I’m a little bit shocked and not in a way that they shouldn’t be impressed with it, they should have worked really hard, but just in this way that like, I’ve been pushing forward so hard, and then someone comes in, and it’s like, it’s amazing what you guys are doing. I love the brand. I love the interface, it has value. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, really, it’s working? Yeah, just so genuinely, like excited at it. I’m and to speak to that, you know, collaborative gnus. Like, I’ve always felt when I entered this field, I’m that, you know, there’s so many people with hearing loss, like we’re tapping a very tiny portion of the market as as a field and it, it can be a very competitive field. Right, I’m, and I think that there is more than enough business to go around to all of us. And what I am really interested in being a part of is a leveling up of all professionals. I’m and I’m not just talking about AEDs and audiologists here, like I’m also talking about, I’m all hearing care professionals, like hearing instrument practitioners on or whatever is that am I saying the right thing for hearing that you’re hearing is read specialists. I’m it’s just very, it’s very important, because that is everyone who touches anyone. I’ve been staff audiometric technicians, anyone who touches anyone who has a hearing loss, like, is incredibly important part of the system. And that’s the community. And so, you know, that was another reason that I was really wanting to work with Kris because he has the perspective of a hearing instrument specialist, and I have the perspective of an audiologist. And you know, Jocelyn has done a course with us, she has the perspective of the front desk staff, and it’s just all of us together are what encouraged people to feel, you know, safe and able to treat their hearing loss and reengage with their, you know, hearing health. And so, Pacific audiology group really is aimed to like level up and to create community and the creating community part is also something that’s gonna is coming through in our next product that we should probably just talk about right now. And there’s like, there’s a community aspect to on that product. That’s a private community where people can get industry updates, and can chat and can help each other out. And the idea is, if we all love a lot, then everyone’s going to be, you know, more successful. And also, like, more happy, like, it feels good to feel like you’re a part of something and and we’re all becoming more successful together.
Dave Kemp
Totally. I mean, so like, I’m curious, why did you start with sermon removal? What was the rush in?
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
That was all that conversation with Dan, it was, you know, just this really honest conversation, I still remember it. Like upstairs in my living room, on the phone with him. Like I’ve sold my practice, I want to get back into education. Do I put in an application to a university, I’m do I, what do I do like and then just chatting about what I really wanted to do, which was work with professionals in a way that sort of helped them to level up. And he just said, Amy, and all my years as a sales rep. Everyone asked me about sermon management, like just start there, just design a course and see what happens like start tomorrow morning. And so we spent that whole summer, Dan and I every morning on Zoom designing this course. And it took us to this is the quickest course we designed because we had all day every day. And we designed this sermon management program. And I really believe that the most comprehensive one in the world, it’d be just went down every rabbit hole. I am and I got it out there. And that’s yeah, so that’s how it started. And
Kristopher Hewitt
I think I’ll just add that, yeah, we live in practice. You know, we’re in the Vancouver area. It’s there, there hasn’t been any, you know, it’s difficult to get, you need a certification here to practice service management, even as an AUD, you need to be supervised, like it’s quite, it’s quite a challenge. And so there’s a huge need to be offering that service and physicians are no longer really wanting to do it as much or able to bill for it. And so it all kind of fell in the laps of hearing care professionals but they weren’t able to do it because of certification issues. So that was I think part of why Dan’s hearing about it so much. Just like we still are so it’s different than in the US where, you know, you should have some training and you generally don’t get it in a lot of programs. I know the AUD programs now a lot of them are offering it but here it was like this advanced certification that you require that you do not need in a lot of places. Yeah.
Dave Kemp
Well, the other thing too with it that, like take sermon removal, for example, is that it’s highly variable based upon, like, the method that you will probably default to as a provider is highly variable based upon what you were trained upon. And so, you know, if there’s kind of like, more or less three methods, mechanical suction, and irrigation, you know, your, your preference is largely, I mean, this is obviously kind of consistent with a lot of things in audiology, which is like, what you were trained on what you were exposed to. So I think it’s neat like, because even if, even if you feel comfortable with, you know, that one method that you may be have gotten in, not trying to generalize, I’m sure there’s some audiologists out there that know how to perform certain removal in a variety different ways. But the point is, is that I think that like, it speaks to part of the opportunity, which is that, you know, there are, there’s education opportunities for people that already have an existing knowledge of this, because there’s all of the nuance that goes along with the different methodology and the different procedures and all that. So I think it’s like it, it makes a lot of sense to me that you can cater this boat to somebody that is maybe a, you know, kind of a rookie, like brand new to it, as well, as folks that maybe are only familiar with one style of
Kristopher Hewitt
that particular thing. Totally, that’s, I mean, we, we really sort of preached this, that you should be very comfortable with at least two methods, and hopefully all three, but also up to date with all the tech, right, like if you’re, if you’re just using a stainless steel syringe on everyone. That’s, that’s really not good enough. And, and regarding the three different methods, it’s so funny that we hear, I mean, the the bias, and I guess just, you know, just might be dramatic, but like indoctrination, whatever happens culturally in an area, because we’re selling us all over the world. Now. You get, we teach on everything. And we have people in the US saying, you know, this is a great course. Wish you’d spend more time with irrigation. And then the next day someone emails from Australia say, Why are you still teaching irrigation? That’s probably peaches. Who’s even doing that anymore? And so it’s like, it just depends where you are, who you are, and where you’re working. It’s everyone has some pretty strong opinions about it. And they’re all right. Yeah.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
So it’s very interesting, having a global perspective, like seeing the different areas just in terms of, you know, who can perform it. And, and, yeah, in different countries, like some countries, like only an end can perform through Minar, millball. And other places, you know, it’s in the scope of practice of, like, Eddie, we don’t physiotherapist or something. Yeah, totally
Dave Kemp
different types of equipment, like, you know, in the UK, microsuction is huge, which, you know, a lot of the types of microsuction devices, they’re not even FDA certified in so they’re not available in the US. So it’s very, very variable. And, but I think that like, you know, one of the things that I find to be very interesting about what you all are doing is that you’re taking these topics and catering them to large in very disparate audiences. So it’s kind of one of those where it’s diversified enough to appeal to a large audience, but also, I think it caters to them universally, if that makes sense. Like, you’ve kind of, you know, straddle the fence, if you will.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Totally, totally, yeah, we try to just teach on everything, like our sort of our litmus test is like educate. And that’s the neat thing about, you know, teaching professionals at this level is you provide all of the information and you know, and then it allows them to choose, then you just try to provide as much evidence based as you can all the different products, benefits limitations, but we have the freedom where we’re not pushing anything, like these premium courses that we have their they’re completely independent, you know, and their their ala carte purchased ala carte, so they’re designed to be comprehensive. And we don’t, you know, like we’ve had people ask us, oh, well, can you take out this module? And we’re like, no, if it’s a part of server management, or as a part of infection control I’m or any other courses we’re developing in the course, these are comprehensive programs.
Dave Kemp
So you mentioned that the camera you’re using is the same that they use to film The Hobbit, which again, I had mentioned at the top that the quality of your videos are incredible, like it’s unlike anything I’ve really seen in this industry. And to your point, it’s because you’re using some really high end equipment. So like, how did that all How did that portion come to be? And then Just in terms of what what’s it been like with bringing the content to life, like you’ve obviously had a clearer idea of, here’s the kinds of content that I want to create. But obviously, it’s way different to create the content. So what’s that? Yeah. Ross suspender Oh, file
Kristopher Hewitt
variety. I’ll let me speak to the video.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Oh, yeah. The whole thing’s been a very wild ride, like we had a vision. And this is where I’m so grateful that Kris is my business partner, because we’re able to put so much energy into trying things and just continuing to try it until we figure out if it’s working, or we figure out how it works and how much effort that takes is a lot I’m so we’re really fortunate my in my personal life, my husband is a cinematographer. So he has a lot of camera gear. And so when this all came to life, we started to use his camera gear and use his skills. And so our premium courses are all filmed on a RED camera. And we have professional lighting, and they’re filmed in our studio, which we have an actual 3d studio that’s like a clinic. And the effort that that took between me and my husband to help set up the luck, Kris, Kris wife’s an interior designer and helped us a bit with the the look of it. And once we now it’s all very straightforward, B, we set up our premium course we go into the studio, we set up the lights, and we set up everything and we film it. But to get there was really, I would say a year of constant finishing, figuring out and I don’t know how many times my husband’s name is Jay, I don’t know how many times he would be up so late trying to just mess with the different lighting and the bounces. And we have some behind the scenes. So you can see all of that. And now Pacific audiology, we actually own our own camera gear now. So we have a few different film kits. So it really depends on what course we’re doing. Because we are, we’ve hinted at this, but we’re launching a micro course platform, which is our new products that we’re really excited about that I’ll let Kris talk about a bit more in a second. But that has a different camera setup, because we can’t just have everyone, you know, fly here and film in the studio. So we have a kit that is sort of like halfway in between that still has lights and stands and is highly complicated that only Kris and I can set up after a year of bothering my husband to teach us how to do it and learn about light. And then we also have a self film kit, which is we can mail to somebody and they can film themselves with you know, it has a built in teleprompter. And that really anyone with no film experience can do and it’s still really HD quality. But I’m for the professional grade courses. It’s like a full Yeah, it’s a anyone knows RED camera. It’s a famous type of film camera, and really big lights and a full teleprompter. And it can be a little bit intimidating.
Kristopher Hewitt
There’s a level of nerdiness to this that I had no idea. This builds a big thing here in Vancouver. And so I’m not from here when he moved here you meet all these people who work in film, and it’s just so weird. Probably in St. Louis to you don’t meet a lot of people who work in film here. It’s just it’s part of the economy. And part of that economy. He’s pretty, he’s pretty into the gear. So the the funny thing about our you know, our idea with Lauren on this microcars platform was the same idea with you know, providing access to this education to anybody, whether you’re in Guam or wherever you eat some online Ed because there’s no conferences coming your way. We want to sort of do the same thing for people who want to have something to contribute and something to teach. So we decided to put this mobile film kit together and eat together my Pelican cases. So we could ship it to your door and you set it up and you could film yourself teaching your course or we’ll host it and sell it and everything. And by the time we were done with it, because J got involved. It was like the size of a coffin. It’s like 150 pounds and yeah, stands and we can barely set it up. And we’re like, well, this isn’t good for most people. So we’ve created this little compact sort of self film I iPad shotgun mic lighting kit that you can set up so go well we can mail out now and we’ve got one that Amy and I can can travel with. And then we’ve got the big fancy stuff that’s at her place.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Yes, the coffin size one that Jay helped us build out now Kris and I have learned how to set it up. So we actually now know how to set it up.
But we’re gonna build a course on how to set it up, which was funny.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
She always does this thing like once you’re sitting there, you’re ready to film with his hand and he’s like looking at it and being like all the light is in it. He’s like moving his hand back and forth to tell is the light and Kris and I are both lucky to have him have cricket being like, like, like, like, what is the difference here and it always looks great. But it’s the thing is is like to take somebody and key them out of a green screen, you have to have your lighting setup properly. So yeah, we’re learning all this stuff. But this is a good segue. Should I? Should I explain what learn on is?
Dave Kemp
Yeah, yeah, I
Kristopher Hewitt
started to but then went into the coffin camera, but we often can take it from here. Yeah.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Okay. So I mean, we, we have these premium courses that we’ve talked about the hobbit camera courses, I’m that we’re really excited about and those are gonna continue to develop and be ala carte. Um, and then we just, there’s this continuing education need that healthcare professionals have to keep up to date every year with CPUs and what’s relevant, and to kind of know what’s out there. And we really wanted to address this need, but in a unique way. And so we’re using micro courses, which is like, you know, you call it the quick and dirty on a topic like right to the point. So the max course length in our micro course platform is 30 minutes. And so it’s a micro course membership. It’s free to the end user. And it’s region specific. So we’ve launched the Canadian one in beta, America and Australia will be coming next. And the region specific component of it is another area where we see like a bit of a hole in the field. I mean, there is a lot of content for the states already out there. But especially in Canada, and Australia, there’s not as much region specific content, and in the States, you know, there can be a lot more. And that’s what we want to hone in on, you know, especially things like labor mobility, we get a lot of questions on on legislation, on registration situations. Yeah. So that’s the whole idea. And so you log into this membership. And in the back end, you see all these micro courses, and you take them and it’s you know, very to the point, instead of these long drawn out hour long stretches,
Kristopher Hewitt
a lot of them are gonna be 15 minutes, just sort of a quick, quick course, you still have a quiz, you get your CEUs, but you could take one at lunch. And then the ones that apply to all regions will be available on every platform and the ones on, you know, billing in Saskatchewan will only be in the Canadian version. Yep.
Dave Kemp
So let me make sure I understand the portion where you said that you’re actually mailing out your camera equipment, and you’re, you’re kind of like, crowdsourcing the modules, right? Walk me through that. How is how is this going to work? Let’s say that I am a candidate to film something on Pacific audiology group’s behalf. I’m gonna probably disappear on that end. How does those
get we should get you signed up right now.
Kristopher Hewitt
Do you? Yeah. So you will you’re in podcasting. Dave wants to do podcasting course, we’re actually going to build one on because one of the holes we see is clinics are doing enough with good video, like most clinics A lot are but most aren’t doing anything with, with good video content for to market themselves for educational stuff for their clients. And so we’re gonna build a course on really how easy that can be. Yeah, the kit. But let’s say you want to do on on podcasting. And we say this is a good idea where we’re getting some questions on it, there’s a bit of a need. We would have you script something. So let’s say it’s a 15 minute micro course. It’s the equivalent of writing like a really long blog like a 2000 1000. Yeah. And you would you would script your course. Because with all the knowledge that’s in your head, you’d say, here’s why you have a podcast, bing, bang, boom, 2000 words, we’d send you the kit, which of course you don’t need, because you’re already doing recording, but we would send it to you anyway, with instructions on how to set it up, you send a couple of test shots. And you record it on this on on an iPad, where it captures all the video. It’s it syncs right away to our cloud, and we can then put in the intro the graphics, do the editing, do the sounds and get it online pretty quickly. Yeah,
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
so it’s like an iPad, a mic, a light, and some instructions for the self film kits. Right. And so,
Dave Kemp
yeah, and so how many of the modules do you envision being sourced this way?
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
We hope like most of them, because I don’t know, you know, I don’t know everything. I can’t write all these courses.
Dave Kemp
Yeah. Well, so this is like, actually really fascinating. And I think it’s a brilliant idea. You know, like, I had no idea that that’s what this was. And you know, for me like, this resonates a lot because one of the things I noticed not to make this about myself, but I’ll just use a personal anecdote, too. illustrate this because I think it’s a it’s kind of an interesting, like macro theme, which is. So this is future year, this is the podcast I started. But then I also have the show this week in hearing and I kind of CO created it. And the large part of the idea was that there are a lot of people out there that might not really be, for whatever reason, like, have the bandwidth, or be well suited to have their own full blown podcast, but they would totally be a candidate for like 123 episodes, something like that. So it was kind of trying to build a platform and do all the heavy lifting that is very much sort of like a detractor for doing this. So yeah, the pre publishing the post publishing, like all of the heavy lifting just you all you need to do is shoot it and basically impart your knowledge, more or less because that platform layer was it’s a really big detractor in the podcasting space, it seems really daunting. And I think that there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of people that aren’t participating that could be eligible if you just make it more palatable, or you give them a platform to kind of partake in this. So it’s super interesting, in my opinion, to hear that you’re kind of doing the same thing where you’re saying, you would be a great candidate to contribute. But you don’t have the equipment, you don’t have the wherewithal to design it to be of the caliber of the Pacific audiology group. So what we’ll do is we’ll enable you to do that. And I think that that will, that’s going to, like, bring a lot of people that are on the sidelines into the fold that, again, I think is part of a bigger trend. That’s really exciting. Yeah,
Kristopher Hewitt
we’re democratizing it a little bit, right. So you’re, because we could send this kid out. There’s people all over the globe, with lots of interesting ideas and things to teach. And no one’s ever going to hear from them. Or maybe someone locally does. And so we’re hoping to bring all of that online. Pay us sort of stipend, because we’re giving this stuff away to really increase access. And then we may look at, you know, having an oak tree commercial, or you’d have some advertising on there. But we don’t want to charge people on the other end for this. And so there’s a way to make it work. And there’s a lot of people, I think they’re gonna come out of the woodwork once we start to announce this, which is like, it’s just happening kind of right now.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
We’re also we’re also like, announcing it as we go. Like I you know, I think that Kris and I are both, like, the way that we like to do business is is similar, which is another reason why we’re a good fit. But like, we’ve we’ve got four or five courses, you know, launched in the Canadian version of this, and we’ve just launched it in beta. And we’re just like, in all of those, most of those are actually global. So like, you could anyone could sign up and take, like, you know, to help literacy informed consent, block scheduling, which is such an amazing thing changed my entire life in the clinic, block scheduling and 15 minutes, and we’ll just jump right into it. Um, but, you know, we’re, we’ve put it out there, because we want feedback, like we want to, we have this vision of what we want to create, and we’re okay, I’m talking to people about it. And being honest, you know, like, we’re, we’re figuring out the revenue model for it still, we really do not want we envision this being free to the end user. And that’s how we want to make it work. If we have to charge a premium or have a premium version, I’m or something like that that’s paid, then, of course, we have to, but our goal is to create this wonderful micro course community where all of these people can contribute and, you know, products that you often don’t think of like little unique products that you can say, oh, we’ll send you a film kit, talk about it, like tell people about it, we want hearing care professionals to log in and go, I didn’t know what that was, I really want to learn on that topic. I really want to hear about that. And they’re not just hearing, there’s nothing wrong with hearing from the big manufacturers, you need to hear from them. They’re a big part of your job. We just don’t want you to exclusively hear from them. We want you to hear about whatever it is that you want to hear about, but see all your options.
Dave Kemp
Yeah, and like, I think going a couple things like one, what you mentioned earlier about, like the regional differences. So you could have people that you’re soliciting these contributions that are like, here’s, here’s how this is all done in India, here’s how this is done. And whichever part of the world do you want to pick from so I mean, I think that again, it goes to the point of like, you can take these topics that aren’t really universal, that are variable, and you can you can kind of like have the variations of all of those. And the other thing is like, I just think this is, you know, I’m gonna put the hat on of somebody that is like a contributor and is doing a lot of personal branding. You know, this is kind of, I think, part and parcel with the way in which that’s all moving which is of course the sort of the old school way was like you develop your identity. And then you go on the speaking circuit, and you’re speaking live at events, you know, that was kind of the trajectory of what that career and personal development looked like. And now a lot of it’s done online. And I think that one of the biggest barriers is like the actual content production piece. And so I think that this whole idea of sending them with equipment and giving them a really clear outline of like, here’s how you use it all, we’re actually going to like preload the script, so that it’s on the teleprompter, so you just have to read it and make it super easy for them, again, to like, take that knowledge and then produce something with it. There’s, I think a lot of there’s a lot of untapped supply there. When you make this really easily, readily available for people that, again, is kind of an extension of what personal brand building has always been. This is just like the new iteration of it is like making people’s content more conducive to the digital age.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Well, having someone like this was a huge barrier for us, when we start it is like course, contributors are busy, people who have really interesting things to say, are busy people. And so you know, saying write a write an hour long course on this. While it sounds a lot better when you say, can you just write a 2000 word blog on the most important to the point thing that you want us that you need to say? And then we’ll send you a kit, and you read that blog, blog and part of the camera, and that is so much easier to digest. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking, hey, I have something to say, give us a give us an email.
Dave Kemp
Absolutely. And we have
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
heard from a lot of people that way, which is really cool. Like the relationships you form from someone reaching out on LinkedIn, which is sort of our main on platform, because we are like business to business I am. So if you are on LinkedIn, you know, follow us. And that is where we’ve, you know, made a lot of neat connections, which is such a cool world to just have that opportunity and that ability to, you know, meet people and say, Hey, tell me about what you do. I want to tell you about what I do.
Dave Kemp
Right. And again, I think that it’s, you know, one of the things I’ve just really come to learn from doing this podcast is we were kind of joking about at the beginning. And Kris and I before we started recording was like, you know, one of the sort of inherent fears of podcasting is am I going to run out of things to talk about, and what, even in a small, little niche industry like this, what you kind of tend to find is that that’s not really the fear, or that doesn’t materialize in the way that you think it will. Because what happens is, you tend to just find a lot of really interesting people. And, and what I’ve come to learn is like, there’s so many people in this industry that have some very, very interesting things to say. And what is lacking, in my opinion, are these modern platforms, more or less that allow for them to do what they’ve already always done, but do so in a way that’s kind of built for the internet.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Yeah, and I remember we have this fear at the beginning, Kris, when, because we spent like a good few months, like every day with this membership on our mind, we knew we wanted to do something for continuing ed, we knew we love the idea of micro courses, we knew we loved region specific. It seems so easy when I say it now to be like, oh, yeah, they’re launching this product. And that’s what it is. But to get to that, you know, it’s months of dialogue. And we were always like, how many topics will we have? Like, what if we launch this and we run out of topics? So we sat down one day without computers, and started typing out what we thought good micro courses would be like, Okay, well, if we can come up with 10 of these really easily, then maybe it’s a good idea. And within 15 minutes, we had like 100 microphones there. Yeah, it was crazy. And then we looked at each other and we’re like, Alright, I guess I guess we, you know, this is great. And then we started talking about and this is something like that is really apparent on fitness platform. So if you’re on a yoga platform or anything you see this all the time, peloton has owned the market for this but the stackable. So you take a company or a person who says I want to talk about auditory rehab, or I want to talk about why APIs are important and you can do you know, three or four different courses that can be stacked in different ways that people just want the intro in this one product or this or that and I just love that topic because time is what people don’t have any more people are doing more with less time and catering to that and education is just going to be really neat.
Dave Kemp
Yeah, I couldn’t agree I mean couldn’t agree more. With peloton You mean like basically you get the you do like the bike and then you get like a you should do this stretching exercise right after it. Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s genius. I mean, like having your content and again, I think this speaks to what would be so appealing, like from the creators perspective is that you know, a you’re, you’re going to be exposing your your ex or to use in your knowledge to just that many more people. But I think that it’s being able to have a mechanism on the back end that is kind of giving the audience related content and making it really easy for them to find the kinds of things that are most applicable to them. And so I think like, if you have this, all of these different tags on there, so you have this as a Canadian creator, or this is a guy that’s in the UK, you know, obviously, that’s going to be more relevant for that audience. So it’s just giving you more ability to filter it for all the different types of people that might want to consume that.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Totally. And like, in we don’t even know, right, like, we want to hear from people what they want to know, we got the most interesting inquiry the other day that said that, you know, people in this in one of the states in the US want to know the protocol that ABR is are doing in Ontario, there’s something about that protocol that people want to know. And you’re like, Oh, cool. Like I didn’t know, people wanted to know that we can help make that connection.
Dave Kemp
That’s yeah, I mean, it’s interesting that you use that specific example, because like, this is something that I find, again, like there’s just so much variability. So you take newborn screenings, for example. Clearly, there’s some sort of governing body or there’s an influential body that’s in some states having enough of, I guess, enough of a voice to say that we should do ABR as the default for newborn screening in other states is Doa II. And then if you ever referred then you do the ABR. But it’s like, why are some of states gravitating toward that? And so if you could have content that’s that granular, I think it’s super fascinating, because I’m sure there’s, it’s like one of those things that’s like, it’s a sidebar conversation that yeah, that are these kinds of conversations are going on. Like, all the time, the thing it’s with within every type of piece of the of the industry and of all the facets of Audiology. So if you can start to cater to that, yeah, might be a niche, little pocket that you’re appealing to, but those niches are so hungry for more information that’s like highly relevant to them.
Kristopher Hewitt
Totally. And the, I guess, the medium is just changing, right? As you as you’re aware, it’s podcasting and video, and we’re trying to get things, you know, built efficiently and quickly that are not, you know, just not the recorded slideshow. I think the recorded slideshow is like, I don’t know what you compare it to, like a silent, almost like it just people get tired of digesting them, we do as well. And so it’s important to find a way to make it like captivating. Even if it’s only 15 or 30 minutes, it’s still just grab someone’s attention. So they want to do one more.
Dave Kemp
And again, not to be totally redundant. But if I’m a creator, the challenges and I have something really interesting, and I can create, you know, some sort of content for that it’s how do I create something that’s of the caliber that you all are doing, and that’s the democratization piece that I think people would find really interesting, because, let’s face it, audiologists are way too busy to learn how to produce content, that’s that high quality satellite, that’s kind of the gap in the market is that the production side of it, I think is where people would really appreciate having a really high end set of equipment sent to them with detailed instructions of how do you turn this whole thing in bring it to life, that’s a really innovative aspect of this that I think is so cool that you guys are doing.
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
And when they press stop, it just goes through the cloud. Really outerspace comes to me, and I can drag it in and I can say it looks great. Or like, you know, it’s the technology blows me away. It’s just wild. It’s been quite a journey, just learning so much about ion tech to do what we do. You know, it’s pretty, pretty fun.
Dave Kemp
But it’s not something that you learned overnight, right? Like this has been the this has been the story of your company is how do you got How do you as an audiologist? Like, yes, you’re married to someone that’s in, in the film industry. So you have that luxury, I guess, but you still had to sort of learn from scratch. How do you make that? How do you make like this whole regime of content that, you know, could be brought to life? Like how do you actually do that? And so you
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
know, build a website, build a mailing list, learn how it all works, like fortunately, I used to do a lot of editing for my husband like the selects editing when he would go on a film shoot. So looking at you know, an editing software wasn’t completely foreign. Um, but there’s a lot of skill sets I use to bring this audiology message forward that took, you know, years to foster and And a lot of YouTube videos, a lot of, you know, so it’s Yeah, Kris got a, I don’t know if he’ll cut this part out of the podcast or not. But Kris got a somebody had said to him he was looking for a career change just said, yeah, maybe we’ll do like what you guys were thinking in a different field, but like with a year of doing online education, you know, the video thing, it seems fine, we can pop up a website, we can sell courses. And Kris was saying that, like a friend of a friend was doing this, and his friend was telling him, and he goes, give me 30 minutes, I’ll call them and try to talk them out of it. Like he has no idea how I’m
talking about on 30
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
Hartford has like two years to learn, like for new careers. We love it. Like we’re not going anywhere. We i Absolutely. This is, um, this is an unexpected place to land from thinking that I want it to work in a university, and very great place to land. And it’s, you know, I think it’s just the beginning for us.
Dave Kemp
Yeah, I mean, again, like, I’ll go off of the, I’ve probably had over the last year, five to seven different conversations that are somewhat in this vein, which is whether it was you know, with Joe Nicole, or just some other people that I’ve had on where it’s like, how do you how do we kind of like, bring audiology and to the end of the modern age from, from a content standpoint, where because again, a lot of this stuff actually already exists, but it’s antiquated in the old in the old modality. So a lot of its like in person. And we’ve discussed throughout this whole conversation, why that’s so limiting. And I just think that this is part of a larger trend. That’s the the audiologist I think is really being empowered in a way through easier to use tools, more accessible technology, social media, whatever it might be, where the one audiologist can have such a larger, outsized impact now than I think ever before. Because in the past, it was like you were really just limited to however much exposure you could drum up more or less in person, maybe through, you know, the the academic avenue through the, you know, having a textbook or something like that. But I think that this is so exciting is that you’re just seeing what is already a really small workforce of professionals, I just think that like in order for all audiology, to remain to be relevant into the future, it’s going to have to really lean into more of these kinds of things where one person like if you in the past, were just teaching at one university, you could have made a really positive impact with all of those students. But that’s probably about where it would end. And now it’s like, you can create a whole platform where you bring these creators into the fold, you’re producing really high quality content that’s different than anything we’ve ever really had. Everywhere, but like, obviously applicable to this industry.
Yeah, that’s so that’s the dream. Yeah.
Kristopher Hewitt
It’s funny how, I mean, there’s sort of, there’s, there’s a likeness between what we’re doing. And I didn’t realize it till we sort of chatted before, before recording, and then with his Lord on thing, it’s, you know, our goal with that is to, is to eventually try and produce and post produce one episode per week. Of course, it’s a course. But it’s very, it’s funny, it’s kind of similar.
Dave Kemp
Because, again, there’s so much conversation, there’s so much change happening. Yeah, I think that what’s probably pretty frustrating is people having the sense of like, I feel like we’re just so siloed I wish that we could broaden the conversation. So that’s definitely happening, I would imagine. So as we kind of come to the close here, this has been a fascinating conversation, I want to just kind of get a sense of like, how do people a how can they engage with you to if they want to pursue the Learn on stuff? Or if they’re just interested in Pacific ideologies like bread and butter, premium content, all that, like where would you recommend people start and go about learning more about?
Kristopher Hewitt
Yeah, I guess the I mean, the, the website has everything there. Pacific audiology, group.com. You can browse, you know, like the sort of management training and all that stuff that’s available ala carte. You could also now sign up for like lawn Canada today, because we’re still building out the other one. So it’s all on the website. And if people have questions or want to contribute, or you know, any inquiries about whatever it is group training, what’s the next course? info at Pacific audiology? group.com. And then LinkedIn, we’re always on LinkedIn. My wife always jokes because I’m not on social media anymore. Except for LinkedIn. If I take a photo, she says, Are you going to post that on your LinkedIn like a photo of me have you know a cat or whatever? That I’m yeah I’m I’m a prolific LinkedIn or so you can find a
Amy Trusler, Au.D.
credit. Yeah. LinkedIn is our is our social our, you know we have we do have a Facebook page, but LinkedIn is where we really have our our social presence.
Dave Kemp
Yeah. I know LinkedIn sort of gets disparaged a little bit. But, you know, from a b2b standpoint, you can’t beat it. And it’s, it’s a great way, I think, for the industry to communicate. So I’m a big LinkedIn fan as well. I think it I think it’s a great place for everybody to kind of connect in, it’s great to publish content as well. So Amy, Kris, thank you so much for coming on today. Definitely going to be interested to stay in touch and hear more about the the evolution of Pacific audiology group whether you rebranded or not with learn on, but just can’t thank you enough for coming on today and sharing about the business you’ve built in where you’re taking it. Thanks, Dave. Thanks.
Kristopher Hewitt
I was we’re big fans of the you in the show. Awesome. Yeah.
Dave Kemp
Thanks, guys. And thanks for everybody who tuned in here to the end. We will chat with you next time. Cheers.
