Marketing Lessons from Bestselling Wellness Author Dr. Pat Boulogne

The Introduction to Marketing Lessons

In this episode Dr. Pat Boulogne and I discuss marketing lessons for your business.

By listening to this episode you will learn effective strategies for marketing in your business and taking it to the next level.

All right, we are live right now with Dr. Pat. And Dr. Pat is the best selling author of and sell me the name again. It’s something about never be sick, tired or fat?

I think now I know exactly is why are you sick, fat and tired? So it looks into,

you know, like,

what’s the underlying cause? What’s going on? Love it.

So what’s so exciting about you being here on the show today is that you’ve had quite a journey in the wellness industry, you’ve written a book, work with clients, you continuing to do that. And so what I want to talk with you about today is a couple things. How you, as a wellness professional, have grown your business. How you’ve developed the mindset to be able to do that. And also some of the things that you’ve learned coaching and supporting and helping your clients shift their mindset when they think they have to be fat or sick or things like that. So, first, Dr. Pat, what got you into your business and writing this book?

Observing Well in Marketing

Well,

excuse me, going back to as a kid, you know, I never ever, ever played the patient. You know, when you play doctor, I never was a nurse, I never was the assistant. You know, I was never you know anybody else. But the doctor. And I always was taught, to kind of observe. I was a good observer. And I can remember laying out in the backyard at night with my father looking at the stars. He would, you know, try to explain to me, what are you seeing, you know, and I’d say, stars.

And he said, you see a pattern, you know, because he was trying to teach me a little bit about astronomy and astrology. So thing is what’s really important and in a medical profession, is to understand what patterns look like. So, you know, and I never thought about that being like training for my future, because I’m not just a chiropractor, or just an acupuncturist. I analyze I’m a data dumper, I analyze things that are in front of me. And I always am looking for a better, simpler way to go from point A to point C.

And I pass that information on to patients and clients and that type of thing, you know, where I’m having conversations with people, even if they’re just friends, too, because they ask questions all the time. You know, so getting started kind of happened then. And then I had this huge interest, you know, and was funneled into science. And so it always interests me, like how, you know, chemistry worked, I wasn’t really good

at it. When, you know, I was young, I did a science project when I was nine years old. And mighty, I thought it was horrible. My father was so impressed, I actually have the word phenol failing, which is an acid base indicator that they used to or perhaps soju, put in beer, you know, as a preservative. And what it does is it tells you something’s acid or base. You know, so on the pH scale. And it’s like your water supposed to be seven, you know, on the pH. So, you know, anyway, so I did it. And I like you know, entered it with little plastic pickle jars. That I scraped the label off of my father was a was a vpf time at ally chemicals. So I called him up and said, I need phenol failing.

He brought it home. And so then he helped me organize it so that the experiment would work a little bit better. I brought it to school. And the teacher was very impressed that I did that type of study at nine years old. Nine years of age. So then, you know, as time progressed, you know, science is always easy. For me, it was an easy concept. And I started taking pre med classes. You know.

And because they interest me as Yeah, and then I ended up going to chiropractic school. You know, I was not interested in being a medical doctor. But I was interested in the business aspect of medicine at one point in time. Worked at the University of Michigan hospital, I volunteered was one of my independent studies in college. And I never saw anybody get well. And I found it disturbing.

No matter what Ward I was on the only people who were happy in the hospital were in the maternity ward. You know, and, you know, and because, you know, you have, you know, babies. Everyone loves babies. You know, like that was sudden people become like, ooh, make all those faces, you know. And it’s the only place I ever saw people happy.

So I thought there’s got to be something wrong with this picture. And a friend of I said, Hey, you should be a chiropractor, you have all the background for it, you know. And blah, blah, blah, and I went, I don’t want to do that, you know, I don’t like chiropractors, they’re not real doctors. So I ended up getting hurt. Because I was working at the same time in a restaurant, on my program. I went to go see this chiropractor by force, my friend said, you have to go, I made you an appointment, I went in there.

And I thought, This is what the universe is showing me, it’s showing me that if he can do it, I can do it better. And so I went to chiropractic school, and I never looked back. You know, so there’s, you know, and that was like, when, you know, as you talk about some challenges. When I opened my practice. Chiropractors are not readily getting referrals from medical doctors. You had to, like start from scratch, you had to build your practice up.

Or if you bought into a practice that was already existing, you know, in order to do that, and you got, and you have to have, you know, someone to, you know, as a consultant, tell you what forms you need. How to do that, and blah, blah, blah. So but after you got that part of it done. And you went to back to like, why he went to chiropractic school, is to help people really express a higher level of health. You know, it answered, you know, it was totally all worth it and all came together. It’s always,

The Power of Networking

Wow, well, so one of the things that stood out to me, I agree that a lot of the clients I work with come to me. And say, I’m frustrated that, you know, you’re being doctors and stuff are telling us to do this. But they’re on medications, and you’re never getting better and whatever, right. And one of the other things that stood out to me is that you had a chiropractic place. And you, you had to figure out how to get your clients. So what were some ways in the early days before social media, and having to build relationships? What were some ways that you went about that?

Well, you know, it’s still the same, even with social media or without social media, you know, nothing. I never underestimate the power of networking. And I never underestimate the power of being bashful. And so when, you know, I would see, I would travel a lot, you know. One of one of the first things I did is I would give out my cards to everybody that would rate. Say hey, I’m new chiropractor in town. You know, and I said, You know, I come on in, and I’ll check your back out no charge, you know, for a consultation, and evaluation.

If you feel like it’s something that you need, or if you know, somebody that needs that, you can refer them to me. And I’ll give them the same, you know, courtesy. So, you know, that’s one of the ways that we did it. I asked for referrals, I used to ask my patients for referrals all the time.

Evaluate Your Services

Do you like what we’re doing? You know, nobody was saying no, before they got adjusted. You know, and so I would give them cards with their initials on it, and my initials below in the date. And I said, this is only good for two weeks. And I said, you know, do you promise to give them to somebody who might need, you know, our services here. You know, because I have openings coming up. You know, especially like, every third week, I had like more space in my calendar.

Because I would be changing people’s as they were better, I would decrease their treatment schedule. It was like, there’s always that that week that I had, like less things going. So I always scheduled that week for new patients to come in above and beyond what I did otherwise. And I never said no to anybody. You know, I always said yes.

Consider the Opportunities and Options

And it’s like, one of the things I always say say yes. You know, because it’s so positive, just like do I have a problem? Yes, you do. And, you know, it’s just like, do you need treatment? Yes, you do. You know, I don’t want to come in. I go, okay. You don’t have to come in, you know, but here’s my card. If you don’t feel it’s like you don’t want to do that thing. You know, there’s no pressure. And so it was easy to interact, there was things to volunteer for. Like the it was a woman, some at the community college put on a work fair every year a career fair for just women. It’s just like, I always wanted to be there. Because women need to be pushed.

Because they always say, Oh, that’s not for me. Well, my husband needs this more. You know, it’s just like I can I can bear with it. You know, it’s like after childbirth, if you really remember what childbirth felt like, people always like a bear with us. Like, No, you can’t. You don’t want to do that twice. insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Are you crazy? You don’t want to do that. So you know, you know, you have to be willing to put yourself out there. And if someone says no, it doesn’t mean no forever, you know, and it’s not personal.

So you just kind of like you know, sometimes he was asked like what would have made you say yes when I got to know. And so they was like, well, like what, and then you get more personal. Then you can get going deeper is like, you know, like, what else is really going on because they might need help. Someplace else that has nothing to do with my chiropractic practice or nothing to do with like how I do coaching now, they might need help someplace else. And I might know somebody who could get them from point A to point and see faster than them doing it themselves. You know, so I always look for ways to have conversation with people.

Yes, I always go back to that, too. It’s about the conversations. And as I say, the more hands you shake, the more money you make, right. But also,

I’ve never heard that before. But that’s a good one.

Building Your Network

And I think people overcomplicate and they refuse to start there. Because they’re either afraid to have a conversation, or they just really, really want people to find their social media posts and come to them naturally. Which can happen. But if you want to be, you know, building your network and growing your business and taking more of a assertive role in that you have to talk to people. So what about and I love that you ask people, why not? Why wasn’t it? Yes, because then you can learn so much from that feedback, like you said, so.

I mean, I heard somebody told me one time on Cape Cod. They said, I don’t like New Yorkers. I just said, I would really, and I, we don’t cut, you know, keep cards very low that that time was incredibly low key. And I had a lot of energy. So people sometimes assumed I was from New York. And so I was like, No, I’m from the Midwest. We love everybody. We talk.

Yes, same here.

Yeah. So it does, it doesn’t make you know, but I can remember that someone. Someone told me that. And I just was so surprised at what you got really. I was. I was shocked.

Right. And sometimes that helps soothe your own mind. Because you’re like, oh, that was nothing personal. They just because like people from New York, and they thought I was from New York. So tell me about ever since you’ve written your book, okay. And you, you know, you and I met on LinkedIn, social media, and you said that you’re working with a business coach. So I would love to hear from you. What are some of the things you’ve had to learn? And some of the biggest takeaways ever since evolving to having a book and being online, in your business?

Well, if you you don’t make a lot of money from being a best seller, unless you’re, you know, like, Dr. Oz. And, you know, and you know, you use it more of, you know, you got to go back, like, what was the reason why I wrote the book in the first place. What I noticed was that my patients, clients, would leave parts answered out a system survey that I had. And that system survey would be intricate questions about each organ system. And so I asked them, you know, it just took an extra 20 minutes or 30 minutes. When I was evaluating all the intake information that they gave me.

What is Your System?

So when I had that in front of me, like, why didn’t you answer this question? That guy didn’t understand that. And I went, Okay, yeah, that to me, it made total sense. Why, what, what about it? Did you not understand? And they said, like, I just don’t understand that this word. So I didn’t answer it. So I thought was better than writing down the wrong answer. I said, we did the right thing. You know, so then what I did is I took out my questionnaires. Pieced them together, and made up my own system for,

you know, that I took from different mentors of mine, and who have had health questioners before. And I’d rather combined them so that they represent a representative of each organ system. Then I had an 11 year old kid, you know, helped me out with the book. And highlight any words that he didn’t know, or I’ll see if he was sitting there when I was doing that was at my friend’s house. What, hey, do you know what this word means? And he was like, nope. And I said, you know, and then he looked at me, and I said, Give me a different word. So he was very, very helpful in that part of like, that kind of editing. I thought that was cool.

The Book

And, um, you know, so the book, you know, I had a totally different title, which I don’t even remember anymore. But when you know, the suggestion, if someone’s going to write a book and do something like that, you really got to find the right publisher. You know, who believes in you, because the first publisher that I had, didn’t deliver the book. When he said he was going to be able to deliver the book, Nord, when he did try to deliver the book. I never saw it, so I didn’t have time to edit it. I never had time to view it.

So you really have to know, you know, that mistake cost me probably about, you know, nine months. You know, because I had to go back and argue with them about getting money back and stuff like that. It just didn’t work out and he didn’t want to admit that he did something wrong. So it ended up resolving.

Turn the Negatives into Positives

I ended up getting No, that ended up being positive. And I ended up finding a really good publisher. Who was, you know, because I said to her, some of my endorsements are really long. So she said, You know, like, should we shorten them up? And she said, Patricia, I’ve been in the publishing business over 20 years, she never ever, ever shortened an endorsement. A very good endorsement, you know? And she said, so we’re leaving. I’m just the way that his next question is she, but she was really good.

You know, I think that it’s important to really find somebody who you sync with, for marketing your book when you get done, you know, and there was a couple COVID hit at the same time just after that. So the book is really apropos for this point in time, because what it does is it gives you your health snapshot, it lets you, you know, take back control of your life so that you can DIY like, Where’s my health? What’s my health snapshot? And how do I move forward?

Where do I start? Things like that. And you can check your results from the book. Because it’s a book of questions to your appropriate provider. so they can help you out and say, yep. You know, what, let’s look at this, we need to take a look more at this. So especially someone who’s trained in lifestyle. Or functional medicine, that’s a practitioner, is better suited to be able to like read kind of these kind of results. But it gives people the power back to them. Instead of going to their physicians and saying, I don’t feel good.

Now, what’s matter with me? You know, and so this gives somebody an opportunity to, like, at least get a picture get look at that pattern. What we talked about, first off, and see what my Pat, my health pattern is, where do I have high priorities and low priorities and where it is my weakest link?

Being Proactive

And if you know that, then you can do something proactive with that. Yeah, so you know, but that’s, you know, that was a trial and tribulation of like, the book. I’m happy, you know. I get good reviews from people who have, and I use my book as part of my coaching. You know, when I’m looking at when we’re talking about health. Because if we’re talking about mindset, it’s works with that, but that’s a different kind of hat to, to parlay with.

Totally. Okay. So there are a couple things there. I love that you’ve had your son look over things and see up using them, that’s kind of a test to see, understand, that’s really big in marketing, I always say like, an 11 year old should be able to understand your pitch, you’re out, you know, like, you don’t want to sound too clever, or be too fancy, because it just loses people sometimes. And then the other piece that I took out of that with is finding somebody who really believes in you, aligns you with you feels like the right fit.

The last thing I wanted to ask, because if you are, you’re somebody who has a coach who asked for help, who gets support, right? And I’d love to hear from a perspective of somebody who is a client of a business coach, how do you make the most out of that? And how, what do you recommend to our audience listening about? Like, how can they if they’re going to work with a coach, like, make sure it’s, it’s what they want, and they’re moving along the way they want to move along? Like, give me some insights there?

Productivity with a Business Coach

Well, you know, one of the things is about, you know, I’ve looked for a business coach for eight months. And, or longer, maybe even. And, you know, it’s got to be somebody who you resonate with, you know. You know, I was talking to my business coach this morning. And he, I said to him, you know, I would love to be a fly on the wall and hang out with you like, for about five years. Just, you know, because he’s got such an incredible, like, insight, you know, and so you’d have to be coachable.

So if you’re, you know, if you’re like, if, if someone’s gonna say something to you. You don’t have thick enough skin, you know, it’s just like, maybe you’re not ready for a business coach. Because you’re paying somebody a lot of money to give you some feedback. And you don’t want to have any malarkey.

I mean, it’s just like, it’s great. We can talk about the weather for a little bit and things like that, you know, for one minute, that’s it, but everything else should like flow, you should have some synchronicity, you know, things that, you know, that really fit. And, you know, and so when I was very fortunate, because, you know, I really met this person in a very funny way. I met him on LinkedIn also. And when I did, you know, I reached out because I was doing market research. And I’m doing market research now.

So if there’s any entrepreneurs, busy executives, busy professionals, that want to get more out of their day, you know, and also you know, need to focus on balance and focus on your health. Then I have some questions that you know, anybody can reach out to me and we can share that perhaps in the in the links for the market research part of it is I would really love to find out exactly what it is that makes people tick.

Mentored in Marketing

And a good coach doesn’t just know necessarily coach, you know, you want to really be mentored also. So like when I needed an idea for this, you know, so you’re sharing ideas with somebody who has your best interests at heart. Not all coaches do that, because I’ve had coaches accountability coaches before, that were included in a program I was with. And you know, I dreaded having that conversation for like, was a 10 minute, did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? There’s no fun, and there’s no authenticity, and that kind of communication, you know, and if somebody want, I want to be inspired, I want someone to like, push me to my limit, and then go, okay, jump. It’s okay.

You know, I’ve done it. I’ve done this before, you can do it too. So, you know, I think having that, you know, kindred soul. You know, in somebody who’s walked the path or somebody who you like what they do, and you would like to emulate that? Or you would, you know, and, or have, you know, that kind of connection. So that’s, that’s a cool part of how I chose to, like, how did I find the person that I found to really work with?

Yeah, you want to, you want to find somebody who you admire. They’re, what they’re embodying. And I think that what you said about not just being a coach, because to me, I hear so many people who think of coaching as every the client has all the answers within themselves, you just ask them questions, and they, it pulls out of them what they know. And I agree with that to a degree. But I also think that’s why I call myself a coach and a strategist, because I think they also need they don’t know all the answers about marketing, they don’t know the answers within themselves about sales or like something we’ve never done before. So I think there is a delicate balance of giving advice to your clients, giving them ideas, like you said, and mentorship and the coaching piece.

So we’ll go ahead, like a coaching, you know, like when you just said that what the word that comes to mind is like coach strategists sear, you know, that fortune teller, because a lot of times when we’re swimming in our own muck, you know, it’s like, we can see the edge, but when you’re going, like, what happened to the steps? You know, I could use some help support, you know, like, and, like, you know, Star Trek, like, Beam me up, Scotty, you know, and but it’s an extra guy says, sometimes those conversations and those solutions a lot faster. two heads are better than one.

Mindset Shifts

Yeah, for sure. So what have been some paradigm shifts you’ve had working with a coach or like mindset shifts that you’ve had to implement or you came across? recently? Um, well, you know, there’s, you know, I don’t know if I’ve had any specific paradigm shifts, because I think when you’re when the students ready, the teacher shows up.

And so, um, you know, so when maybe that’s the paradigm shift. It’s like, actually being like, Oh, I’m ready to be the student, and I’m open up to suggestion like, yet someone’s got to have a better idea guy, like, put them in front of me and manifest that person. So that, you know, you can have that interaction.

The Importance of Clarity

So, um, you know, I think that if you’re the mindset part of it, you have to be, you know, like, what is it you have to, you know, sometimes work to get the clarity of what, because what you think you want isn’t necessarily what you want, you know, so and if you think it, you can have it, surely, but be careful what you think.

Because if you get what you don’t want, then you got to clean, you know, you’ve got another pool to come to, you know, to sort out or other types of things. So having a coach, a mentor, you know, that aspect helps chunk down that process and cuts to the chase. And if times money, then you know, that’s really good money worth spending. Especially since you’re your best investment. So, you know, that’s, that’s what I probably would say about that. But a paradigm shift, you know, is, you know, I think when, if you’re open to ideas, and anything probably could be a paradigm shift, if you haven’t been doing, we’ve been doing something repetitiously and it hasn’t worked,

right? a beginner’s mindset as students. And I think what you just said about the best investment you can make is on yourself, the best that you can make as on yourself, because everything is up to you. And a lot of times, going back to what you said. Be careful about what you want or what you think you want might not be what you actually want. One thing that I see is that people say they want something, but then they have something conflicting that that is causing them to not go straight with focus energy towards that thing that they want.

So for example, They want a 10k a month or whatever XYZ in their business. But then at the same time in the back of their mind, they think that that’s going to have to mean that they sacrifice their family. Or they worked whatever hours a day, and they’re not they’re there, that’s like pulling them away from what they say they want at because they think, in the back of their mind, I don’t want to do those things. So and they have this belief that, that you don’t have to do those things, but they think they do. So they’re like, contradicting, there’s this conflicting energy.

Well, that two plus people have ceilings. You know, that they have I call ceilings, you know, that are structured above them. Whether you’re in health, business, whatever it is, and, you know, you start to do something like, you know. You know, I started to walk, you know, and so instead of walking shoes that were, you know, perfect shoes to walk in, that I had support, I walked in my books. And so they don’t have any, they don’t have any arch support, they don’t have a support period. So it’s just like, you know, like, Well, why did My feet hurt a week later?

You know, and, you know, is this like a structures function? Then how does that translate and transition up the spine? You know, so no wonder, you know, these other things happen, or, you know, if you think about the business part of the people here, their parents argue about money when they’re growing up, and then they get in a position where they start making money, and they start arguing with their better halves, whoever they are, you know, about, you know, what, that how much should that cost or being stingy for whatever reason, you know, they’re being frugal is a better word, I guess.

And, you know, and then you kind of like, you know, the relationship breaks up, and then you start, then you go bankrupt again. I mean, I know, people that’s happened to, right. You know, and that’s like, so when you hit that, instead of understanding that, that’s just an emotional ceiling. And if you can break through that, then you have exponential possibilities.

But we always are going to have some kind of ceiling or something that’s triggers something in that mindset of like something that you learn. Like, you know, you’re not supposed to have it all. You know, you’re supposed to be I can remember when I was 13 years old, the woman next door who I used to babysit for told me I was going to get married, live in a house, like my parents had a typical Cape Cod house. Three bedroom house upstairs was like the whole upstairs and for a bedroom.

And she said, and you’re going to drive a Monte Carlo and have five kids and I went, I don’t think so. I you know, and we were sitting on the porch, and there was a street that ran straight down and it became this business, I 75. And it ran into I 75. That goes from Michigan, all the way up, you know, in Michigan, all the way down to Florida. I said someday I’m getting on that road, and I am leaving here, you know, and I’m not coming back.

Chiropractic Background

And I did. I mean, that’s how I ended up going to chiropractic school. It was right off I 75 in Atlanta, Georgia. And, but you know, is this like, you know, your use, like, you know, when sometimes when people get challenged, they don’t take the challenge. They’re, you know, very resistant to it, as opposed to being open to like, you know, what is that possibility? So, when that ceilings there, you know, that’s, you know, makes us feel stuck, you know, I got to go take a nap. You know, I want to go eat another chocolate cookie, you know, kind of thing because that’s what you know, you associate sometimes those bad feelings, you know, and those breakthroughs and not have, you know, you don’t get the breakthrough because you’re going to old patterning Sure,

yeah, absolutely. Yes. So I hate to cut this short, but we got to wrap up. And please tell everybody where they can find you on line

where they can find me on my website. It’s healthteamnetwork.com. I’m also on LinkedIn, which I’m sure will have in the show notes. If somebody wants to participate in the stronger than medicine market research. I’ll put a link but it’s http://meetdrpat.as.me/stm the definite like the initials of stronger than medicine. And you know, I’m on I have a Facebook account, business account and I also have I’m on Instagram. Perfect because those are my places. So and you’ll have the links for that at haileyrowe.com in the show notes and thank you so much.

About Pat Boulogne

Fix your health, fix your life. Dr. Pat makes sense of complex and challenging situations, whether it’s mind, body or soul, by finding a simpler and better way that gets you unstuck, more productive, faster and with measurable results.

Dr. Patricia Boulogne, DC, CCSP, AP, CFMP is a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, Coach, Chiropractor, Speaker, and Author. She has helped thousands over the last 35+ years stop adapting their lifestyle to pain, and chronic problems by focusing on the whole person. The result is that her clients and patients, find out the WHY and the CAUSE of the problem, and identify the starting point: what, why, where and how to begin their health journey to live longer, better and healthier. Dr. Boulogne is the founder and principal of AskDrPat ~ HealthTeamNetwork, a company dedicated to skyrocketing your health, lifestyle, and mindset with strategies and programs that make sense, and help you age gracefully, think, move and feel better, and live longer and happier!

Resources

• Market research for Stronger Than Medicine
• Complimentary Business Consult
• Health Coach Nation: Marketing, Business, & Mindset for Health Coaches

You can find Pat on her website here.

Find Pat on Social Media: LinkedIn