Will Power
Being a physical therapy entrepreneur can be unbelievably challenging at times. From patient care, to running the businesses, to balancing a family, it’s no wonder many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed and burned out. Each Tuesday, join Will Humphreys, a retired private practice owner and medical entrepreneur, as he introduces game-changing leadership concepts and interviews other successful leaders in healthcare. If you want to start, scale, or sell your outpatient physical therapy business, this is for you. Together not only can we increase our income, impact and freedom, we can build the largest network of healthcare leaders in the world at the Will Power Podcast.
Will Power
How To Use LinkedIn To Recruit Physical Therapists with Tone Williams and Kayla Pollak
Mastering Recruitment in Physical Therapy: Insights from Tone Williams and Kayla Pollak
In this episode, recruitment experts Tone Williams and Kayla Pollak reveal strategies for hiring top talent in today’s evolving physical therapy landscape. They discuss how the pandemic has reshaped recruitment, giving candidates more leverage and highlighting the demand for work-life balance, especially in home health roles. PT practice owners must adapt to these shifts or risk being left behind.
Key Takeaways:
- Meet evolving candidate demands for flexibility and work-life balance.
- Strengthen your recruitment reach through engaging profiles and strategic networking.
- Use virtual assistants and automated content to maintain an online presence with ease.
- Build connections with future physical therapists through university events and LinkedIn.
- Focus on genuine relationships for a network that supports lasting recruitment success.
Virtual Rockstars specialize in helping support or replace all non-clinical roles.
Book a free call to learn how a Virtual Rockstar can help scale your physical therapy practice.
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In today's episode, I've brought in two recruiting geniuses, tony Williams and Kayla Pollack. These are two individuals who have worked with small PT practices all the way to $50 million PT practices, and they're going to tell you about the single easiest tool that you can start using today that will start getting you hires. Here's a spoiler alert it's called LinkedIn and there's so many different ways that these experts are leveraging this tool to make hires now that they are helping their clients get ahead of the game by making these hires Now. Both of these people have been with me in two other companies and they're with me now in Virtual Rockstar. All they do is recruit, they love it, they are talented at it and they're going to share all their secrets with you in today's episode. Enjoy the show. What do you think is the percentage of people who are struggling in hiring PTs? If you had to take all the physical therapy practice owners out there?
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent right. Everybody's struggling, Okay. So why do you guys think that? Why would you say that?
Speaker 3:There's a surplus of needs and not enough PTs, and so the PTs the candidates have the upper hand, because there's more openings than there are of them. So they're very picky and very selective with who they're jumping on board with.
Speaker 1:I agree. I think there's a total surplus of candidates and not enough PTs to hire for PT owners. And you've done a lot of recruiting, Kayla. Obviously you didn't do as much in Rise Rehab with us, but you were at Empower as their head recruiter, so how, how did that show up for you?
Speaker 3:How did you like even begin the process of finding a physical therapist? Yeah, and I think that the process changed a lot, even like post pandemic. So I came in in 2021, took over for Tony and even initially, when I came in, candidates were applying to ads. They were applying, we were interviewing, they were hiring and, as time went on, there was this shift where now I was hunting them because they weren't coming to us, and it wasn't anything that we changed on the back end, I think that the market changed and they knew they had the upper hand and so they were coming in asking for more and we had to be very competitive.
Speaker 1:So that was after the pandemic. You felt like there was a shift, which is interesting because Tony and I had your job before I left and you went somewhere else in the business. But you and I, when we did it, I remember thinking it was easier to hire for those 26 locations than it was for our four back at Rise Rehab days.
Speaker 2:Hands down, because we would go to all of our events and people would be coming at us and we were the ones being super selective. We were like, ooh, let's do some practice interviews with this one and this one. Okay, we want you to work for us. We had the upper hand at that point. It totally shifted.
Speaker 3:You can't be selective anymore, 100% shifted. I mean you should be selective, but it's much more difficult now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know, back in the day when we were doing it before the pandemic, I think what we had going for us was number one we had the systems have been built out. You know, we've been touring those universities locally for years, talking to first year students since before years beforehand. But I also think there's something about gravity with larger companies. I think when we became empowered and we had those 26 locations, most of them in Arizona, it was just a brand that got social proof. People would be like, oh, you guys are all over the place. They were more interested than maybe the one or two off that they had never heard of before and that shifted after the pandemic to where it leveled the playing field, just because there was a lot more. Why do you think it leveled the playing field? Why did pandemic have so much to do with changing the recruiting space, do you think?
Speaker 3:I've seen just in recent years like home health has become kind of where PTs are wanting to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So maybe in that sense, like it kind of opened and I don't know if the pandemic is, what did that if that kind of opened up this or more home health becoming more common, just a new option to PTs, where maybe they didn't know that that was an option before and so it was kind of you did inpatient, you did outpatient, and now they're coming in as a new grad into home health and they're getting paid $100,000.
Speaker 2:I 100% agree with that. But I feel like people being forced, because there was a lot of people that had to lay off right During COVID. There's a lot of people that had to lay off right. Yeah, during covid there's a lot of people that lost their jobs, that's true, and they were forced to be home. Right, I feel like I noticed a major shift in people wanting that work-life balance and wanting to be home more too as well. And so now pt's coming out. I noticed, you know, after pandemic or post pandemic, they were not wanting to work 40 hours a week, they're wanting to work 32 or 30 or even 20, after getting used to being home and just having this I don't know almost like an epiphany. I know a lot of people that I know just be like I'm realizing that work's not the most important thing in the world. Right, I need to focus my family or focus on my family. That's a whole other mindset that I noticed.
Speaker 1:American culture is so like that. You know, when I was overseas, everyone takes a month off in August, and so I think you're right. I think that I think both of those things contributed to the situation that we're in now, because a lot of people are sick and tired of just grinding and the market is a grind. The physical therapy market, if it doesn't pivot, is producing this result where people are leaving the industry more than entering the industry every single year now, and that's really sad, but it has to do with the fact that we just don't know how to address the larger issues. So obviously that's one of the reasons we have the podcast.
Speaker 1:We're trying to get people together to start fighting the larger picture here. But in the short term, people still have to recruit PTs. You guys now obviously we've been together in three different companies and now you guys recruit all the time. We're hiring virtual assistants, but you know, the PT thing is still something you guys know a lot of and Kayla, you're still doing some PT recruiting on the side. Yeah, like, what would you recommend to a PT owner in terms of like options for them? If they're, what options are there for a PT owner who's kind of stuck on the recruiting side of PTs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that there are resources out there that are available, and I think the biggest thing is just knowing exactly what you're looking for and then where to go. And I think for and I've just found this I think that the best place to find quality PT candidates is through LinkedIn. I think a lot of these other job boards like Indeed and Zip Recruiter and Monster, and it's kind of just a dead end to me. I feel like that's not where you're going to find the quality candidates. I think they're in LinkedIn, and so it's about making that connection, building that relationship with the candidates and going after the right candidates too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's funny about you saying that in that program I teach Rockstar Recruiter. There's a program called the LinkedIn Igniter program that is being replaced by artificial intelligence. So there's a website Rockstars who are listening called salesmindai. I demonstrated it at the Arizona event that I was speaking at. But ultimately you can plug in an artificial intelligence bot that reaches out and asks a series of questions. It starts off like hey, can we connect? We're both Arizona-based physical therapists, for example. Great, the next one. It just starts building relationship and then it starts building them towards asking if they want to interview for a position. I think you're right that LinkedIn is the future. I've had clients who have had tremendous success, but you have to know how to use LinkedIn too. Yeah, what's your experience on that?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a whole nother thing that I was going to say. It's great, like you're right, linkedin is the place to go for professionals and physical therapists, but you have to also have a presence on there, because if you go and try to reach out to a PT and you're like, hey, you want them to come work for you, right, or trying to form some sort of connection and build a relationship, and they go to your page and you've got like nothing on there and they can't, you know, they have no idea what your company's about or what you're representing, and I mean I would be totally turned off by that. So that's a whole nother thing that you have to make sure you're on top of is just having some sort of a presence on LinkedIn and making sure that you have that clear of what your company is and what you're standing for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've actually took a course on it, tony. I feel like you maybe could have taught the course, because it talks about like the idea that you first have to. The first step in LinkedIn is to develop your personal profile to stand out. I had a little PTSD as soon as I said that my LinkedIn profile is blocked. Right now I can't get in it. Oh no, I honestly feel like I'm dead in the water, because I've been using that to curate different types of relationships all the way down to marketing, and so, anyway, I was feeling the stress, but it's true, like once we learn how to and it's so easy to use it really is. But, like creating that profile, it's almost like showing someone the inside of your home. You know what do you want them to see? What messages do you want to ring out in terms of what you stand for as a company and what pictures do you show? Do you guys have any recommendations on what people should do for their profiles?
Speaker 2:For me, what I get really excited about is just going somewhere that it's just a clear go straight to the front page, right, and it's just a clear understanding of what someone represents, something that's colorful but also simple. If there's too much wording on there, I'm going to run away. I'm not going to want to sit there and read this huge story, right? Fonts, great-looking fonts, just attractive-looking fonts, great color pictures, things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that too, because the easiest thing people can do rock stars, if you're listening is to go look at other companies' profiles that recruit really well.
Speaker 1:The best company that knows how to recruit, in my opinion, ati. They are not the company that most PTs think of when they think of like best represents the industry, but yet they recruit amazingly well, and the reason being I had a chance at a couple of these events Tony, you and I were at one years ago in DC and we were across from the ATI people, and so I've used them as a template for everything I've taught in recruiting, because they're amazing at it. They don't have the personal connection of a small PT practice. They know how to message what they do have way better and it's like you know, for recruiting, building trust is everything, oh, yeah, everything. So their pictures if you look at their profile pictures, it's like the team together with their matching red shirts. It's not like a stock photo. I would say that organic and natural but, like I love you said, clean and clear and simple but also authentic, is an incredibly huge opportunity for people to clean up their profiles for sure.
Speaker 2:No great idea. Go find some companies online that you really like as far as, like, you know that they're doing really well, but just seeing what their vision is and then going off of that just because it's, I feel, like something that's attractive to anyone's eyes is, and I think it's not enough just to create your profile.
Speaker 3:You have to be active too. Yeah, what does that mean to be active? I need to be active too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what does that mean? To be active? I need to be more active.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I almost feel like it's almost like a religious thing, where it's like the shame and guilt of not being on LinkedIn enough. But what does that mean to you, kayla?
Speaker 3:It's just it's consistency. I think that you know it's one thing to kind of build your network, but then you need to be consistent in your, in your posting so that it's showing up on your followers or your connections feed. So you can kind of build this beautiful profile but it's kind of all for nothing if you're not in there actively posting and responding and liking other people's posts. That kind of resonate with you. And so that's how I kind of landed with this little side gig that I'm doing is that their team consistently posted and so it got me like what's going on? Like who is? I've never heard of them before, I don't know like what they're about, but I kept seeing posts that I was like that kind of started to resonate with me. So then I got interested and got into their profiles and landed a job and so yeah, I love that share, kayla, by the way, I do want you to promote that company.
Speaker 1:But I think what's interesting and the disconnect I see is that PT owners are typically a little bit like me, a little bit older, and so I don't ever, ever think that I could develop a meaningful, lasting relationship on LinkedIn. I mean to me, it never even occurs to me as an option. But they did a study that showed that this new generation what's the new one now? Z, I don't know, I don't even know, I don't even know these, you know whippersnappers, these new grads and all these younger generations, even the millennials, which is, I think, one of you but they believe very strongly that you can develop meaningful, lasting relationships online, and so activity and showing up in that is the same as like showing up at a marketing or networking event in person to them, A lot of people.
Speaker 2:Nowadays, everything is so digital and you are just building and growing relationships online. I know most of my. I mean all of us have friends that we keep in touch with. How do we keep in touch with them? It's all texting, emails, phone calls, whatever. That is right. So everything is digital. I feel like now and 100% still feels authentic at the same time. I mean it is authentic, so I wholeheartedly believe you can build lasting relationships 100%.
Speaker 1:There you go, Spoken by one of the two younger members of this group. So, yeah, like I think that's true, and I think if PT owners realize that here's the other thing is, I don't think they think it's their job too. They don't really know where to go to find PTs anyway. So going to LinkedIn just feels like one of a sea of options of where they could spend. But you are telling us and I am validating that LinkedIn is a hotspot for people to go. Because you told me something that shocked me. You said that your company is getting results in hiring people. When you told me about the side gig, I'm like, oh, that'll be a fun little side hustle and all that. But you're like, no, we're actually making some hires.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do they have a team of people like on LinkedIn and constantly like, reacting, and do you know what they do In terms of like what they're posting or yeah, yeah. What are they doing? Are they sending posts? Are they reacting to other people's comments? All the above Like? What do they do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit of everything. So, I think, within just the company itself, like they're kind of feeding off each other and, you know, celebrating wins that they have and so all those things like you're seeing because you're following their profile, and so, yeah, when you start to see like they're celebrating each other, like that's kind of cool. I want to know more about that, know more about that, yeah, and just kind of tips and tricks. Like they'll kind of share information with PT owners, like here's like things that maybe you haven't tried before. And here's kind of another option, you know, going this direction to try to find candidates. And so, yeah, there's one individual in particular that kind of got me to this company and she, I mean, every, every week, is posting something new and it's helpful information for PT owners, it's educational, it's inspiring, and so I mean she knows what she's doing. I love that.
Speaker 2:And for me, like thinking about being the owners, you guys are the ones that should be on it the most. Yeah, hosting, and you know, whether it be celebrating somebody on your team member or something about you know some educational something or another that you put out there and then sprinkling in like little openings here and there that you may have. Our team is growing. You teach this Will right, yeah, like you get in there and you don't just, you know, put your ads out, ads out, ads out. That just shows that you need, need, need and you're wanting somebody to come. Right, it's like giving something back. You teach all of us to give back, right, and when someone sees that like they're getting something back, they're going to want to go. You know it's a give and take.
Speaker 1:It's a give and take thing. I love that because from what you're saying, tony idea of them serving others Correct it gives them that why were our job fairs so successful? Because we weren't there to hire. I think that's the number one problem PT owners get in their way with is that they're desperate to hire, so they think that's why they're there is to hire. That's not why it's like starting a business, because you love money, it's what you do it for, but it's not why. So when recruiting, it's to fulfill our greatest purpose, which is that every leader is to build or create new leaders. So how can we serve and build leaders using a technology like LinkedIn? If that mindset is there, then they show up and recognize that. Like what if this isn't an online website? What if this was like someone's living room or a university setting? How would I talk to these kids? And then, if they responded online? In that way, they would know what to say and then have opportunities to promote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be true to who you are like, what you're representing for your practice. The owners need to be out there, be on your LinkedIn and just really market yourselves and your company right, because that alone being yourself is going to attract the people that are going to fit best with you. That alone being yourself is going to attract the people that are going to fit best with you and it's going to bring in the right candidates, because whoever is seeing all of this on their feed oh, I like this, they're going to like it, they're going to go to your profile Then that opens that door for you.
Speaker 3:You make connections Because you may have somebody that's managing that side of things for you, but if they're not living your culture, if they're not in it every day, they may be misrepresenting you, and so it's better for you to get on there, as time-consuming as it may be, or if it may feel like it's kind of an extra job that maybe you don't want to take on, and it doesn't have to be something where you're in there every day. But, like I said, a weekly post, something that's educational, or if you are just acknowledging somebody on your team, just something small like that, is going to go a long way.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:I mean, anybody can take like set aside 15, 20 minutes once a week, right, yeah, at some point in your day and just go like a handful of posts that you know you've already, people that you're already following, that represent and stand for what you believe in, right, get out there, post, like you said, post one thing a week. It's just going to grow your followers, it's going to have more eyes out on your company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I think consistency is the big word here and when I go to any social media training, I was at this big event with Tony a couple weeks ago called Mindshare Collaborative. It's all about these medical professionals who are growing massive social media followings and the biggest thing they said was just be consistent Once a week, but do it every week. Whatever it is, just keeping consistent with that. So I teach in the LinkedIn Igniter program. By the way, that program was R&D.
Speaker 1:You know people think that stands for research and development. It was ripped off and duplicated. I created that for PTs based on a paid program. I followed by a guy named Joey Laffenblom I'm totally screwing up his name. I was like, did you say that?
Speaker 1:And, by the way, it's with permission, it's not like I'm just like out there ripping them off, I'm just being funny but he taught me how to leverage LinkedIn and then I adapted a version of that for physical therapists and so in it this is where people say they have some massive success is 15 minutes a day? I think they can do 15. If you can do 15 minutes a day and realize that is your biggest job it's not patient care, it's not anything, because, like, what's the number one job of a leader? To build more leaders. So you have to find the leaders to build them. So if you looked at it as a validated, proven thing, that's going to help you do it, because no PTs are doing it. If you're out there doing it and you're the only one doing it, you're going to have tremendous success. That's why I was so shocked, kayla, when you were saying that you guys were having success.
Speaker 1:And I'll do this for free, for anyone who's listening Rockstars, if you want free access to the LinkedIn Igniter program for a month and that's more than enough that you need send me an email at will at unlockhbacom and I'll give you free access to a month. Because I just think if people just knew what to do and trusted it and did it, they get results. And I've seen that from rural Alaska to big companies in New York how they can leverage LinkedIn to really amplify their recruiting like that. But it takes them understanding it and understanding their voice. Do you guys get on LinkedIn like socially, or is it just Every day? Do you really?
Speaker 3:Every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're so great at it.
Speaker 3:Okay, I mean for me, like I just build out kind of a content calendar for myself and I spend.
Speaker 1:For posts.
Speaker 3:For posts yeah, and I scheduled out for six weeks. I typically do two right now for Virtual Rockstar. Do two to three posts each week and just build that out for six weeks. Set it on schedule on LinkedIn and it does the work.
Speaker 1:I totally forgot that you were managing our company. I'm like guys, this is what happens when you have great people. They just start doing great things and you're like oh yeah, I heard kind of a whispering of that.
Speaker 3:So you've been doing that ever since. How long have you been doing that now? I probably started it.
Speaker 1:Let's see, maybe back in June or July. Great job Thank you Thanks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, started from scratch and we are growing. Yeah, we have and, again, like, our target is Filipino VAs.
Speaker 1:That's right. You're using this page to help us attract the amazing people that you hire for PT and other medical owners, to help them build their practices. So yeah, what does that look like in terms of following? I'm just curious.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have over a thousand followers already. Look at us. Yep, primarily in the Philippines, so yeah, yeah, my gosh.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's going to be weird because we're going to be in the Philippines in a couple of weeks. I'm so excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm guessing some of the people that you may have met through LinkedIn, using this process, we're going to physically be with here in a few weeks to do our big summit. What's the name of our summit? We're doing.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, what's the name of our summit? Rockstar Revolution.
Speaker 1:It's the Rockstar Revolution Summit, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yes, Rockstar Revolution Summit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if any of you guys who are listening have virtual assistants with us, you're welcome to come. We're going there in the middle of November. If not, don't worry next year. But yeah, I think it's really cool to see the flourishing of that, because what starts digital through LinkedIn manifests into real, physical in I was going to say physical relationships, interpersonal relationships that are real and are meaningful. So it's a really cool thing that we've learned so much about LinkedIn. What else about LinkedIn, would you say? Is there anything else that you guys would contribute to this topic?
Speaker 2:Well, I want you to kind of go back and speak a little bit more in on how you automate things, because I think that'd be really important for our PT owners to know, about they're drowning.
Speaker 2:See, this is what I was going to say. You may think of oh my gosh, I have to be on it once a day, or I have to be on it once a week and find the time. I don't have that time. Well, you could set aside what? How much time would you say we'd need a week to just schedule things?
Speaker 3:Not even honestly, and I don't try to overcomplicate things. My posts are like every week I post a link to go to our career page so that they can view all the openings that we have. So that automatically is every Monday that goes out, and then I typically will have a post on our core values. So I'll highlight one of our core values. We do VA testimonies that come through. Like that gets posted. So it kind of varies week to week what's posted, but there's two to three postings every week that are going on.
Speaker 1:So what time, the whole time. I'm just like learning about this for the first time. Like this is so amazing. We'll talk about automation, though. The idea that, like, we had a discussion in June about it, I forgot about it. I just saw the results, that you were killing it and now I'm learning about the details, that that's what you're saying is automatically possible. Is either someone or something doing that for you?
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, so if you don't have the time, don't let it stress you out, but I wanted you to give them a better idea of how much time you're actually having to spend to automate these things.
Speaker 3:And maybe automate's not the right word, but just because I still do have to manually go in there and schedule all the postings, but still it's so easy, it is so easy For, but still it's so easy, it is so easy.
Speaker 1:For the podcast that you're on and all these other things that I do. I have a software called Metricool. I already pay for it, and you can calendar things out for a full month at a time, yeah, and so I should give you access to that and have it post on that page. So that's a no-brainer, because you're doing it every week manually. You're creating it once a week, but then every day you go in there and take the extra 60 seconds to post it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So what I do, I typically will schedule out six weeks at a time. So what I do is I first figure out what I want to post, so I create content calendar and then I still use Canva. I get into Canva, create the digital piece. Whatever I want to post and that's probably where it takes the most time is just actually creating the content. So it's coming up with what I want to do, doing it and then scheduling those posts. But I just get into LinkedIn, I schedule out six weeks and you kind of just set it and forget it.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you aren't. No, she's not spending 60 seconds posting it. Oh, I see she's scheduling it. You're scheduling it and she schedules six weeks out. So how much time would you say you spend? Let's say you, I'm assuming you have like a dedicated time to prep for your six weeks.
Speaker 3:How much time are you spending? It takes an hour to put my calendar together and then creating the content, maybe two to four hours at the most. Again, I'm keeping it very simple, like it doesn't have to be this much. You're doing that every six weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're looking at maybe five hours over six weeks, so less than an hour a week, okay, well, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:But even if you spend an afternoon, one afternoon, admin, let's be real, most of the PT owners are creating their own marketing things as well, right, yeah, right, like you're doing that already. So if you already have, like, content creator, you already have time set aside to do this content creation, and then and you can recycle content.
Speaker 3:You can recycle it, yeah, because you're probably gonna have new followers every six to eight weeks, and so yeah, they're not seeing it every day. You can always recycle the content too.
Speaker 1:But I love how you gave some content for the content, like the ideas for values. I knew that when we had our PT practice, what we did really well was when we featured our employees and they showed like Kim just had an anniversary or you know.
Speaker 3:Oh, we do the anniversary post too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like, and so people see that and they want to join and they're interested in learning more. And most people would probably like to do research if they're going to understand a company, a PT company. They're even looking at you. First of all. I think the idea is that you're committing and you're contributing to people's other posts, celebrating them. Then they're like who is this guy or girl? They go to your homepage and they see that, oh, he's got a company or she has a company.
Speaker 1:Then they go to your company page and then they see all your posts. They're going to go back in time and go wow, look at all these people that are having like it builds this buy-in before they even meet you. And that's what we want to do in the PT space anyone but specifically in these medical places where it's hard to recruit is that they can create these systems and profiles and pages that will automatically sell people for them. So when they show up, they're already like yeah, I've been looking at your company. They're like they're honored and excited to meet you, versus you being in a position of trying to convince them to join your company, which is what you have to do when they don't know anything else about you, except that you just showed up and they're looking for work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it takes time right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, awesome. Well, what would you say are other platforms that you guys would recommend or stay away from for posting ads or recruiting? Well, Look at you both like groan.
Speaker 3:You're like there's just really honestly, there's just really not a lot of good platforms out there for PTs. There's just not, and so.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 3:If it's an option I suggest. You know, building true in-person relationships. There's some value to that as well If you can get to a PT school network with those students. Find a way to give back. When we in our previous employer we went and did mock interviews with students and they're in their second year of school and so it's kind of, you know, you're just planting seeds at that point, so it's them just kind of getting to recognize you, be introduced to your company and you're providing a service, you're serving them, but you're walking away with resumes in your hand, yeah, and you keep those in your back pocket for a year. It's just a gentle outreach to them like, hey, I know you're approaching graduation or whatever the case may be, and just want to wish you the best of luck. If outpatient's the right setting for you, I'd love to have a conversation with you. However, you want to build that relationship with them. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of value in that if you can network with local PT schools and kind of get in that way.
Speaker 3:As far as online platforms, there's not a lot.
Speaker 2:There's really not. Yeah, linkedin is the way to go for that. Indeed used to be another really good place, pre-pandemic, but that went downhill pretty quick and just doesn't really nothing comes to fruition. That's quality, or really even any, hardly at all. But so much value in going in person to any of the colleges and universities. I feel like we always came out of there with, I mean, I don't know about you, but whenever I would be in my mock interviews with the students, they would literally be like oh my gosh, I'm so excited, like forming these connections with them when you're really just serving them and it's a lot of fun, like these little 10, 15 minute interviews and you're giving them a little feedback. They're like this is super helpful, oh my gosh, I'd love to talk to you.
Speaker 2:And they do remember you a year and a half later, they remember you and we would even just do like little touches, even if it was like once every few months. You know, we have all of the resumes. We take all of their email addresses, stick of their email addresses, stick them all on an Excel sheet so you have them all in one area. Make it really easy and do follow-ups every now and then.
Speaker 1:And if you had LinkedIn as the common way that you follow up, then it gives you that one-to-many capability to where. What do I even do on LinkedIn? It's like, well, you just follow up the people that you met in person and you're just like, hey, how's it going in your second year? Be a human being and just think about what they're going through. How'd that rotation go? Are you freaking out about the boards? Can I help you? Is there anything else that you need from me? I'm here to help you find your best fit, whether it's with us or somebody else. What can we do? That person is the one who recruits and kills it.
Speaker 1:Yep, you guys both inhaled and looked at each other.
Speaker 2:I was going to say something. Then I was like are you going to say something?
Speaker 3:Well, I think too, like if you put in that effort and you build that relationship with that candidate say it's a PT student that you see from year two through graduation taking the boards and getting their first job, even if they're not the right fit for you. They're going to talk to a friend and say you know I'm not going outpatient, but I have three friends from school who are looking for outpatient jobs in your area. Here's their contact information. You know, maybe they'd be a good fit for you. Yeah, so man.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's where the that's where the gold mine is. Yeah, Getting in front of these universities.
Speaker 1:I agree, catch them when they're young. One of the things I told Tony about was everything changed for me when I realized the power of recruiting first-year students. When I'd show up to their first year, I mean there's a lag, but no one's talking to these guys. They're completely out there on their own. They're completely worried about just being qualified to be a PT one day, much less take the board. So when someone's an employer saying I want you to come work for me, they're bought in immediately and then you have that relationship to lose because they go back to their friends and family and go.
Speaker 1:I've already been told that. So before everyone else shows up, when it's commonplace to be desired, they'll remember the person who cared for them when no one else did, and LinkedIn can be the way that you stay connected to them in the intermediate. So building on relationships on LinkedIn is harder, very capable of doing it, but it's so much easier to leverage those in-person events coupled with LinkedIn to create an experience of them, of this ongoing relationship of mentorship, so that when you're like, by the way and this is the question we always train on we say, do you know anyone who's looking for a great job? Because we just had an opening pop-up instead of asking if they want to work because it creates that FOMO for them.
Speaker 2:So let's be realistic here. Let's do it. Okay, the three of us love and thrive like going into a university and introducing ourselves. It's our jam. It's our jam and we have so much fun with it. Right? Not every PT owner out there is going to be excited about going the first time and, you know, getting in front of a university that they don't have a connection with yet. How do they do that Will?
Speaker 1:How do they do that. I'm glad you said this, because what I was going to say is I hated recruiting for years and here's why you know, when people look at business owners, they think of them as like people who never get fired. We get fired more than anyone else. Every time someone quits, I'm firing you as my employer and it's so invalidating. And so I remember getting an email on a Friday night going to this party at my local church and that's kind of an oxymoron party at my local church. It was a PG movie and whatever. But I get down there and I'm super excited because it had been a rough week and I opened up and just an email saying, hey man, I'm quitting, effective immediately. I was with him all day, he never pulled me aside and like the invalidation. So I hated recruiting.
Speaker 1:Um, but what I found was was I was when I was going into these universities and I didn't like it at first. I didn't like it. The reason I got addicted to it was because someone taught me a coach that it was my main job and that I happened to love it. I just didn't understand how to do it. So that's why learning how to do these things through podcasts like this or whatever else is super vital because once I started having some success and it no longer became about recruiting for me, I started to love it. So I think most PT owners can learn to love it.
Speaker 1:Now here's how I think PT owners aren't going to like it. If they're introverts in a normal way, to where they normally don't want to be around anyone ever, no matter what, then maybe they should work with somebody who is a little bit more on that. But most PT owners they have like a caseload and patients that love them. If they can do that they can recruit all day long. That's really the litmus test. I tell PT owners if they can have a bunch of patients bring them food because they're so grateful for what they did, they can go sell PTs. They're just not administering care. They don't understand that. They're giving the care of their profession if they just give them the right mentorship, right. But what would you say, caitlin?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it's not easy, if you've never done before, to try something new. But start small. You don't need to go and do this full-blown presentation at a university. If that's not what you're comfortable doing, make it a small setting. Volunteer yourself to do mock interviews. I'm sure most universities are going to eat that up and take you on it. But yeah, just start small and do these little groups where you're providing a service to them and it's going to stick with them.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to ask you this there's going to be a lot of our listeners that are probably like how do I even get in touch with them that don't even have a connection? So what would you say would be like the first step of even trying? They have no connection at any sort of university or anything like that. For me, I would just say I mean you could start, cause I remember trying to establish this at our last company and and trying to get you know a new connection and on a new school out in Louisiana, um, and yeah, yeah. So, um, what I did was just I literally I went to the school's website and I tried to find someone that was on staff or they had someone's name listed within that physical therapy department. Right, if they didn't have.
Speaker 2:Who was a professor? Who, like I, would just go to someone and be like hey, who do I need to talk to? I would love to introduce myself. You know I work for blah blah, blah and we would love to be able to help the you know students, the up-and-coming students, and serve you guys in whatever way. We can Just try to open the door that way. Or, if you can't find anything, because sometimes on the websites they may not have anybody's names they may just have like a generic evil address. It's like an info ad Literally go there and walk in and talk to the front desk in the area that I mean. That might even be a big step, but walking in and just introducing yourself and saying you're a local PT owner in the area and you would love to be able to connect with someone that's on the staff, like in the PT department.
Speaker 1:I think going there in person is a great idea.
Speaker 2:I'm all about it.
Speaker 3:The in-person contact is massive. If you can drive to university, well, and I think the messaging is key. I think that you have to go in like not expecting to get anything out of it. Exactly, I think that's where they're going to close the door on. You is, if you're like I'd love to get connected, I want to hire your students someday. Don't do it, don't say that. So it's in the messaging too. Like that, you are not trying to get anything out of this. You're just trying to give back to the next generation of PTs, and you know however you want to word it, but I think it has to be very clear that you're not asking for something that you're just giving this is going back to that service, like just being able to serve others, because I mean, who doesn't feel good when you help someone else?
Speaker 2:right?
Speaker 1:And I think that's when I stopped hating my recruiting journey because I felt like I was always trying to, like you know, get blood from a turnip, whatever phrase that is.
Speaker 1:But I think I'm whatever that phrase is, but like, for me it's like this thing of like, oh, I can show up and be helpful. Like I can show up to university and be like hey, what do you guys sponsor? I remember sponsoring a golf tournament. I remember when they start asking you to speak at things, that's when you know you've made it and that's when it's done, because then you can show up and just serve the kids and you're just like hey, I really can help you guys with the mock interview If you want, if I don't even care if you're interested in working with me or not and then the does the faculty see that, then they love you. And then eventually you can get to the student SIG level. Like in Arizona, all the universities go to the student SIG thing where all the students come together and they have these massive events. If you speak at those, it's another goldmine. By the way, another hack for people who are listening a little shortcut is to Google your state's student SIG organization, like in Arizona, you can do that, find the president.
Speaker 1:I modeled that for my Rockstar recruiter class last year. I looked her up, took her out to lunch and she asked me to speak at the conclave and it took me an hour. It took me an hour and 15 minutes, 15 minutes for the email, an hour at lunch. And then I was asked I didn't speak because I don't need to. You know, she didn't really, you know anyway. So the point being is that anyone else who wants to do this, they just don't know how they can change their mindset and go to a mindset of service and then look at LinkedIn as like their job and then connect the dots in terms of how that's used to manage and maintain relationships. They're going to blow it out.
Speaker 3:They're going to knock it out of the park because no one else is doing any of this stuff. Well, and to kind of add, around the student thing like being a clinical instructor. Dude, why would you not do that? Or essentially interviewing this person really for 12 weeks, 10, 12 weeks. You get to see kind of what they have to offer and again, not every student's going to be the right fit for your team, but at least you've got people coming through the door and helping you out for a little while.
Speaker 1:And you know it's funny. When we used to do that at rise, I figured out early on and I teach now how like that was such a wasted opportunity If I just let them come. I did the whole series of things where every two weeks I'd take them out to lunch and I'd be like, so my job's to help you build your career, cause I'm just that kind of guy and you know that kind of thing. And then by the end of it I was just like you might have an opening when you graduate. Please, sir, you know like there's a way to do those student rotations as well, where they're more than just clinical service. You really deeply serve their greater purpose.
Speaker 1:And then they just dream about driving, in our case, to middle of nowhere florence, arizona past all these other jobs, to get paid less because they have someone who believes in them, because at the end of day, the only reason we're paying more is because we don't know how to give them other value. So what if we could create the value of fulfilling their purpose? And what's great about PTs is most of us we're really more passion-driven than money-driven. But when the playing field is equal, what else do we have to go off of More money, and that's why people who don't know how to message their or know how to serve I think that's why they struggle so much. Well, guys, I think this has been a fantastic masterclass on how to leverage LinkedIn to help develop meaningful relationships and get people brought on.
Speaker 3:Final thoughts Know who you are, know your worth, know what you have to offer these candidates and don't be afraid to sell yourself. I think that having an understanding of kind of what their needs are and how you can fulfill those needs, you know, just believe in yourself and kind of the culture that you've created and how you're going to build them up to, you know, thrive in your company, but also beyond Love. That Tony.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to kind of bounce off of yours, be who you are. Don't also just like take the first person right, putting yourself out there. Yeah, don't be desperate. You want it because, honestly, bringing someone in just because you need someone really, really bad, could be just as harmful, if not more harmful, than waiting for the right person right, because we've seen that 100% Dissolve a team. So you know, like Kayla said, just know what you want, know what's going to make your team better and what's going to enhance your team, and go for that and don't settle because it will come. Like, put your presence out there. You know, show, put yourself out on LinkedIn and show exactly who you are and what you're looking for with your team and it will come.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. So if they wanted to get ahold of you guys for recruiting questions or virtual assistants, how can they get ahold of you guys?
Speaker 3:Email Kayla at unlockhbacom.
Speaker 2:And mine would be email as well. Tony T-O-N-E at unlockhbacom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as a special thank you to everyone who's made it to this part of the podcast free of charge and I have zero intention of selling anything. I have this LinkedIn Igniter course, that program that I'll send you the link to. It's a video training with all the downloads of what to look for on LinkedIn and how you can leverage that tool to help develop meaningful relationships, to hire, and that's my special thank you. Rockstars, for staying with us this long. Kayla, Tony, thanks for being on the show. Rockstars, until next time. Thank you for listening, rockstars. Until next time we can show you why LinkedIn shows that virtual assistance is the second fastest growing trend in healthcare, next to artificial intelligence, at no obligation. We'll see if this is a fit for you, I hope to talk to you soon.
