Hello and welcome back for another episode of the Future Ear Radio podcast!
This week, I am joined by Oli Luke, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orange & Gray, a Marketing Agency catering to hearing healthcare practice owners.
During our podcast chat, Oli and I discuss his background as a marketer, how he co-founded Orange & Gray and wound up catering to the hearing care professional.
This was a really fun chat that spans a lot of different marketing topics and themes, and the shifting marketing ecosystem that hearing professionals find themselves operating in. We talk through various strategies and tactics that are proving successful for Oli and his clients, and ways that practice owners of any size can leverage cost-effective digital tools and strategies to set themselves apart in their local market and online.
-Thanks for Reading-
Dave
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dave Kemp 00:00
Okay, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Future Ear Radio podcast. I’m really excited today to be joined by Mr. Oli Luke. So Oli, thanks for coming on today. How you doing?
Oli Luke 00:18
I’m good. I’m good. I’m excited. I’ve been, I’ve been a listener. So adds to the sweetness of being longtime
Dave Kemp 00:24
listener, first time caller,
Oli Luke 00:26
absolutely, you know.
Dave Kemp 00:28
So let’s start with your background, and just talk about your your agency. I know you’re, you know, kind of a marketer by trade and by that’s, that’s a lot of your focus. So let’s just start right at the top. How did you even come to be in this industry and share about your background?
Oli Luke 00:48
Yeah, I, I ended up in this industry by a freak accident, and I’ll share the context is, we’ll go back and I was one of those, one of those kids at school that was just a little lunch. Little entrepreneurial, right? You know, everything I see in movies tells me the US version of that was setting up lemonade stands, the UK version is selling cigarettes and basically hustling snacks in the morning and selling chewing gums through the afternoon. It was kind of that. So I was kind of one of those kids at school, and then we’ll go into the story, and apologies to any listeners, but we’ll dive straight into it. When I was 15, I had a genius idea, so put yourself into a 15 year old boy. That’s a weird statement. Put yourself into the head space of a 15 year old boy. And at the time, I was like, Okay, what should I do? I’m gonna start an online business. What would be the coolest thing in the world to start? Like, what would make me the coolest guy at school? What would all the girls think I’m great for? And I had this idea to start, which was highly illegal, I believe, at the time, but I had an idea to start a a sex toy website, because it just felt like the coolest thing in the world. It would be hilarious. And I did it right. I built a website, I found a drop ship wholesaler, I copied all the products across, I bought a domain, I indexed it on Google, I connected it to PayPal, and I remember sitting there and just pressing refresh, and no sales were coming in. And I was like, This doesn’t make sense. Let me put a test order through. Put a test order through. It worked. I was like, something’s not quite right here, because my belief was, and you’ll have to excuse the pun on this one, if you build it, they will come and it clearly wasn’t the case. So I was like, oh, wait a minute. I probably need to get people to this website. So like, how do ads work? How does marketing work? And then that kind of took over, and was a huge distraction, which resulted in my school, my school grades, not being too good, because I was like, I just care about marketing. I want to learn this thing. And I just got my hands on everything I could. So learning from the direct response great very much the time, and going deep on that journey. And then in my early 20s, I started a marketing consultancy company in the UK, and I become super excited about all the new stuff, right? Take the old school principles that we know is true, and Facebook ads is a new thing. How do we inject this and how do we then leverage things like funneled which were big at the time in certain online industries, and E Comm, which was booming in the time? So I almost built a reputation, and I had an email newsletter database that I sent daily emails to of around 7000 people, and it was all focused on, like, what’s the what’s working now? From an advanced online marketing technique, Facebook had launched new ad update or a new option, here’s what it means very much in that space. And then I started, I spotted a bit of a gap in the market, and I started a handwritten direct mail company, because one thing that I’d seen was there was a lot of experience led brands that, you know, wanted to do cool things from a direct mail perspective, but it was just a little more difficult for them to do so, and everything was a little too digital. So I started this handwritten direct mail company, and we were like, Okay, we we fit that gap of brands that want the personal touch. And we had some cool brands. We had Gucci, BMW, Virgin, and it was very much people buy a car, for example, they get a handwritten note from the dealership. A few days later. It was all those little things that we got into. And I exited that business in late 2019 but hearing care was something that I need never even considered. Was considered, was an industry, really, until I accidentally bumped into it in 2016 and how that occurred was I had a client at the time in my kind of small marketing consultancy company in the UK, a guy. Phil M Jones, and he was a speaker, a trainer, and he was just about to release a book called exactly what to say. So I was working behind the scenes, helping him with his book launch and all that fun stuff from a marketing perspective. And was on a call at one point, and he was like, Hey, I’m I started doing some work in the hearing care industry in the US. I’d been invited to speak at a number of conferences. I was like, Okay. And he said, we’re running like, a little mastermind event in Houston later this year, and there’s going to be, like, 1015, practices from across Texas that are coming into the room. Like, do you want to come along and just share some things that you think may work from a marketing perspective. And I was like, No. I was like, I I feel like sitting in front of a doctor’s that feels very overwhelming. I’m just a kid who sits in my spare bedroom, um, writing emails and doing stuff on on the internet. I was like, me to tell doctors about anything. Feels like I am not qualified, and I wasn’t super up for coming to the US, because I’d been to the US once before, and I went to Cleveland, Ohio, and I arrived, and I just remember thinking, this is what I thought it would be. This this country has been over hyped. This country has been well marketed. So yeah, thankfully I didn’t give up on that and and just believe that Cleveland was the US.
Dave Kemp 06:25
Shout out to our Cleveland listeners, yeah, apologies.
Oli Luke 06:29
Like I enjoyed it. It was my first time. Like my accent was a real novelty to the people of Cleveland, which was a little exciting, and the Rock and Roll Museum, I enjoyed it a lot, but it’s not what I thought the US was. So I went to that Houston event. Phil did a little session in the morning. I shared some things I just thought were obvious based on other industries. Like, look at website and go, Why are you doing that? Remove that. Like, that call to action is silly. Like, why are we asking people to schedule an appointment. Like, surely, that’s like asking people to marry me on a dating profile. Like, change that to something a little easier to say yes to things that just felt very obvious. And then a bunch of the practices in the room back in I think, was it 2016 2017 and said, Can you guys, you and Phil, just help us to implement the stuff we spoke about today. And Phil and I just looked at each other and was like, Yeah, you know, you know, it is like, how both businesses accidentally start? You’re like, Yeah, well, we’ll do that, and then quickly go to the bar, have a beer scribble on a napkin, like we’ve got to work this out how we’re going to do this. What are the things we’re going to offer, what are the things they would need to implement? We scribbled orange and gray at the top because that was the brand colors that we wanted the logo to be to align with Phil’s other brand colors. And before we knew it, we had to create an invoice, and orange and gray just accidentally became the name all the fun stuff of a startup, right? Totally. And then yeah, since then, we’ve, yeah, we’ve grown from there. And we work with just over 65 practices across North America, so majority in the US, a handful in in Canada. And that’s kind of been the the journey up to now, from sex toys as a 15 year old up to actually important work, helping help us, to help more people. So
Dave Kemp 08:23
did you when was the meeting in Houston?
Oli Luke 08:28
I get lost. It’s got to be, it’s got to have to be the late 2016 or late 27
Dave Kemp 08:33
Okay, so were you then doing this actively Since 2016 2017 where you were supporting practice owners in the US, like, around that time frame,
Oli Luke 08:45
yeah, and I think, off the back of that event we had like, six or seven that was like, Can you work with us? So we started working with them, and then from there, we’ve, yeah, we never really advertised ourself too much. Only over the last couple of years, if I’d like to start doing a podcast and pushing some opinions out into the world of how practices should grow, but it was always like an accidental secret society, because we, like the last thing we want is to be a big marketing group, like the ambition to be A hundreds of practices, and everyone pushes out generic templates, like, it’s just not what we think is the right thing to win in the marketplace from a practices perspective. So we’ve, yeah, we’ve always intentionally been like, we want to go slow. We want the right fit people to come on board, because there’s a lot of depth of relationship. It’s not a case of plug into a system, and good luck. Every practice has its nuances.
Dave Kemp 09:44
No, for sure, i i A lot of that resonates. I mean, I know how that is with being a small business, and you just sort of adapt to whatever kind of market needs there are, and so you’re that’s how it all kind of materializes. It’s like, okay, wow, suddenly I have a business. Because. Because these are the things that people are asking for me to do, and then that just kind of grows and grows and grows. And I’m sure that your initial sort of pitch even was, you know, a slim down version of what you’re doing now, because you’ve probably, as you’ve worked through, you know, these years of working with these different members is just sort of filling in the gaps of whatever they’re saying or the things that they need help with. And I mean, you know, you’re looking at the marketing well, just like the total landscape from that eight year period is insane. I mean, you you’re talking about pre pandemic to post pandemic and all of the different digital changes, like the ATT, you know, overhaul, and the limitations that that really had on, you know, Facebook ads, Google ads, in terms of, like, the ability to track people like, you know, you could in 2016 you can’t do now. So I have to just imagine that there’s been a huge evolution in terms of what you were even offering, but it sounds to me like the name of the game was just really coming up with, well, what do you need? What do you need help with? And then you and your partner go to the pub, have a few beers, and you scratch out like, Okay, well, what’s the service of that gonna actually look like?
Oli Luke 11:15
Yeah, absolutely. I think the one thing on that point is, the strategy that we believe was right in 2016 is pretty similar to what we believe is right now. So we haven’t like, gone right when we now need to do these ads now that’s changed run over here. We’ve always had the foundations have always been solid, which really is like, be define who you want to serve in your marketplace, and then be the practice that you want to grow into, or look like the practice you want to grow into. So there’s not real like most of our members, don’t spend a dime on advertising. They don’t spend any Google budget, they don’t spend any Facebook budget, they don’t really send any mailers or only to internal database. It’s really high quality brand building and becoming the iconic practice that naturally becomes the name on everybody’s tongue around, hearing health, hearing loss, etc. So it’s hard yards, because you’re really taking a brand from being unknown to well known, but without using advertising, but trying to do it organically. But that that was always the strategy we believe was right is, I think, as the marketplace matures, especially with the boomer trend, we see more and more right. Boomers make well researched buying decisions, whereas previous Silent Generation, if you turned up in the newspaper, in the mail, and they needed your services, they’re pretty comfortable just to give you a call and then make a decision face to face. Yeah, we the boomer trends always been an interesting one that we we could see come in. So, yeah, I think on reflection, the strategy we defined early, of like, let’s just be the local experts, but not just say we are, but prove we are and do it that way, as a, yeah, advantageous. Well, I
Dave Kemp 13:05
mean, I think that on that point there, you know, there’s a lot of different sort of gimmicky marketing tactics that have, you know, nice like short term impact, but it’s not sustainable, and it’s not something that’s actually going to drive people to you in a a truly organic way that you know, like the the organic, long approach, and I think that’s the hardest thing for people to grok, is that this is not something that you can, just like, have overnight success with. There’s not a lot of silver bullets out there in terms of just like, oh bam, overnight, you now suddenly have this captive audience, and you can share whatever message you want. And, you know, you’ve just soared to the top of everybody’s, you know, sort of Top of Mind result their own internal Google and and so I just think about, like, you know, a lot of this stuff really is kind of old school tactics just repackaged in in like kind of modern forms. So, for example, you know, if the if the goal is to your ultimate goal is like, I want to increase my word of mouth referrals. Well, how would you do that? Well, you ultimately need to provide such a great experience that somebody’s willing to go out of their way to tell their friends and stuff like that. Now, the way in which they tell each other and communicate with one another might have evolved, but at the end of the day, you’re still sort of attacking the same problem, which is like, how do you how do you differentiate yourself in a market that is like in this is this industry is a really good example of something that can very quickly feel like cookie cutter and commoditized. And you know, you have a lot of these things that people say, Well, this is what makes me unique. But if you pull 10 different practices separately, you’d probably get like, a ton of crossover in terms of what they say is making them. Unique. So it all kind of like begs the question of, like, how do you like? The first thing that you really need to do, it seems like, is define exactly what it is that’s going to make you different. And then downstream of that is like, okay, then how do you communicate that to the market? How do you encourage your customers to become advocates? Like all those kinds of tried and true methods that have been around for 100 years, but it’s like the modernized version of it, and then also the version of it that’s, you know, that that actually is realistically applicable to this very specific industry?
Oli Luke 15:35
Oh, absolutely. And we have a little a mantra with our members as well. There was a British band in the 1980s called Bananarama, and they had a song, and the main lyric was, it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. And that’s like, become the mantra of everything, because, like, fundamentally with marketing, like, but for most small businesses, it’s the same things, right? Like, do a website, send a email to your customers, your patients, your prospects. It’s rarely like what you do, it’s it’s more the depth and the intelligence, the thought and the quality of the work that goes into it, but you’re absolutely bang on right? It’s ever nothing really is silver bullet. There’s no real secret sauce or rabbit out of a hat situation for marketing. But I think as a as an industry, historically, we have been spoiled, because there were periods not too long ago where you could spend 1000 bucks on something and get 2000 bucks back and do it at scale, right? Direct mail was a key one, and given the margin that was in devices at the time, and the play there, and that was a beautiful stage to grow really big businesses very, very fast, whereas right now, they have diminishing returns. And my true belief around that is it’s not because direct mail no longer works. To use that as an example, it’s the person you’re sending it to. Is just different now, a 70 year old today is very different to a 70 year old 10 years ago, because of that generational shift between a 70 year old was silent generation grew up influenced by the Great Depression, World War Two very different set of beliefs and behaviors, far more receptive to responding to a piece of direct mail or read the newspaper, consistently had authority for anything that came through the mail, any government institution, etc, whereas then we have the boomers, who are now just turning 70. That’s a very different upbringing. You know, the US become the world current currency reserve in 1944 the youngest Boomer with Barney in 46 like the period and childhood and view of the world and everything else and belief system around money, so so different, like it just those differences of those two, is why I think direct mail doesn’t work as well as it used to not so much, because the modality has changed more just the recipient who’s receiving it is so different, for sure,
Dave Kemp 18:06
I couldn’t agree more with that the recipients changed the amount of avenues that they can have access to. This the introduction of third party benefits, you know our three pas, the administrators that are, you know, so you’re as the provider, the landscapes kind of changed underneath your feet. And I think that, like that is, there’s a lot to unpack with that, right? Because I kind of feel like that’s at the root of a lot of this is like what I sort of gather when I go to conferences or when I just talk to customers all the time, is just like understanding this divide. And so much of audiology in the US is sort of, it’s built, you know, the practice and the way that the practice is designed. So much of that really is sort of built, and it’s a little bit antiquated now, because it’s catering to that old paradigm, the old recipient, the old model. So, you know, you have people that are saying, well, I, you know, I don’t understand, like, why I’m having issues with revenue generation when, like in the past that used to, I used to have these, like, tried and true methods. And to your point, like the landscapes changed, there are new variables that didn’t exist before. And so how are you sort of, you know, I guess, like factoring all of that change in. And I just think that this whole notion of, like this changing consumer in the baby boomer versus the silent generation, there’s just a lot to really understand there about the size of that demographic, the wealth of that demographic, the buying behaviors, the tendency now, I think, to really research your options online, you have to understand that they’re also the parents of the savviest generations. That we’ve ever known with, you know, you know, with millennials or even the Zoomers like these are people that have a way more sophisticated approach of gathering information online than previously. And so all of these things, I guess, sort of like accrue into this new dynamic, in this new equation, which is like, how do you now participate in this new landscape in an effective way? And I guess the thing that like is, the obvious thing is that you cannot do what you had done in years past, even up to relatively recently, because things have really changed dramatically in the last few years.
Oli Luke 20:40
So true. And I think the key thing here is you you cannot advertise yourself out of bad marketing, which we’ve been able to do as an industry in the past, like you’re marketing like your website, the way you’re perceived online. It’s not been that key. Because you can just go and throw 1000 books and get 2000 books back. You can advertise your yourself to growth. Whereas, you know, I think a little kind of fun analogy we always use is like, advertising is like asking somebody on a date, and marketing is all the reasons they’ll say yes, and the marketing bit is Yeah, is so critical, right? And if to use that dating analogy, if you get the marketing bit, right? So you look great, you smell great, your dress great, your hair looks great, etc, then you’re gonna have more people say yes if you ask them. But fundamentally, you probably, you’re probably not gonna have to be the one asking, which certainly helps, right? If you and even what you said there regarding the amount of research that not just boomers do, but the sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters of boomers. Like this is the part where you just naturally, you’re not going to trick them with some advertising trick, that you’re doing a coupon or that you’re just another practice, but you’re nicer than everyone else, or you’re you’re slightly better than everyone else, if they’re researching, you need to be obnoxiously better to the types of people that you’re looking to reach and and back that up with a bunch of evidence.
Dave Kemp 22:08
And like I, the way I sort of perceive things is like, you know, we’re talking about doctors here, right? These aren’t marketing professionals. These are people that absolutely primarily just want to focus on seeing patients. And so I know that there’s a lot of, like, latent frustration with this, because, and I think, like the, you know, sort of the average practice owner or practitioner, you know, they they are probably perceiving themselves as, like, I do a really good job. I provide best practices all these different things. But like, I the thing I think a lot of people really struggle with is this notion of like you have to somehow make that you have to publicly communicate, that you have to make that publicly visible, of all of this. So, you know, I just, I think back on some of these sort of, you know, these changes, I guess, and and, you know, like the whole notion of gathering reviews on your website and the importance of that type of thing, you know, if it’s maybe uncomfortable initially, but like soliciting people to go and leave you a five star review, or things that, again, are so not conventional to the doctor and what they their Education and their schooling and their focus and all that and and so I think that there’s a lot of like frustration here because of this whole dynamic that’s changed, which was, again, in, you know, I’m kind of trying to avoid using this term, but like in the old paradigm, it was more of a gatekeeper model, where you really only had a few options of who you could, you know, basically enter into this whole ecosystem through, you know, your local five places that you could go into. And so the cream kind of rises to the top there, but now you’re competing with a gigantic new array of competitors, you know, and so I just feel like it’s become more pronounced than ever. And I guess that’s kind of the nature of it, is, like, you know how? And this is my question to you, is like somebody that is, you know, the Calvary here, and you’re, you’re providing support, and you’re really catering to this whole demand, which is, you know, this idea of, how do I as a doctor have time to do these things that truly will benefit my practice? They’re going to help with my revenue growth, all these different things, but they’re so sort of, I guess, alien to my what my sort of like upbringing into how I got to here was, and again, this is generalization. Some people are naturally just, like, good at any of this stuff, or they’re, they have a little bit of an aptitude for it. They maybe they’ve read a bunch of books and something like so I’m not disparaging anybody, like they’re, clearly, it’s, it’s a wide spectrum of people’s competency when it comes to this stuff. But like, based on what you’ve seen, what has. That sort of, I guess, attitude toward this. Ben, are you finding that as people start to kind of see the success of it, they’re becoming more open minded to this idea of, I do have to kind of think about my business as a marketer, even though, the end of the day, all I want to do is just be a clinician.
Oli Luke 25:20
It’s a tough one, right? And being a business owner sucks, like it gets we’re all like, told it’s the best thing in the world, and it’s any Hollywood movie makes it out to be like speedy chairs and first class travel and all the best things in life. It’s, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. At some stages, it’s heavy, right? To be a business owner, so heavy amount of stress to carry. Stress to carry. I think the biggest thing around this is it’s the pivot right from being and see this across the industry, and there’s no right or wrong, there’s no judgment in this. But there’s some practices that see themselves as the audiologist first and a business owner second, and there’s others that see themselves as a business owner first and an audiologist second. And if you’re in that latter category, it becomes a little it all depends what you want to build as well, but it becomes a little easier to go well, these are the seven things I need to get focus on. I need to ensure my finances that a business are healthy. I need to show ensure that the staffing is healthier, the marketing is healthier. Blah, blah, blah. So like it’s a challenging conundrum, I feel somewhat biased that the practices that I spend most of my time talking to, they’re usually in that business owner first headspace, which is probably one of the reasons they gravitate towards working with us, because they want involvement in in the work they’re doing. They want to be part of it. They want the education, they want the support. They don’t just want to delegate forget and hope for the best, which I think would be a behavior that would tend to sit more with somebody who wants to be the audiologist first and try and delegate the business side of things.
Dave Kemp 26:56
Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. I think that it’s, uh, it is a little bit of a conundrum, because you you have to have a nice balancing act. And I think that this is, you know, you see a lot of, like, you know, some of the most successful practices that I know have, sort of, like, different people that are sort of, they’ve been bestowed as I’m kind of the clinician. This is more of the business person. Sometimes it’s spouses, you know, sometimes it’s, you know, business partners, like, whatever it might be. I think that’s kind of a, I guess that’s like an endorsement for, you know, why sometimes having a business partner is so valuable is because you can compliment each other. And, you know, because there are two sides of all of this, you know, you have the business side of it, and they’re also interconnected. I mean, you’re, you’re going to be able to be the provide the type of clinical work in the clinical setting, and the best practices and all that, so long as you can fund it, you know what I mean, so long you can keep the lights on and you can continue to see patients, and so, you know, I think it’s like that whole harmony of like, how do you kind of interlink the two so that you know the the business is a reflection of the amazing clinical care that you’re providing your community? And then how do you, sort of, like, how do you take that and then package that in a way in today’s 2024, times that’s like, conducive to the way in which people find information, whether that’s through YouTube, through, you know, your website, in the way that it’s indexed. And, you know, like, there’s just so many layers to this about it can feel very, very overwhelming. You know, in terms of, like, if you’re just getting started out, or you’re taking something in your your you haven’t paid any attention to all these different things for 20 years, and then now it’s like, now I need to really shore up my SEO, you know, how do I start? And this gets back to that whole like analogy that you had there about marketing and advertising, which is, like, you know, the shortcut would be that you could just spend and you could be the top listing on, you know, the Google paid ad for, you know, audiologists in St Louis or something like that. But you’re paying for all of that traffic. You know, how much of that is really organic, whereas the marketing approach, the longer term approach, would be to really think critically about, well, what is it that’s actually going to rank well over time, and how do I accrue that and, and I guess, like the unfortunate sort of reality of that is it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time because these are these. There aren’t shortcuts to the things that are actually sustainable. Whether it’s, you know, accruing 100 reviews on your website, you know, that’s a large, tall order. But you know that if you get 105 star reviews and you have one bad review, it’s it’s going to very slightly diminish your overall reputation, whereas if you only have five reviews and you get a one star review, now maybe you’re not even in the top results. So there’s a lot. Of that kind of stuff, where it’s, you know, I’ve used that example now twice in this conversation, but, I mean, that’s kind of where my head’s at. And I’d be curious to ask you is, like, you know, what are, what are some of those things that are, the longer, you know, drawn out you have to put in the work kind of things, but that they have a tremendous payoff long term in terms of, I guess that would be earned media,
Oli Luke 30:23
yeah. And I think I’d encourage everyone listening to this right now is, like, how would you make a buying decision? Let’s say you wanted to buy something I don’t know, like a purchase that you didn’t have knowledge of, let’s say a swimming pool. If you wanted to buy a swimming pool. Like, what would be the decision? Would you go online and just search the first company that appears on a Google ad and call them like, maybe, maybe that’ll be the way you’re wired. Would you start Googling to ask questions and try and have a better understanding, understand what this means, what that means, what your different options are, how they can be financed, what the different tile options would be, how that would impact price, how the debt over where it could be located. If you need some form of permission, I don’t know, you’d go down a a deep research journey, and over that time, you probably bump into the type of business that you feel probably best aligns with you, based on them turning up and giving you the help along the way. So I always think that lens is important of how would you make a buying decision? Because we seem to think anybody that would come to us would make a different form of buying decision, and they’ll go through the same journey. Right in terms of earned media that takes time to build up, but has value. It truly is like, take that lens of the swimming pool company. What are the things that they would do that would help you make that buying decision and choose them. It’s very much the same to give you a few. Like being the Wikipedia of hearing care locally is so so key. We see, like everyone in any stage of buying a set of hearing aids, moving forward of hearing care is always in a different stage of awareness. You have your people that are totally unaware. You have your people that are product aware, solution aware, fully aware. They’re all in different categories of like where they are on that journey, that category at the top, that big group of people that are problem aware, who understand they’ve got a hearing challenge and are in that initial research phase. Like, if you can turn up and answer any question that they Google, if they’re wondering, like, what are the common signs of hearing loss? If they want to understand how much the hearing aids cost, and you’ve got to navigate and explain that they need more than a set of hearing aids to achieve better hearing like if you can be the expert that continually shows up, then you’re naturally going to be much higher in their expectations. So a quantity of quality content, answering all the most questions, all the most common questions, as comprehensive, as comprehensively as possible, is a a strategy that has huge longevity to it, because, like we see now with some of our members, like, they’re getting traffic and getting phone calls and patients off a piece of content that was returned four years ago, but it’s still there. It indexes, it turns over green, it gets traffic so, like, that’s that’s valuable, and then beyond that, just building a never ending body of evidence. Like, one of the things that we do with a lot of our members is we look to create case studies for many of their patients. So like, let’s pick categories of a number of patients, patients that went to Costco realize they made an error. Came to you, right? We need that patient, husband and wife, married couple, you know, whose relationship has been enhanced due to addressing a hearing challenge. Like we get a quantity of different categories of potential patients. We find a specific patient that meets each of them, and then we invite them to complete a case study, so whether that’s an interview with them or whether that’s through a questionnaire. So for many of them, practices that we work with. There’s like 6080, 120 case studies through the site that have picture of the patients or patient themselves, the depth of stories sharing when they first realized they had a hearing challenge, any preconceived fears or concerns why they chose ABC hearing their first impression, the impact better hearings had on their life, and their advice to anybody that’s considering following in their footsteps, these real, in depth stories, like, that’s a heavy piece of work, but once it’s done, like, it’s a beautiful sales tool for you to say, oh, okay, you’re concerned about the cost. Let me introduce you to one of our patients who had the exact same concern. Here’s their story, but also great when people are looking on the internet and they’re looking for somebody that represents them, and when they see a quantity of that, that’s super helpful. So it’s it’s really this brand building game like be the local expert, not just by saying it, but by proving it, being trusted by. Any local people, because you’ve helped them to achieve the outcomes the individual on your site is looking for. Not by just saying we’re trusted by hundreds of people, but you’ve got the evidence. You’ve just got to back up you are who you say you are, like that’s the heavy work, because I think right now, more than ever, in marketing, in any industry, trust is the most valuable currency. Totally agree, like, we can’t even trust videos and pictures we see on the internet right now because we know it’s probably not real. It’s manipulated, and anything that seems a little unique is probably AI driven. Like, our trust for anything online or what we read is so low, but like, evidence that backs up. And if you had to take the evidence that you’ve collected to back up, you are who you say you are to a jury. Like, do you have enough evidence to to ensure that it’s a unanimous decision from the jury? Like, that’s that’s the heavy work, but the invaluable work that ensures that you’re constantly be chosen, rather than run a one off advertising play and get some results, and then it will disappear, and you’ve got to try and find the next advertising play. These are, these are the organic pieces.
Dave Kemp 36:08
Yeah. I mean, I love that whole idea of, like, put yourself in the shoes of the consumer and reverse engineer, how you would go about finding the answer to that, and not just you, but maybe find, maybe run that same experiment with your kid, or your grandkid, you know, whoever so you that you’re getting a generational perspective of, how do you go into you? How do you do a business decision today? Because that is, I think it’s so instructive as to what are the kinds of things that people are initially going to be looking for, you know, at what point is like, you know, we’re talking about something that’s notorious for an out of pocket expense, right? So, you know, cost is going to be up there. And so if you’re unwilling to have any semblance of your prices on online, well, the reality is that you’re that’s kind of a non starter for a lot of people. So in the absence of maybe outright publishing that stuff, I love what you said there about testimonials and giving people experiences, first hand experiences, of like, you know, you know, you’re basically saying, I bet you have this hesitation or this is a potential objection. Is the cost that’s associated with it. Let me give you an example of somebody that had that exact same objection. And here’s how we were able to overcome that objection, right? And I think that absolutely, you know, like that is way more powerful than to just be, you know, either a just completely black box opaque. I’m you have to engage with me in order to get that information, which, again, is, is sort of hostile to the way that people try to acquire information today. And again, it’s so counter to the nature of the internet, which is, like, you really can kind of find anything out now, whether or not it’s true is, is a different thing. But, you know, like, I just again, that’s kind of where I was going earlier in this conversation, which is like, there are some of these old school mindsets that are like, that was a huge no no again in that previous era. But now you have to recognize that, like in this new in this new environment, those types of things are wildly available. I mean, you can go on to Costco and you can see the hearing aids that you can buy from there for 14, I think it’s like 1459 or whatever it is, you know. So it’s like, that’s going to be what people are anchoring around. So unless you can go and you can actually sort of counter that and say, like, you know, there’s value that’s associated with my practice, and I’m still going to be able to provide you with a similar priced experiences that now there might be a premium associated with it, or something, whatever, however you want to spin it, but I just feel like those are the kinds of things that, you know, I’ve seen some some practices sort of emerge in the last few years. And I just look at the way that they’re using Instagram, the way that they’re using YouTube videos on their website. I mean, it’s, it’s really cool and exciting to kind of see like the potential of this, because what I’m observing are really, really effective ways to brand your whole practice in a way that’s extremely conducive to the internet today, and it’s meeting the consumer where they are, you know, like, if, again, if we’re looking at this as like, how many of the purchase decisions are being influenced by the millennials that are some way related to your practice, whether it’s the children of their patients, or if It’s the grandchildren of the patients, where are millennials spending their time today, and how do you communicate with them? And so I just feel like these are really productive exercises. Is to say, like, you don’t necessarily have to be like, I’m going to go all in on Instagram. I’m going to have this, like, huge, giant presence, and I’m going to be putting all this time, and I’m going to have this huge, you know, well thought out. Marketing plan and all this. I mean, I guess it’s like more of you just got to start somewhere. And to me, it seems like that’s kind of the nature of a lot of this stuff. Is don’t get so fixated on being perfect as much as have a thought, have a game plan. But most importantly, start, you know, and I’d be curious on your thoughts, on that in terms of like what you’re seeing is in terms of new mediums, entirely new ways in which people are marketing themselves. What’s that mentality been like amongst your members? Are they embracing it? Are they, you know, sort of standoffish toward it. In some ways. You know, that? Because, again, I just feel like this is so it’s all part of that whole, you know, nature of like these aren’t inherently the types of people that are thinking about stuff like this. They’re just wanting to practice audiology.
Oli Luke 40:56
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one, one of the biggest challenges which prevents many practices from even moving forward. It’s just the overwhelm of not knowing what to do, because, like, marketing is vastly over complicated, in my view, and mainly mainly from people trying to sell marketing services, right? Let’s make SEO really confusing. Like, do you want to get a Tiktok channel? Here’s what you need to do, and just the the fear of not knowing what to do usually prevents procrastination. I fundamentally like, there’s pretty much seven steps that I would put to marketing at practice, effectively and in today, and what I believe will be long into the future, number one is define the who, and that means like, Who are you looking to serve? And as we know, that used to be, put a pin in a mat, draw a circle around it, and anybody with a hearing loss within this parameter, we help. But today’s marketplace just be a little more specific. And that doesn’t mean that it has to be one who. You can have multiple who’s but example being, we’ve we’ve got one member who’s got specificity in their marketplace that they know that they get the best results for dissatisfied existing hearing aid wearers, and that’s the market that they’re going after. And because of that they’ve defined their who their messaging is very sharp towards it, and their marketing can be very sharp towards it. And naturally, the byproduct of that is somebody that comes to their website that’s not yet a hearing aid wearer doesn’t look at them and say they only help existing hearing aid wearers that are unsatisfied. They go, Well, I may as well just come to them first, rather than make the mistake that their other patients have of going somewhere else then coming to them. So like, just getting definition of your who is the first step, the second one is, then look like the practice that you want to become. So like, this is the big puzzle that we have in the early days when we work with with members, is it’s like, let’s, let’s understand. Let’s make them look like the practice they want to be in their marketplace and go through that transformation. And that doesn’t mean fake it till you make it, but it means like, let’s put your best foot forward in all areas. Like, let’s be very specific on who you serve. Let’s collect the evidence that you’re the best at it. Let’s get photography to ensure that patient understands that working with you is dramatically different than the other options available. Let’s ensure all your service pages don’t just say we do hearing assessments, but break down your 11 step methodology of what you do with patients, and have a patient journey mapped out that shows that after the fitting, it’s not just a little bit of follow up. It goes into a real world, adjustments, appointment and a technology up tonight, like all the all the little things that really have some depth of perceived value, but ensure they look like the business they want to become. The third one is similar to what we touched on before, like build that never ending body of evidence if you say you’re anything your job needs to be to continually collect that evidence. It’s a never, ever finished job. You say that you’re the most trusted in the community, then we need to see you at every community event. We need to see that you sponsored a local kids hockey team. We need to see that you’re going to local businesses. You’re at a restaurant on Saturday with your partner, and you’re putting that in the next newsletter and on social media to show you’re so engaged in the community. Like, that’s a constantly, never finishing game. From there, it’s all around, really elevating the conversations that matter. And what I mean by that is, like, How are you engaging regularly with your existing patients, because that is the goldmine of any practice. And the big thing that we encourage our members to do is close the gap between the professional reason that the patient shows you and the personal reasons and the personal relationship that will keep them a patient for life and a superfan and a referral partner. So really engage. Aging email newsletters that are not about hearing health at all, more about you, kind of what you’re up to in your world, giving insights behind the curtain. Peak at the providers sharing like the depth of a human connection, more than I’m your service provider, and sure your physician communications are on point, and you’re showing them that you you care about the hearing health for the community. You’ve got your finger on the pulse, and you’re there to support them. Think about any community outreach, any potential referral partners that are fellow local businesses, like all those conversations are so so key. From there, it’s really just drive the basics to a gold standard consistently. And, you know, we can say, like, should we do anything on tick tock? Should we lean in on Instagram? Like, maybe. But like, fundamentally, just the foundations, if you can just get those basics done to a gold standard consistently. So your site is continually ensuring it’s, it’s putting the best version of you from foot forward. Ensure you continue, continually collecting evidence. You’re always continually having an email newsletter go out regularly communicating with decisions, doing all the things you need to do that basics to a gold standard consistently is take it as the theory of marginal gains, those 1% improvements over time give you a real nice upper hand over time. Then from there, I’d say the biggest thing that most practices can do is just get the get the money situation right in that practice. And what I mean by that is there’s always so many little hidden areas where there’s extra money, and that occurs in every business, but practices, more than most, like just your pricing is probably the easiest place to focus. How could you potentially repackage your pricing? So it’s not we sell hearing aids plus service, but we sell treatment plans that help people get from here to there. And really line item, everything line item, everything that’s included in that. And you can play with those numbers more than most people think. And in many situations, there’s a different level of emotional await, emotional weight to a buying decision than the actual number. And what I mean by that is, if you’re currently 6990 the emotional weight of that buying decision between 6990 and like 7190 isn’t significant. Like nobody says yes to 6990 but 7190 is too much. Like we see that as the same emotional weight, and to make that a decision because it’s 7000 bucks, or about 7000 bucks, yeah, there’s an extra $200 per transaction that could be collected. There’s all those little areas how you can micro segment your database for smart marketing, how you can grow your average transaction value, how you can help patients better turn up for appointments, more pre faith, pre framed, pre sold, given the work that’s been done prior to the appointment, like there’s there’s all stuff you can do there just to collect extra money. And then from there, that’s when you can start to become more iconic in your community. And the easiest play that anybody listening to this can do that, I think, is so so powerful, is if you want to become an iconic, well known local business in your community, especially if you have manufacturer owned chains as competitors, and they can’t lean into this local love, local approach as much as you a really easy play that you can do is every month, go and visit a local business, whether it’s a restaurant, whether it’s an ice cream shop, whether it’s a spa and gym. Take some pictures while you’re there, and then go and write about it as a blog on your website, sharing. Just watch the spotlight this great local business. We love, ABC ice cream shop, amazing flavors. It’s been in the community for so many years. My recommendation is have the chocolate chip when you go have the article on your site. First of all, great for your email. Newsletter shows that you’re really, truly engaged in the community and grows that relationship with patients. But the real magic is take that on social media, put a post out about it, link into the article you’ve written, tag ABC ice cream shop in it, and what often happens is ABC Ice Cream Shop sees that there’s been a nice article written about them, which you know, everybody likes nice things said about them. As a business, they reshare that with their customers. And you almost get this reach where you’re getting these unofficial endorsements, where you’re being put in front of the customers, followers, fans, of all these locally loved businesses, you just become well known by proxy, by leveraging other people’s audiences without having to advertise throw money at it. Your only job is to go and enjoy a meal once a month and write about it on your site. But you get so much leverage if it’s done well. And once again, this all comes back to it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. But like, there’s so much. Magic here of how do you just become the go to iconic practice in your area, not by being the one that keeps showing up in the mailbox with a coupon, but more like you are just that trusted brand that has a awesome reputation? Yeah,
Dave Kemp 50:14
wow. That’s a really good example. I love that. That’s that’s a, I mean, because that’s the type of thing that it’s replicable. It’s totally got legs. I mean, you can imagine that, if you’re a small business and you get any kind of press, even if it’s from the audiology practice owner that’s two, two doors down, that’s something that you can share. I mean, that is kind of like, what, what you need to kind of understand, I guess, is like, a anybody that’s engaging in business today is like that is the nature of marketing, and in general, is a lot of it is, you know, because it’s hard and it’s awkward to just constantly be self promoting. So it’s a quasi way that you can self promote that’s not yourself. Somebody else is, is reviewing your kind of thing. So it’s actually a brilliant way to engage your local community in a very sort of, not an ulterior motive kind of thing. Look, I’m just shouting you out, and if you feel inclined, feel free to reciprocate kind of thing. But I do think that a lot of what I’m gathering and taking away from today is this whole notion of, like, the future of marketing and all this stuff is storytelling. And I think that that is the kind of main takeaway is, like everybody has really interesting stories to tell, whether you think you do or you don’t. I think people would be amazed that, you know, at at the sort of demand for, for this type of thing, because it does it, it helps to really foster authenticity, which is, I think the, you know, kind of the pre, you know, it’s the underlying thing of trust. And I think that it is the type of thing where, you know, it’s very much how the the internet in general is kind of operating today is you need to figure out how to like package these stories in a way that’s conducive to the Internet, whether it’s you’re going to start a newsletter, a podcast, a YouTube channel, something that is, you know, a good, effective way to communicate. One to many. I chose a podcast as a B to B guy because I felt like this was a really good way for me to have an ongoing narrative and be able to let people understand the way I think about things through these types of conversations. So not to make it about myself, but I think that that’s just one example of how you know, in a very, very niche business like mine, of what I did to try to differentiate myself was kind of just to expose people to who I really am in a way that is in is somewhat engaging, I would think, and and so I think that there’s a lot of analogous things as any kind of business owner today or anybody you Know, is, how can you tell a story in an engaging way that’s authentic? And I think that, I think that, like healthcare, you have a gold mine, like you said that as your patients and figuring out how to do it in a way that’s not egregious, you know, or anything like that. But is, look, I want to turn the spotlight on you. I mean, I’ve had, I know people hearing care professionals that have a podcast that it’s like talking about their patients stories. And what better of a way than for you, if you’re, if you are sort of, you know, tentative on this, and there’s a lot of like, trepidation, of like, whether or not you want to engage in this, and honestly, this industry is probably, you know, a magnet for those types of people, right? Because there’s so much stigma associated with this people, don’t? You got a lot of people I would imagine that are on the outskirts, looking in. Do I? Do I dip my toe into this? And so I kind of just feel like those are the keys to success here, which are like ways that you can give people, put them in the shoes and let them, sort of, you know, rather than me tell you something, let me, let my patients sort of convince you and advocate on my behalf for you and and how do you facilitate that? I guess is kind of the nature of this whole thing. Is like doing it in a way that doesn’t feel heavy handed. It’s just authentic,
Oli Luke 54:23
yeah, and like, if you approach your patients that said, Hey, can I can you share your story? It’s awkward. But if you view, if you explain this, if you context to it, and you’re like, hey, like, we get calls all the time from people who are unsure what to do. They’ve got so much misinformation. They’re confused. The Screaming out to hear from somebody that’s been in there. Been in their shoes. Like, would you be open just to sharing a little bit of context about like your journey? It would really help others in the community to to follow in your footsteps? Like, yeah, damn now. Now I’ve got like purpose. I’ve got totally a reason. Like, yes. Like, I think we’d all do that, right? If we could give somebody, somebody earlier in their business journey, a bit of advice, and we think it’d be helpful, who’s been, who’s, yeah, about to follow in our footsteps, we’d all jump at that opportunity. And I
Dave Kemp 55:12
think to that point there, I mean, it’s the difference between saying, hey, you know, can you give me a five star review? You know, that kind of thing, and it’s just like, but if you, if you position it where it’s like, hey, look, you know, I found that one of the most tried and true, successful methods of patient acquisition is actually through patient testimonials. Is helping my patients, in my perspective, patients to communicate with one another more or less, so that you can, you can help, I guess, provide empathy for that person of like, I am literally you. These are the same concerns that you have, and that’s, I guess, kind of like the going full circle on this whole thing is, like, that’s where the buying cycle kind of begins today, right? Is like putting yourself in the shoes of what is a buyer in 2024 What’s that buying process look like? And in a world where people are flooded with information, what people are desperately seeking are authentic, real world experiences that they empathize and they relate to and that it resonates with them. And I feel like, again, patient testimonials is a really good example of that. But you have to do it in a way that you know you’re you’re facilitating in such a way that is, it comes across as being something that is, you know, you’re kind of part of this community too. You’re helping more people to get to the place to where you’re at, where you’re really happy with this decision that you made, and help to give them a platform to share that you know on your behalf, more or less,
Oli Luke 56:52
you’re so right, and maybe a controversial view, but I strongly believe the quality of Google reviews over quantity of Google reviews is more important, because I know there’s many tools right which will go allow people to hit five stars and post, and a lot of practices say, like, we’ve got hundreds of five star reviews, like they’ve got no commentary, it’s just name and a five star review, I feel if, if you can tee up your patience and give them. The most awkward thing about leaving a review is you don’t know what to write. And unless you’ve had a bad experience, writing a good review is difficult, right? So the more you can give a question and like, could you share what you would say to somebody that is considering visiting us for the first time, if you can tee up the question for them, and the way, just a bit of context, the way that we’ve had some real joy with this is following an appointment, we don’t send them in a text message saying, go and leave a review. We say, Hey, we’ve recorded a video for you. Thanks for watching. Thanks for attending your appointment. We’ve got a little video for you to watch. Click here and the video is the provider using almost the story of one of the challenges we have is more and more people look at Google reviews as a way to decide if we’re trustworthy, if they should choose us, or if they should go elsewhere, given that you’ve visited us, like would you be willing to just share your story for a Google review to Ensure that others that maybe researching can actually see a real, honest local opinion. I script it far better than what she’s come off the top of my head, but like sharing that narrative and story and then be able to leave a review and giving them the question to answer in the review just ensures that the quality of the review, and you can get paragraphs rather than, you know, just five stars and a blank review. But
Dave Kemp 58:43
that’s a really clever approach. Is like, let’s, you know, record a video. It’s just like you said, it’s not necessarily how you do it, it’s or it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it, you know. And so it’s like, small little things like that. And aggregation, I think, really do create a different feel than the more cookie cutter approach, if you will. So absolutely wrap up here. I did want to get your take on, you know, the big 800 gorilla, 800 pound gorilla in the room, apple. I know you have a lot of thoughts on this. You know your, what is your take in terms of how you how you think that Apple moving into and using the language that they do that was kind of the one thing that was a little bit, that was the only thing I guess I had a little bit of issue with, was the way in which they termed it, you know, clinical grade. And frankly, like, I think that it kind of broaches a broader topic, which is the way we speak about a lot of this stuff, is like the whole mild, moderate, and, you know, it’s like, that isn’t language that anybody understands. And so I kind of think that, like, maybe, in a way, this is helping to, you know, beg a broader conversation of like, Are we, are we using language that is only language that we amongst? Ourselves, know, or do we need to be using language that’s a little bit more, you know, kind of in the mainstream and in the zeitgeist. So anyway, what are your thoughts in terms of how you see this impacting the clinician good or the bad?
Oli Luke 1:00:15
Yeah, I feel this bad and this Oakley, right? The good is, you know, as an industry, we’ve been screaming for the rooftops for far too long that people need to give more consideration to their hearing health. And it feels like we’ve, we’ve shouted into a black hole, right? There’s not been an awful lot of nobody really gets too excited about the thought of having a baseline hearing test. So now, having the largest, most influential tech brand in the world pushing this message, that’s pretty exciting, right? And I think the best example for me is very close to home. My Scottish barber in law has clearly got a hearing loss. He will not listen to anybody who gives him any form of advice or suggests that he does anything about it, but he is very excited to test his hearing in his own company, through um Apple interesting. And I think that’s the market which is going to go through them. They’ve got to believe that their hearing is fine. They’ll do this apple hearing test and realize there’s a gap, like that’s that’s actually helpful. We’re going to allow people to start that awareness journey, yeah, but I do think there’s a lot of bad right, and I there’s three areas that concern me. The first is, you know, we’re all basing this on Apple’s current air pods, the two to two and a half years old that was never fundamentally built for for to be an over the counter hearing aid, but the latest software update allows them to be and every Apple trend always has apple launches the software first and then the firmware to complement the software afterwards. So based on the rumors that I’m seeing air pods pro three are due as early as next year, and they’re going to be a lot better. And now that they’re going to be built to complement the software that is as hearing health features, I’m going to expect that they’re going to lean heavily into that. So battery life will be improved, because now they’ve got a need for longer lasting batteries. I’d expect things like the design potentially to have a an update. Like, now they’re actually going to go, we want these to be over the counter hearing aids, and they need to be the mass market offering for everything else. Like now they’ve got a need to complement that software. I think we’re going to see the next set of air pods be pretty good. Second thing that concerns me is like the big thing that we look at, and the thing I hear why air pods will never impact our market is because, if you were in a restaurant and you’ve seen a husband and wife at the table, over across the room, and the husband had air pods in, you would look at them and say, he’s moved. He doesn’t want to be there. And this, they’re clearly an unhappy marriage, right? It’s, it’s, there’s something awkward about wearing air pods in a social setting. The question is, is that going to become socially normal, or is that always going to be a social stigma? And the one thing that we can plan this back to is when Apple first launched the air pods in 2016 the wireless air pods, they were heavily laughed at and mocked, oh yeah, like people thought the design was ridiculous. Nobody’s ever gonna wear them, and now they own 60% of the headphone and earphone market. If air pods was a standalone company without any of the other Apple products, they’d be bigger than Spotify, eBay, Airbnb, Shopify X, they’d be they’d be huge. So like, something that everyone thought was mad and crazy eight years ago is now normal to the point that it’s almost weird not to own AirPods. They’re just like, I feel like they’re an extension of me, that they’re so normal to to own and Walk down any street, and there’s lots of them. So the question comes, like, eight years ago, a social weirdness is now a complete social norm, like, could that occur again for people wearing air pods in environments, in restaurants, etc? Potentially, yeah, we don’t know, but it’s not out of it’s, it’s not super, super unlikely. You already see it, right? I always baffled when you see, like a group of teenagers, they all have air pods in and they communicate in. It’s, it’s a little strange that may be a UK thing. No,
Dave Kemp 1:04:34
it’s in the US too. It’s definitely a younger generation thing. And I, but I do think you’re right, like I kind of share those same concerns. Like, one is, like you said, underestimating future generations. I think that’s a really foolish mistake. I think to your point too, I think that underestimating the. The way in which Apple and Apple almost exclusively, can’t, at least in the US, because of how how big their market share is here is how much they can influence culture. And this is a this is a conversation I’ve had a bunch of times with people like Andy Bellavia and some other people that have like been frequent guests on this podcast, which is that is the one thing that I think people are being a little bit too dismissive of, is this idea that if your number one contention is that nobody will ever wear air pods as hearing aids because they look ridiculous, and people aren’t going to walk around like that. It literally takes maybe a decade for that to completely become normalized, where just to your point, it just becomes second nature, where people understand that, oh no, they’re they’re the only reason that they’re they’re not being rude, that they’re like the way I perceive that today is they’re being rude. Take your take that out of your ear and talk to me, whereas in 10 years, like, it could totally be something where you know it’s it’s not even a social issue, it’s just a norm where people are like, okay, they’re using those as a hearing augmentation device. And again, you talk about these future generations of products, like, Who the heck knows what it’s going to look like in five years from now? So some of that is kind of, I think, on the midterm, longer term horizon. And I’m with you that your father in law and my father in law are actually very similar. It was a little bit of a battle to get mine, ultimately, to wear hearing aids. And now he’s on the other side, and he’s like, loves them, loves them, nice. So I feel like a massive testimonial to these things. But, you know, it’s, it is that I think that this is, like the number one upside of all this is that people are, you know, widely speaking, massively unaware of how much their hearing loss is depreciated. And so I do think being able to take that test on your phone, and even if it’s not, you know, a true diagnostic test, just a baseline check engine type light of and not only that, but being able to do it over time and comparing it and seeing maybe that degradation that doesn’t really exist at all today. And so I think when we talk about, you know, kind of like this, this patient of the future, you know, these are the kinds of things that they’re going to want is they’re going to want this information, and they’re going to want to know what the progression of their hearing loss looks like. And so for me, I think these are opportunities for the for the clinician. I mean, I think that a lot of this stuff really is like, how does the like, the thought that I have is like, how does the clinician insert themselves into this whole, this whole dynamic, rather than wait further downstream for when they decide that, you know, because I do think that you’re going to see this will, at least in the short term, I think it will definitely grow the prescription RX market, at least in my mind it will, and it may be quite considerably. But longer term, I’m not sure what the sustainability of that is. If these products keep getting better and better, this the stigma associated with wearing something like that and drawing attention to yourself might fade. So anyway, I just think that. And then the other aspect of this that I haven’t seen a whole lot of people talk about, but I think it’s going to become increasingly more important, is the ecosystem that comes along with it. I mean, you know, you talk about like Apple is isn’t just the the AirPod manufacturer. They’re the iPhone manufacturer. So that interplay between the two, you know, whether it’s like the future generations that are going to have sensors and the different biometrics that you’re going to be able to capture, but also, just like the nature of how your phone, in the media on your phone, and all the different smart devices around you interact with a first party to first party, you know, sort of connection. That’s another thing that I think this profession, in this industry, is actually going to be a huge beneficiary of, is because you’re going to actually get to kind of, I think, reap a lot of those benefits of what they’re building out specifically for air pods and like, I hope that hearing aids will also, as a third party beneficiary, get to be in that same ecosystem, because they think they’re going to build a lot of really cool, you know, interplay, connections between the ways in which you can, you know, work the devices in tandem with one another, but also collecting that information, and then in the future, sharing that information with the healthcare professional, you know, being able to, like, take the audiogram. And, you know, again, I think that, like, a really exciting scenario in the future is like having a a relationship with your hearing healthcare provider, where you have the a lot of engagement from the patient, of like, hey, you know, I noticed that you. Like my my audiogram on my phone is kind of showing that I have a little bit of a it’s dropped at 500 hertz or whatever, you know, and and maybe that encourages people to just be more engaging in this whole dynamic. So anyway, I there’s so many different thoughts with this, but it is absolutely fascinating that it’s all happening and and like we as this, like small, sleepy cottage industry, in a way, are now kind of sitting like squarely in the business plans of a $3 trillion company that’s just going to be full steam ahead. And I’m hoping that, like we can all collectively benefit from this and jump on this huge steam roller, and that it’s not going to be something that, you know, is going to be the detriment of the profession or anything like that.
Oli Luke 1:10:51
Yeah, I it’s a real challenge. One challenging one of where we’re going to go. And, you know, apples, R and D, over the last 12 months, was $31 billion with sound and stock is combined. Overall global revenue was 3.1 billion. Like this is it’s not even they’ve got a law Park. No. If you
Dave Kemp 1:11:11
look at the amount of of air pods sold in a given year versus the amount of hearing aids, again, totally separate things apples to oranges. But this, I don’t know if people are comprehending that we’re talking about hundreds of millions of devices versus a, you know, a few 10s of millions of devices. I mean, it’s totally, totally different in the in the scope,
Oli Luke 1:11:31
yeah. And I think if the industry does get impacted by this, as you said before, the cream rises to the top, and what it will mean is just the traditional model may need adjustment. There’ll always be practices that help the WHO to solve challenges that’s always going to exist, but practices that make all their revenue on the product, that are very stuck in their ways, and believe that the product is always going to be the products that they’re the ones that that could feel the pay
Dave Kemp 1:12:01
absolutely well. Ali, this has been a really fun conversation. I always love talking to people that are, you know, at the forefront of what’s new and exciting in Marketing Land and in business development land and ways that you know you can think differently about how to package your product in your service, and communicate that into the market in a way that is, again, really authentic, genuine to yourself. And that is, I think, one of the most exciting things about like this, this landscape today, is I feel like a small business, more so than ever, has the ability like there’s not the pay to play model that used to exist where you had to buy radio space or ad space on TV or all these different things. I mean, you really can bootstrap and create a really significant presence online or in your community by doing some, some kind of just out of the box, things that are hopefully some things that maybe we we surface today, that that gives some people some different inspiration.
Oli Luke 1:13:01
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And the basics to a gold standard consistently is the big the big method there, like, don’t try and over complicate it, just, just do the basics. How would you make a buying decision? Yeah, and do that really. Well, fantastic.
Dave Kemp 1:13:14
Well, thanks so much for coming on today. Thanks for everybody who tuned in here to the end, and we will chat with you next time cheers you.
