EE075 – Brad Cote

Brad Cote helps health practice owners automate and scale to double revenue, reduce clinical hours and have complete freedom. He is a business coach, gym clinic owner and author. How he turned a client complaint from someone who was going to leave due to an issue with service and they ended up turning it aroundBuilding and incorporating an “overdeliver” aspect to your companies core values and have staff strive to achieve this in every interaction.How you can turn a negative into a positive by putting yourself in client shoes having empathy and strategy with the client’s best interests above your own.Changing eating habits of clientsHow they vet clients Favourite quote:”You need the client, the client doesn’t need you when you consider this perspective you’ll change the way you operate.” Articlehttp://bradcote.com/using-poor-customer-service-as-a-marketing-strategy/www.bradcote.comwww.facebook.com/realbradcote/https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-cote-910aa1150/ Exceeding Expectations links:
www.ExceedingExpectations.me
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Transcript:(Transcriptions are done using www.otter.ai through a system of artificial intelligence; so every episode contains a few mistakes as AI is not yet perfect for transcribing the human voice. However, it is a very time-consuming process to go through each transcript and correct all the errors. So please accept my apologies for the number of errors, but I hope that these transcripts are useful to you.)

Tony Winyard  0:00 

Exceeding expectations Episode 75. In this week’s episode, we find out how you can earn more and work less, a subject close to my own heart. My guest this week is Brad Cote and we’re going to go into those issues and a lot more very soon coming up in this week’s episode. If you do know someone who you feel would really benefit from some of the things we talk about, why not share the episode with them, go into iTunes, or any of the other podcast platforms, leave a review, subscribe. That would all be very helpful. Hope you enjoy this week’s show with Brad Cote.

My guest today is Brad Cote. How you doing Brad?

Brad Cote  0:51 

Awesome yourself.

Tony Winyard  0:52 

I’m very good. Thank you and you’re in Toronto and Canada. Correct. Just before we started recording, you were telling me that it’s warm. And when you told me to -10 because it didn’t sound very warm, but I suppose in context for Toronto it’s warm?

Brad Cote  1:09 

It’s been a bit more mild this winter than traditionally and less snow. So that’s good because I’m not a huge fan of the winter.

Tony Winyard  1:16 

And are you from Toronto?

Brad Cote  1:19 

I am not from Toronto Originally, I grew up in a town called St. Thomas about three hours south.

Tony Winyard  1:24 

So Brad, Tell us what is it that you do?

Brad Cote  1:28 

Yeah, so I’m a health practitioner. And I’m also a business coach for health practice owners and getting them to implement systems and essentially growing their health practices so that they don’t need to be actively involved as much in the day-to-day.

Tony Winyard  1:43 

How long have you been doing that?

Brad Cote  1:46 

I’ve been involved in the consulting coaching world for a couple of years now. And I’ve been a health practitioner and in the industry for almost 30

Tony Winyard  1:54 

And how did you get into doing that?

Brad Cote  1:58 

Well, originally, I actually went to school and I did business and I started a liquidation based arbitrage company which was a bit more calm, and realized I wasn’t really into that as much it wasn’t much of a passion. So what I ended up doing is going back to school, and I originally was going to do physiotherapy and realize that didn’t quite, like the way that it was ran. So I ended up becoming a trainer and then getting my medical license a year or two later, and ultimately started down the road of trying to get my clients or patients the best results possible. And that kind of took me through a path of opening my own health practices, clinics and ultimately I had a training facility as well as a clinic integrated into one location.

Tony Winyard  2:48 

And when you say a training facility, so what kind of training are we talking about?

Brad Cote  2:53 

So we had personal trainers as well as physiotherapists, massage therapists, chiropractic health providers as well. So we would incorporate movement exercise as part of a holistic approach to someone’s rehab and getting them a specific result, for example, so someone might come in for low back pain. And it’s really important in a low back pain that we also do some strengthening of specific muscles as well a stretching ritual routine and along with a therapy.

Tony Winyard  3:23 

And how is that? So what would that involve a lot of sort of things like pilates and yoga, or was it more just sort of stretching exercises? And what kind of thing was that?

Brad Cote  3:31 

It was a lot of resistance training exercises. So we didn’t have yoga or pilates on site, we did have some joint partnerships with local clinics and studios that were around that took care of that aspect. The stretching and stuff that we did was more manual work, we did a thing called functional stretch therapy, which is a table based stretching routine.

Tony Winyard  3:55 

And so how has that developed since you started that and to where it is now.

Brad Cote  4:00 

So when we originally started, my goal was to really get the proof of concept for what I was doing. Essentially, over the course of my years, I started to develop my own training and treatment based print plans and programs that I thought would really get the best results possible. So not only did I have the technical capacity and skillsets that I was focusing on, and I was also focusing on the actual softer skills, so getting clients so that they’ll be compliant in your homework, for example, or of your treatment plan, or making sure that they’re eating properly. Because if they’ve got a lot of inflammation in their body, and they’ve got inflammatory base conditions, they’ve really got to include that to get the best results. So over the course of my years, I really started to create my own sort of signature solution to getting people who are generally active adults over 40 back to being able to run without any pain, lose that 30 pounds. Keep it off and, and ultimately be able to maintain any results that they did get. So that led me to open my own facility. And during that time period, what I focused on was including those systems in with the staff and the clients so that they would start get the best results. And over the course of about two and a half years, we really started to grow the business. And what I started to realize myself was, I was really good at the systems-based, setting stuff up like the marketing strategies, the hiring, how to over-deliver on your clients’ journey. So I started to naturally get more into consulting and solving problems for other health practice owners and gym owners who are having issues with one of those kinds of categories. So over time, I ended up having a client of mine, a colleague that I was working with for a couple of years in different capacities from continued education so on, and I end up selling that gym to him because he was looking at growing his operation. And ultimately, I knew I could trust him to follow the same kind of parameters and be able to over-deliver on the clients take care of them as well as the staff and so on.

Tony Winyard  6:19 

You mentioned just there about taking a kind of nutrition-based approach. Is that quite regular in your area? Or was that quiet a unique approach compared to many other people?

Brad Cote  6:32 

There’s always a bit of nutrition being included, but a lot of the time it’s very general. And what we really did differently is we were focused on an individualized approach. So when you would come to us we would do what we call a health consultation or a discovery visit. And we would actually sit you down and gauge where you are in terms of your movement. So how well do you move? How well you know is your nutrition sleep and stress. And are there any limitations, pain, joint restrictions or things that are limiting you. So you might come to us to lose 30 pounds, but we would identify, well, you’ve got some back pain. And traditionally, you’ve had some back issues, we know you’re limited with these things. So we need to incorporate these exercises. We also are looking at your nutrition and how you’re eating and the way you’re eating is not quite advantageous to that goal. So we’re going to recommend we do this type of process. So what we did, even though nutrition is kind of prevalent, we were really specific to the individual who came in on giving them exactly what they needed at that specific time. And as they went through the program, six months later, they might be doing something that’s actually completely different than when they first started because they got to a different point, if that makes sense.

Tony Winyard  7:49 

And would people find it quite difficult, to establish, those new sorts of eating habits that they maybe weren’t used to.

Brad Cote  7:58 

It kind of depends on who it is. But a lot of it comes down to and this is part of the strategy and kind of the IP that we really work with was having the ability for the health practitioner or the trainer or even just sometimes the front desk receptionist to be able to have a communication that was impactful for the person. So getting them to understand the importance and getting them to, you know, break down what might seem like an overwhelming daunting kind of thing into a very manageable coachable process. So we would never get like someone a huge routine and say, change 500 things at once, we’d focus on one, some of you first started, you might say, you know what, we need to drink X number of water for this week. And we wouldn’t do we wouldn’t go to the next step until we achieve the first one if that makes sense.

Tony Winyard  8:48 

How were the results that you’re getting?

Brad Cote  8:53 

The results that we end up getting were quite significant and I think we’ve got around 120 video testimonials of people sharing their experiences and so on and people have been really, really satisfied with it. The big thing that, I think really contributes to that is one, we really focused on

attracting and converting only those people who are the best fit for our program and that we could really help. And I think that’s one really big way, in terms of like, exceeding expectations is really knowing who you’re targeting and what problem you solve. I find a lot in in health industry people will take on anyone and everyone just to make money, fill the schedule, whatever. And often people don’t get quite as good a result. So because we really took the time to understand and knew what we could do and the results we could get. We only took those people on that we would know that we’re going to be the best results because we’d want them to share their experience and ultimately their you know, their beneficial for everyone to get the best result?

Tony Winyard 

So what kind of thing would cause you not to take someone on, what would be the factors?

Brad Cote 

Well, there’s a couple. One is obviously a commitment. So we would generally have people who are three to kind of five times a week working out getting treatment, you know, they needed to make lifestyle adjustments. So essentially, what we would ask for three commitments from the first one was always the time commitment, can you train the three or five days a week along with your therapy? So that’s the first commitment to be successful. The second one was lifestyle. So they needed to be committed to not changing the huge lifestyle commitment like we were talking about earlier, but, you know, are they committed to changing lifestyle, you know, if they’re going out and drinking multiple times a week or eating out all the time, like are they willing to change and if they’re not Then our programs not going to be as successful. And ultimately, you know, they’re going to have a lot more challenges. And then thirdly was obviously the financial commitment. So, you know, people needed to be able to afford the service. And sometimes we would have instances where people didn’t necessarily have the funds. So we really wanted to make sure that it wasn’t becoming an extra stress. And I think that that’s a key part because a lot of the time people will overextend themselves because they want the result, but it leaves them in a position that might be causing them more stress. And I’ve actually experienced that myself. When I had clients. As a personal trainer many years ago were really encouraged to get people you know, excited signing up and so on. And I had a couple of instances with clients where I, you know, sold on I didn’t feel I ever did anything unethically, but you know, the person was in a financially stressful situation and adding another five or $600 a month, I believe At the time was, you know, really challenging for them to the point where they, you know, couldn’t sleep sometimes at night because they weren’t sure if they’re going to pay rent or they went into massive credit card debts and so on. So I think a lot of the time is really analyzing where the person is judging their commitment levels and is it really feasible for them because you know, while they’re trying to get healthier you don’t want to stress them out more you know, I being worried is they can’t afford it or pay rent or buy groceries or whatever it might be.

Tony Winyard  12:26 

Once you’ve established that someone is a good fit for you and you start working with them.

Typically, once they’ve finished or they’ve improved their health and they’re feeling better or whatever the case may be; Is it then goodbye or do they still continue working out with you guys. What happens then?

Brad Cote  12:48 

Yeah, so generally, like what we do in the consultation is trying to get deeper into what they want immediately, but also what they’re looking at doing in the future. Man, there’s a lot of times people will come in And they used to run 10 K’s or they used to go for long bike rides, or they used to do a specific activity hockey or soccer. And since they’ve gained weight or they’ve got a specific injury, they’re no longer able to do that. So a lot of the time, people would say, you know, I want to lose weight, and I want to feel better. But when we start thinking deeper, they want to be able to play golf again, or they want to be able to do whatever that activity was. So we really mapped out addressing their main concerns right away, but also what they’re looking at doing in the future. And as they go through the program, and they start getting results. Often we would say to them, especially if they didn’t have any real specific goals past that point of losing weight or getting their shoulder fixed up or back pain or whatever it is. We start to re-envision the goals. Well, what is something that you want to do that you haven’t been able to do? And sometimes we would have I remember one, one lady, she wanted to end up going into doing triathlons. Because her mom did triathlons and she was never really the most fit. So she wanted to be able to do something like that. So we actually started to transition her into a preventative rehab program and strengthening program to get her active into doing a triathlon, for example. So we really, we really tailored it to the client. And often what happens is, once they start getting results, they open up a whole new door and a whole new light for things that they wouldn’t necessarily think that they could have done before,

Tony Winyard  14:28 

That in itself exceeds their expectations from what they had when they first started. You mentioned before we started speaking about how there was an article and you had five steps in the article?

Brad Cote  14:41 

The article is one that I wrote a couple of weeks ago, and it was really outlining how to over-deliver. So we, as one of our core values, is we call it over-delivering and over-delivering is not really a word, I guess, but you know, we make it one for this purpose. And that’s really our version of exceeding expectations, and over-delivering always really means that we want to give the best experience possible. And then something. So in the article, what I really drafted out was a thing that I shared from the owner of Zingerman’s deli. He basically is a Weinzweig, he owns this $70 million a year business, that’s a deli, a Roadhouse, mail order food and 20 or so other businesses. And his big thing is always focusing on that over delivery, and customer satisfaction at all costs. And he has something called the five steps to overcoming a complaint. And it’s something that when I did a mastermind, was lucky enough to be a part of and started to swipe and implement into our business. And essentially, like, what it is, is it’s a system That

will start to neutralize the complaint, and actually can start to change the, you know, change the outcome of what happens with the, with the complaint. So often what happens is, and the reason this kind of came about was a lot of people are scared from conflict. And they think, well, if a customer complains, or a client complains, or a patient complains that there’s got to be something wrong, and a lot of people are very uncomfortable. The reality is, is that if someone actually cares about your service or product there and they complain, it shows that they have an interest and wanting to make it better. So if you can have a system in place that captures their feedback, rewards them for giving it and helps them let you or helps them understand that you’re making the necessary changes to be able to fix or overcome whatever that is, you can end up building a massive amount of retention. As well as connection in a family-like tightness with those clients. So I’ll list the five off, and then I can send you the links forever wants to read it on my website. The five are, number one, acknowledge the complaint. So you always want to acknowledge that the person is complaining in the first place. A lot of people are very passive, and they sort of shuffle it on the rug, which only pisses people off generally. So really acknowledge the complaint. You want to sincerely apologize whether you agree with it or not, or you have all the entire story, just apologize. And it could be something as simple as saying, you know, I’m really sorry for what happened. I want to make sure that we make this better. So that leads us to the third, you want to take action to make things right. So if it’s something you can deal with right away, for example, we would have some times where there’s no towels or the you know that the garbage is overflowed because someone was coughing it all sorts of Crazy stuff happens in the clinic. So we, you know, that’s something simple, we can easily take care of. If it’s something that’s a little more complex, like, you know, the person is not getting as much result in their treatment plan, then we’re going to take action to make things right. But we’re going to tell them listen, you know, tell us a little bit about what happened. We’ll try to figure out what’s best. And at the end of the day, we’ll make sure we solve this problem for you. And that might be you give them an entire refund, there’s been times where we believe a lot in risk reversal. And we would even say if, for some reason, you feel that you didn’t get the results. And you know, in quotations, you put the effort in obviously, that will give you a refund. And there’s been a couple times where we dropped the ball and I refunded those people but they still retain clients and they brought me clients before number four was thanking the client for bringing the complaint to attention because if they didn’t do it, you wouldn’t even know it exists. And you don’t have any option to make it right. That person could Go, go off angry and they’re telling their friends and family what happened. And then fifth, one of the most important is document the complaint. And make sure that everyone on your team is aware of what happened and get ideas from them on how we can overcome them. So the specific scenario that I was referencing before was we had someone who there, this was a trainer, the trainer was consistently late for about a week and a half to their training sessions and our training sessions are, you know, higher-end hundred $50 an hour, and this person was 5 to 10 minutes late for their sessions. So when this person came and complained, they didn’t immediately but it was it was maybe three or four sessions in when they actually came to complain. The front desk receptionist follows this process. I reached out to them and had a meeting with them and I got the information try to figure out what happened with the staff member and basically, you know, came up with a solution for her. And what I ended up doing was giving her the refund for those sessions that, she had completed. And I what I did also was I gave her a, like a gift card pass thing to give to one of her colleagues or friends and said, You know what, I’ll get all coffee for the past couple sessions. You know, it cost us a couple hundred dollars to make that right. But I also gave her the past to give to her colleague to come in and try this stuff out. Well, she ended up bringing someone else in and her friends signed up with her, and they were still clients even

to this day. So it’s an easy way for you if you have a system in place to go above and beyond in order to make things right and because your clients are the ones that are ultimately, you know, paying to keep everything, running and so on. If that makes sense.

Tony Winyard  21:00 

Did you see much change in your business from before implementing those procedures? And afterwards?

Brad Cote  21:06 

Yeah, the biggest thing that we had was, we didn’t have a solidified system for handling the complaints and documenting them and so on. So we had some people on the team who were, you know, really good at and an empathetic and they were okay, having those, you know, those difficult conversations and there were other people who really had a challenge and the people who had the challenge, I felt that the system really brought it up because now they had something to follow. And because everyone had the same standard, it allowed us to keep a tighter knit culture, as well as a standardized system when things came up. So collectively as a team, we were all involved. If someone was complaining about, you know, the way the treat how clean the treatment room is, or someone’s complaining about, you know, I tried to call you and I couldn’t get a hold of you or whatever it might be. We had a specific system. them that everyone followed because often the patient might not complain to the therapist about their treatment, you know, whatever might have went on but they’ll tell the front desk and the front desk receptionist needs to have the tools and the skill sets to be able to accommodate that. So I, what we use the gauge was a thing called Net Promoter Score, or NPS and our NPS increased quite a bit over the couple months that we increased, sorry, implemented this complaint based system.

Tony Winyard  22:33 

You mentioned about building and cooperating and over-deliver aspect to your company’s core values?

Brad Cote  22:39 

The concept of over-delivering in our core values was really about having the staff and everyone striving to achieve the best possible experience for that client, patient or even prospects who are just coming in. You know, it could even be something As simple as the mailman, we wanted to be able to were male women, that, you know, we wanted them to have good experiences. So we would they come in, we’d offer them water and so on. And we really wanted to have that magnetic culture where ultimately people knew if they were going there, they were going to have a good time and they knew to expect to, they might be having a bad day, but when they come here, it’s disassociated. We’re going to take care of them. And ultimately, they know that they can count on us. Again, regardless of if they’re paying us or not, we want to have that that culture and those core values so some scenarios that we’ve had, like I gave you examples, we’d

have different people come in, you know, delivering the mail or whatever it might be. We’d go above and beyond to you know, great them and you know, we want water, how can make your day better and all that type of stuff. And fortunately, we had good staff at the front desk as reception to be able to accommodate. We did have one scenario that I was telling you about earlier where our prospect so not even a paying client but a prospect actually lost her earrings during a consultation and I end up finding them a little while later and went and hand-delivered them in the winter. This is not like a solid like a summer winter what we have now is one where it was a lot cooler and a lot of snow and I went to her places probably like 10 minutes away, to deliver them just to be able to you know, go above and beyond so she didn’t have to come back out and you know truck in the winter to do it. No big deal on my own. But that person ended up coming back and buying about a year later. She just said we were kind of top of line and she always sort of remember that experience. The other thing that we really like to incorporate in terms of the core values is buying flowers for people. You know the clients on their anniversary, giving them birthday gifts, taking advantage of their spouse birthdays, if they buy a new house, all that type of stuff. We really want to be able to acknowledge clients and even prospects in every aspect of their lives. So they got a new job, we want to be able to, to promote that and make it you know, make it, make them feel good about it, make them have a good experience, they’re feeling not so great about something, you know, we’re here to be able to help walk you through the path or help you find your way through it in whatever way it could

Tony Winyard  25:22 

When you started to implement all these sorts of ideas, what was it made you think about these in the first place? Had you seen it somewhere else? or How did it all come about in the first place?

Brad Cote  25:39 

The big thing was, is I’ve always realized that client retention is huge. And I’ve known that for like, tons and tons of years and I started to read more and be exposed more to the customer experience and how to improve retention. And a lot of what I started to see was how certain companies were would go above and beyond In order to help the client, whether they pay or their prospect and they haven’t, so I remember reading some resources such as like Zappos, and Zappos, his whole thing was focusing on customer service. So that was a really good example that started to expose me to that. And during that time period, I looked at some stuff like through Disney. Disney does a rather really good job of being able to standardize the experience go above and beyond so that you have the best experience possible. So kind of taking a look at what people were doing from a successful company standpoint, and taking things that would help implement so Ari Weinzweig from the Zingerman’s business. They were all hundred percent about the culture hundred percent about the over-delivering on the customer or the I don’t know if you call them customers for restaurant but their experience. So I try to say implement different strategies and start to see over the course of Tracking, that our retention would go up, our referrals would go up, people were actually getting better results. Because if we can make them feel that this was the best if they came in for a treatment or training, this was the best hour that they could spend during the day, they’re going to want to come, they’re going to want to push hard, they’re going to want to be accountable. If it’s

snowing, they’re not going to cancel their appointment. Because they’re committed to us just because we’re committed to them. And when people realize that they’re going to put in the extra effort and go above and beyond, and when people don’t, that’s when they start to fall off. So I hear a lot of the time therapists say, well, it’s raining out or it’s snowing out and my clients, you know, they all canceled. Well, we didn’t really have a lot, a lot of that some snowstorms. We had some pretty crazy snowstorms and ice storms, I understand but traditionally, we didn’t have a lot of people canceling or rebooking because I really thought we gave good experience and the people actually wanted to come So if you can start incorporating those concepts, your retention is going to go up, you’re going to get more referrals and your lifetime value from a business standpoint, your lifetime value is going to increase. And even more importantly, you’re truly going to get better results because the clients and prospects are going to be more committed, they’re going to be more invested in you and they’re going to want to succeed.

Tony Winyard  28:22 

And I guess both of you, both your staff and your customers are going to be happier enjoying it, it’s going to be more enjoyable experience for everyone?

Brad Cote  28:31 

It creates a tighter culture and almost like that family type culture.

Tony Winyard  28:36 

And so what how would you compare it to say your competitors? Have they got a similar approach or were you quite different opposed to maybe your competitors?

Brad Cote  28:46 

I certainly think it depends on who the in my experiences especially like in Canada is the like the health industry it’s very either medical and in kind of like sterile, very blank. And then you’ve got people who are in the nice sort of industry that try a little bit harder. So if you’re in the medical side where you’re in doing insurance and, because in Canada Health Insurance is covered, so you’ve got all of these facilities where if you get injured or whatnot, if you know it’s covered, you can go to them, you got that aspect and they don’t really try that hard, my opinion. And then you got niche were they, do a little bit better, but they don’t, I don’t think they make it as much about the culture and embedding it into the culture and making it a place that people really, truly want to go. So there’s kind of a mix. There’s some people that I’ve experienced that do really good jobs, and there’s some that I that that are really good health practitioners, they’re really good doctors, but they really dropped the ball on the customer experience.

Tony Winyard  30:02 

You’re talking about turning negatives into positives, how long have you been trying that

approach.

Brad Cote  30:09 

Yeah, I mean, right from the beginning, I’ve always tried to, if there’s a problem, like, I want to figure out what the, you know what the problem is and how it happens, and really be able to make sure it doesn’t happen again, depending on what it is. So, I’ve really always tried to strive to do that. And it really started when I was a personal trainer, you know, 10 years ago with getting the best results for the clients. So a big thing when I was starting out as training is I always had this relentless obsession with getting results for clients because they’re paying a lot of money to me, they’re spending a lot of time and investing and I really saw it as a reflection of myself if I could help those people. So you know, not everything you can hundred percent do people need to be motivated and they you know, they have to do the work but I would always kind of over-deliver from the beginning by, you know, if I had a person with a knee problem, I couldn’t quite figure it out, I’d be trying to figure out who could help me with it. And I started to build my network that way. So I reached out to chiropractors other doctors to try to get information about was person not getting better. You know, if the person is not losing weight, I start to look at Well, how do I get this person to eat better? So I might have started looking at incorporating softer skills. So how do I communicate to someone to get them to understand the importance about why they need to eat better in terms of their weight loss journey? And just through that, I felt like I started to get a lot more a lot better results and a lot more compliance with the clients.

Tony Winyard  31:46 

How do you see your business growing in the next few years? How would you like it to be growing?

Brad Cote  31:53 

Well, my goal really is I want to be able to help 10,000 health practice owners essentially transform their businesses. So they can make a larger impact so that they can have the lifestyle and the freedom to be able to do whatever it is that that’s really why they got into business in the first place. So a lot of what I’m doing is focusing my time and efforts on making sure that my clients who own health practices when they that they can navigate through the stresses and the difficult times and automate it with the with the goal of getting them to that period, where they are able to leverage their time and they’re not having to be burnt out and so on.

Tony Winyard  32:36 

Does technology affect your industry?

Brad Cote  32:40 

Well, if anything, I think technology, there’s pros and cons. So technology makes a lot of things easier, but it also makes people lazy. So, in terms of over delivery, we use things like customer relation management software or CRM, and we use that to send notes to the front desk. For example, to say You know, hey, Tony hasn’t been in in in a while. Make sure you give them a call to follow up with them to make sure everything’s okay. So that would be an automated message. She goes to the front desk, and the front desk would actually call them and give them a call. We send handwritten notes , for example, saying hey, you haven’t been in awhile hope everything’s okay. We’re even if they haven’t been in a while, who send them a birthday card saying hey, happy birthday Best wishes, let us know if you need in the future kind of thing. So we leverage the technology to be able in our favor to kind of manage the whole process. Whereas I see a lot of people using it to take the tough conversations or follow up conversations or sales conversations to like an automaton. So I get text messages from my dentist saying, hey, it’s time to come back in. Let’s book an appointment like 50 messages a couple weeks ago, like day after day after day after day after day in order to get Need to come in. And it doesn’t have the same ring or meaning as if someone picks up the phone and said, Hey, you haven’t been in here in six months, or whatever it is. We really like to get you back in. You know, hope everything’s okay. Like whatever. I feel like if you’re using technology to help you leverage it in that way, you’re going to have some problems, but if you use it to leverage keeping organized, of who you need to follow up with sending the letters doing the calls, then it works a little bit more in your favor.

Tony Winyard  34:35 

What are your general thoughts on exceeding expectations?

Brad Cote  34:40 

my general thoughts is really it’s, it’s a pinnacle piece to being successful in business. because it not only helps you retain clients, increase the lifetime value, get referrals and so on, like we talked about, but it really helps to create a culture and it’s that culture and the vision of your business that ultimately is what it would Outlast. And the more that you can incorporate the client or the patient experience, the more it’s going to be easier for you to get staff behind you to retain those clients and ultimately make a bigger impact and have more freedom make more money and actually get those clients or patients better results.

Tony Winyard  35:28 

Would you say in the time you’ve been doing this, has the expectations of your clients changed much; higher now or not?

Brad Cote  35:37 

Well, yeah, I mean, they’re, they’re higher, which is great because we always look to do better. So works in our favor because they’re expecting, they’re expecting like high quality, and that’s

completely justifiable because that’s why we charge a premium rate where it really works and advantages even more so as when they try to go somewhere else. And we’ve had a couple of instances where people said, You know what, I think Can’t afford it, I’m gonna do this or whatever, and then choose a supplement. So someone, for example, that comes to see therapy, but they’re like, Well, you know, I’m going to stay at my regular gym. We said, Okay, well, no problem. Well, why don’t you try us out for you know, two weeks, see what it’s like, when they go back to their old gym, they start to realize, oh, man, this is not a great experience. And a lot of the time they would end up transferring to us, which only makes sense they’re coming here anyway. But you know, they’re comparing what we’re offering with what they’re offering. And we ended up you know, being able to benefit from that.

Tony Winyard  36:37 

If people want to find out more about what it is that you do, where would they go to,

Brad Cote  36:41 

you can go to my website, bradcote.com and I’ll also send you the link with that article. So anyone who’s interested in finding out about Aryan and his customer service approach, or the five steps to overcoming a complaint, they can access that

Tony Winyard  37:01 

Are you mostly just in the Toronto area or also other places?

Brad Cote  37:06 

I work primarily with health practice owners in Canada and the USA. So I do a lot of my work remotely through zoom based calls as well as online-based course material.

Tony Winyard  37:20 

And typically who the types of people you’re helping?

Brad Cote  37:24 

generally, health practitioners who are in solo practice, people who own clinics, clinic owners, chiropractor, physio, massage therapists, anyone who’s a health practitioner and running their own business. So we’re not really working with people who are employees of businesses, you’ve got to be kind of out on your own and you’ve got to be able to want to grow your business and be open to coaching and ultimately wanting to make a bigger impact in the industry.

Tony Winyard  37:53 

So just before we finish, I know there is a quotation you like?

Brad Cote  37:56 

of course, and I think this was really fitting based on what we talked about. It’s I don’t know who said this, by the way, so I can’t give you the name of the quote. But it wouldn’t really always remember this, “you need the client, the client doesn’t need you”. And when you consider that perspective, you’ll change the way you do business.

Tony Winyard  38:16 

And when did you first come across that?

Brad Cote  38:18 

I think its in various capacities over the years, I don’t entirely remember. So I’m kind of a paraphrase from that quote, but the whole thing is, is if you’re really thinking about it, you know, the client at the end of the day has options. And you know, it’s your obligation to be able to over-deliver and make an impact on them, so that they ultimately choose you.

Tony Winyard  38:42 

Thank you very much for your time and for sharing your knowledge with us.

Brad Cote  38:46 

Perfect. I appreciate it. And hopefully, it was valuable to everyone listening. Absolutely. Thanks, bro. No problem. Thanks.

Tony Winyard  38:58 

Next week, Episode 76 He’s with Richard Matthews and Richard travels around the US in an RV with his family doing business in many different states in America, we hear some fascinating stories. He talks a lot about automation, podcasting and marketing and building powerful business systems. And we also hear some great stories about how he started earning a lot of money when he was still at school by selling things to the other school kids. So that’s in next week’s episode with Richard Matthews. Hope you enjoyed this week’s show. Please do share it with someone who you feel will get some benefit from it. Subscribe, leave a review and hope you have a great week.